Zara Khan Period 2 Murder at the Margin Report

The book called Murder at the Margin by Marshall Jevons begins with a vacation at the Virgin Islands, in which a short bald man named Henry Spearman describes his vacation with his wife Pidge Spearman as a way to unwind from his position as the great economist a Harvard University and the president of the economics association. The very first chapter simply introduces the most main character Henry Spearman and his wife Pidge and is soon found that he makes every real life situation into an economic law or scenario and uses several concepts like supply and demand, marginal utility and the definition of rational thinking in the eyes of economists as those who do whatever to maximize their own profits, and many others in order to understand and predict human behavior and later on in the book, even investigate a crime. During the time he first meets Professor Dyke, a theologist who writes about the relativity of morality and becomes deeply involved in the upcoming murder of General Decker, a very picky perfectionist of a man as inferred from how he likes his meals, as a suspect because of his dislike of the man. After some length of conversation and discussions between Spearman and Dyke about the morality and rationality of people, along with the introduction of Curtis Foote a Federal Supreme Court Judge and his wife, along with the Mr. and Mrs. Doakes, the wife being a cookbook seller, it is soon found that General Decker was killed by poison and thus starts the murder investigation, in which detective Vincent starts by observing Ricky Leman, a African American radical and writer of the pamphlet Raider and performer at the St. Johns hotel. He is a suspect mainly because he writes the address, phone number and detailed information about who they are so that his followers may harass them and discourage tourism altogether. So the detective asks his Rickys mother questions, in which she refuses to tell much information about his son, and the detective leaves with little answers. After listening to Spearmans economic theories behind the murder, Detective Vincent doesnt feel his ideas are credible and continues the

investigation, much later in the story it is found that Curtis Foote, one of the Judges on the island was murdered right after passing Spearman on the Hawks nest Trail, by being stuffed between boulders in a rock formation! This had happened after Spearman and his contemporaries found that he was on the list on the back of the raider as one of the people to harass and someone was taking this too far and murdering these people. Also what had happened before this was that in another scene, Vernon Harbley, one of the waiters at the hotel and a follower of Ricky LeMan, told Mamie Leman to stay quiet about his son to the authorities. In the end, even after the police didnt believe in the economists theories and deductions, it was Clark and Judy Douglass who killed General Decker, and the connection to Fitzhughs (Daryl Clark) fake drowning, which happened after he saw him leaving for some scuba diving after the incident of the generals death was connected to another real death and found that it was Daryl who killed him because of the fact that the general killed his youngest brother in the Vietnam war in 1972.

Economic analysis From the very first page of the story, there is economic analysis of the situation and story. The first idea that Henry Spearmen points out is that of the law of supply and demand and that all someone would need to do to teach the crux of economics is to simply make them answer supply and demand for every question. This is because it can fit into almost every situation and the relationships between what causes actual shifts in supply or demand, such as a change in preference, technology or the amount of income of the consumer all cause shifts in demand curves, whereas the amount of technology, the change in prices of productive resources and substitute and complementary goods all cause shifts on the supply curve. Things like the price of the supply or final product may cause a change in the quantity of the supply demanded by producers or the quantity demanded of the final product in consumers. The amount of supply can also affect the quantity demanded of the product in an inverse relationship and vice versa, or the price of a good can affect the amount demanded and the same goes for the price of a supply. So, how do these ideas relate to the book? Well, in the first page Mr. Spearman talks about the price of a taxicab and how the six dollar fare was a result of this rule: depending on the price of gas and the amount of distance driven, the fare price per mile will change if any factor such as gas prices change, or if the driver gets less customers per say. Also later in the book other scenarios like that of the cocktails in the club show the behavior of consumers and how that affects pricing. From 5-6pm the drinks are half price, and so with people wanting to find the options that will maximize profit of benefit, he ends the discussion saying that the lower the price the greater the quantity consumed as the law of demand. Another example has to do with the rationale of maximizing profit with pricing and how that is the natural motive for every producer and consumer. When spearmen talks to Mrs. Doakes about her cookbook he says that by having the book at $16 she is maximizing profits, because if the price were too high, she would have enough sales to make profit, but if she sold them for cheaper, say $12, it would be too cheap and she would not get enough profit or too little from each sale. They only way her price range can become cheaper and still maximize

profit were if she found a cheaper publisher or source of supplies. So for an economist people rationally do what they can to maximize profit? Also later in the book Spearman talks about how the economic boom of the island increased the demand of workers so much that aliens( from other islands obviously) comprised of about half of the workers, and most of them were even paid more than the native islander workers. Spearman uses this to explain the cause for hatred between the native islanders and the aliens, but to LeMans that is all used as a tool to keep the lower classes divided so that the upper White class of the island can have the most power and money. Spearman calls him a Marxist writer by stating the theory of social unrest on the island. As stated LeMans describes social unrest caused by bringing in cheap labor to keep wages low and make maximum profit, along with not allowing the lower class to gain enough money to own any land, and so this theme of having a mass of people kept under control for the higher class to conquer is the typical Marxist motif as written by LeMans. Furthermore, the reason that the aliens come in the first place to work in the Virgin Islands is most likely because the wages there are relatively higher in the Virgin Islands than in their previous home, making it a benefit for them instead of any white-collar worker. This idea is like that of what is relatively cheaper: since wages are higher at another island or have increased, leading to more consumer surplus, the workers went there. Now the only thing that makes this slightly different to the idea of what is relatively cheaper is that the aliens came only because the increased wages are probably actually higher that the former, not just an increase in wages. So in this situation, instead of using substitute goods and using the relatively cheaper cost for consumer surplus, the book includes the context in relatively cheaper cost by increase in income. But Professor Dyke brings up a very good question after that discussion to Spearman: cant the business heighten wages by a little amount and take the lower profit margin? It doesnt seem ethical to make wages so low just to make the maximum profit. But of course spearman responds by saying that maximizing profit it in the nature of human beings. Later in chapter 9, Spearman enters a market in St. Thomas and his wife asks why everything is so much cheaper in the islands than back in Boston, in

which her husband responds that it is because of the city being a free port. They dont have to pay any taxes for any import duties. Thus as Mrs. Spearman really asks the question on the variety and cheaper products found there than in St. Johns, the reason is because the import taxes for some goods are too high to have some products sent there and still make a reasonable margin of profit. Thus that is why everything in St. Johns has more diversity and lower prices in their markets, like the fact that a Nevada Chronometer is sold for $59 in the islands and $110 in Boston, being that its real, or that a solid Jade and gold watch is $2025 there, yet easily $3500 in Boston. Lastly, as Professor Dyke, a theologian on the morality of man says that the ends justifies the means, as long as the end is love, but as Spearman contemplates the idea, disagrees on an economic perspective: every person wants to maximize his/her own utility, but maximizing another persons is almost impossible to him unless doing so would satisfy said person, like when people do charity or altruistic acts because it makes them feel satisfied for doing something right, or when in the book, a wife dances with her husband on vacation, only to make him happy even if she doesnt like to dance. The reason for this behavior is interdependent utility or what economists call love. Thus examples like these continue throughout most of the book explaining the law of supply and demand and maximizing profit for producers and consumers, but the examples after these mostly repeat the concept, except when he tries to solve the case.