The Zombie Apocalypse has arrived. Society has collapsed. You lead a group of fifty survivors. A nearby community will trade you items - but only for cans of food. You have ten cans. They have thirty items that might keep your group alive. Pick a basket. See how many of you live through the month.
Your budget is ten cans of food. Items cost one, two, or three cans. You can’t go over - exchange isn’t generous out here.
Water carriers, weapons, blankets, tools, comforts. Each looks useful in its way. Some are more useful than they look. Some less.
You pick what to take back to the group. The community won’t trade twice this month. Choose carefully.
Out of fifty. How many of your group make it through the month. The number depends on what you bring back.
This is an economics activity, not a survival quiz. You’re practising the most fundamental economic skill: choosing under scarcity. The thirty items aren’t equally useful. They don’t cost the same. Some combinations of items synergise - they’re worth more together than apart. Some duplicate each other. Some look essential and aren’t.
No one combination is "the right answer". Different baskets can do similarly well. But thoughtful baskets do clearly better than impulsive ones. Run it twice and see what changes.
Each figure represents one of your group. Green - made it through. Grey - did not.
Scarcity is the starting point of all economics. Wants are unlimited. Resources are not. Every choice means giving up something else.
Opportunity cost is the thing you didn’t pick. If you took the wind-up radio, you didn’t take a water carrier. The opportunity cost of the radio is whatever the water carrier would have done for your group.
The trading community’s prices aren’t random. They reflect what the community thinks each item is worth in this context - one can for soap, three cans for an axe. Their prices are information. They’re telling you something about scarcity in their world too.
Different baskets can score similarly, but thoughtful baskets beat impulsive ones. Try again with a different mix - the lesson is in the comparison.
The same choice with less drama. Limited income, infinite wants, choose which combination keeps the household running best.
Health, education, defence, infrastructure - government budgets pick a basket. Every pound on one is a pound not on another.
What goes in the first relief shipment? Water purifiers, blankets, medical supplies, food. The cans-of-food question, at scale.
You have 16 waking hours a day. How they’re allocated is the same optimisation problem in a different costume.