Capitalism

The Happy Capitalism of Richard Scarry's Busytown

Welcome to the pro-market world of children's book author and illustrator Richard Scarry.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown | From the June 2026 issue

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(Photo: What Do People Do All Day?, Random House Books for Young Readers; Joanna Andreasson)

Farmer Alfalfa heads to town with an old truck full of corn. The truck is on the verge of collapse. But after selling his corn to Grocer Cat, Farmer Alfalfa uses the money to buy a new truck.

On another day, Alfalfa sells all kinds of produce and uses the money to make purchases from local merchants, including Stitches the tailor and Blacksmith Fox. Stitches, in turn, uses the money from Alfalfa to buy "an egg beater so that his family can make fudge," while Fox buys more iron to use in his blacksmith business.

Welcome to the very busy—and pro-market—world of children's book author and illustrator Richard Scarry. If you were a child in the latter half of the last century, there's a good chance you read some of Scarry's books. The man was prolific, completing more than 150 works from the 1950s to the 1980s (with many more Scarry books published after his death in 1994).

The Alfalfa stories come from........

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