The Economic Organization of a POW Camp - Assignment Example

This article focuses on the economic organization of a Prisoner Of War camp written by R.A Radford. The camp organization and politics are matters that concern the present and future existence of the inmates. In this article, one aspect of social organization is the economic activities that exist in this camp. Prisoners in this camp depended on their economic activities to provide for their necessities. However, prisoners in the camp were roughly given an equal share of the essentials; it is through trade that prisoners would meet their individual preferences (Radford 190).

The Development and organization of the market The captives realized that it was undesirable and unnecessary to accept gifts of food or cigarettes in the view of limited size and equity of supplies. This led them to develop trade as a means of maximizing individual satisfaction. The writer talks of a transit camp in Italy a fortnight after capture where captives received food parcels from the Red Cross each a week later. Weeks later the donation turned to small exchange trade where they became a custom in the market.

Exchanges existed between foods and cigarettes were at the end of a month there was a lively trade in all commodities and their values were well known. The cigarette became the standard of value where goods were exchanged in return although barter trade was not extinguished (Radford 191). Despite the organization in Italy, the market was divided were French, Russians, Jugo-Slavs, and Italians were free to move in the camp while British and Americans were in a confinement in their compounds. However, a few cigarettes would grant any man authority to visit their compounds.

People who visited the highly organized French trading center found relatively low-priced coffee and found out later that some of the coffee was sold on the black market by some French prisoners. This discovery raised a hostile public opinion against these monopoly profits and led to changes in the market (Radford 192). The cigarette became the currency in the market given that it performed all the functions of a metallic currency as a unit of account, a measure, and a store of value.