THE RISE AND FALL OF TALL TIMBER

The Kingdom of Tall Timber

(a satirical allegory)

Once upon a time there was a kingdom rich in forests, mills, and men who knew how to work.

They were not fashionable men. They wore steel-toed boots, not polished loafers. They rose before dawn, worked in rain and sleet, and came home tired—but they built the kingdom’s wealth. Their wages fed towns, paid mortgages, stocked schools, and kept the tax coffers full.

The old king understood this.

He did not pretend every logger was a poet, or every mill owner a saint. But he knew the kingdom could not eat policy papers. So he governed with a plain rule:

If the workers can work, the realm can live.

Then the old king died, and his son took the throne.

The young king had been educated in the capital and further polished in distant academies, where he learned that production was vulgar, profit was suspect, and people who cut trees were likely one seminar away from being villains.

He returned full of compassion.

Not the kind that keeps a man employed.
The kind that sounds magnificent at conferences.

The young king announced he would save the forest.

He did not ban logging outright. That would have been too honest.

Instead, he summoned a committee. Then a task force. Then a council to review the task force. Then a secretariat to ensure the council’s review aligned with the committee’s principles. Then a permit office to process the applications delayed by the first four groups.

Soon, a tree could still be cut in theory — provided one first secured approval from:

the Ministry of Intentions,
the Office of Reconciliation Messaging,
the Bureau of Seasonal Concern,
and the Department of Circular Consultation.

The workers were told this was progress.

The mills, strangely, did not run on progress.

They ran on fibre.

But fibre grew scarce. Permits slowed. Costs rose. Mills idled. Closures came.

The young king blamed foreign empires.
He blamed tariffs.
He blamed global markets.
He blamed climate.
He blamed beetles.
He blamed history.
He blamed everyone except the people writing the rules.

And every time another mill shut down, the royal court issued a statement of deep concern and offered the workers pamphlets on “economic transition.”

Some workers used the pamphlets to start their wood stoves.

Soon the mill towns began to wither.

First came the layoffs.
Then the business closures.
Then the tax hikes.
Then the “For Sale” signs.
Then the “Price Reduced” signs.
Then the silence.

The kingdom called this resilience.

In the capital, the king’s advisors celebrated a new economy based on services, strategy, and stakeholder engagement — all of which were very important and none of which could replace 1,000 paycheques in a resource town.

Then came the truly magical part.

As houses emptied and values sank, new buyers appeared.

Not the laid-off mill hands.
They were busy draining savings and arguing with banks.

No, these were “partners.” “Visionaries.” “Community stewards.” “Aligned stakeholders.” Men and women with grant writers, consultants, and very patient money.

The king welcomed them warmly.

He said the kingdom was entering a new chapter.

The former mill workers noticed the new chapter looked a lot like their old chapter, except they had been edited out.

And so the kingdom learned the favorite trick of modern rulers:

Never openly crush the worker.
Simply bury him in process, price him out of existence, and call it compassion.

Then, when his town is hollowed out and his home is cheap, speak solemnly of renewal.

Moral

A kingdom can survive a bad harvest.
It cannot survive rulers who mistake ideology for economics.

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