The Three Little Pigs and the Free Market Wolf

Once upon a time, in a land of limitless opportunity and totally fair markets, three pigs built their homes.

The first pig, an independent thinker who didn’t trust the so-called “brick industry,” built his house out of straw. He proudly called himself an anti-brickle, because, according to the YouTube videos he watched, bricks were an overpriced scam pushed by the globalist brick lobby.

The second pig, who considered himself a centrist because he thought apathy was intellectual, built his house out of sticks. He didn’t believe in brick houses either, but he also thought straw houses were kind of dumb, so he made the bold decision to do nothing meaningful at all.

The third pig, a coastal brickle, built his house out of brick. He had spent the last 37 years researching ways to make bricks cheaper so that every pig could afford a safe, sturdy home. He had written papers, given TED Talks, and even started a nonprofit called Bricks for All. Unfortunately, his plan involved a complicated rebate system and a phased rollout strategy, and by the time he finished explaining it, most pigs had already tuned out.

One day, the Big Bad Wolf came prowling. He was tired of regulations keeping him from doing the one thing he truly loved: wrecking things and eating pigs.

He stomped up to the brick house first. He huffed. He puffed. But no matter how much hot air he spewed, the house didn’t budge.

Frustrated, the wolf did what any enterprising disruptor would do—he called his billionaire friends.

Together, they launched a multi-platform anti-brickle propaganda campaign. Soon, the anti-brickle pig’s feed was full of posts like:

• "Coastal brickles think they’re better than you!"

• "They want to force bricks into your life!"

• "Bricks cause autoimmune disorders—WAKE UP, SHEEPLE!"

The stick pig, meanwhile, started seeing posts claiming that the coastal brickle had taken gender-affirming hormones to shrink his nipples. "That’s weird," he muttered, scrolling past voter registration reminders to watch another “Both Sides Are Bad” documentary.

So, when the wolf came to the straw house, the anti-brickle pig welcomed him in.

"Finally," he said, as the wolf blew down his home, "someone who respects my freedoms!"

Then the wolf blew down the stick house. The stick pig shrugged. “I mean, whatever, man. They’re all corrupt.”

Finally, the wolf returned to the brick house. But the coastal brickle had spent too much time writing a white paper about equitable brick distribution and not enough time realizing that the wolf had bought a wrecking ball with tax breaks.

With one swing, the house came down.

At that point, the coastal brickle decided he was done with this country and moved to Europe, where pigs were somehow still respected members of society.

The wolf, now in complete control, devoured the anti-brickle pig (who never saw it coming) and the stick pig (who mumbled, “Wow, okay, guess that’s happening” as he got eaten).

For a while, the wolf lived large. But once he had eaten every last pig, he had no one left to blame for his problems. He tried eating the billionaires, but they had already fled to their luxury bunkers in New Zealand.

With nothing left to consume, the wolf starved to death, alone, in an empty wasteland of his own making.

MORAL: If a wolf convinces you that other pigs are the problem, check whose pockets he’s lining—because eventually, the wolf runs out of pigs.