In the course of the year there were some two hundred days on which, whether he liked it or not, [Yakov, a poor coffinmaker who played fiddle at weddings to make ends meet] had to sit with his hands folded. And only think, what a loss that meant. If anyone in the town had a wedding without music, or if Shahkes did not send for Yakov, that was a loss, too. The superintendent of the prison was ill for two years and was wasting away, and Yakov was impatiently waiting for him to die, but the superintendent went away to the chief town of the province to be doctored, and there took ill and died. There’s a loss for you, ten roubles at least, as there would have been an expensive coffin to make, lined with brocade. The thought of his losses haunted Yakov ….
… He took the book in which he used every day to put down his losses, and, feeling dull, he began adding up the total for the year. It came to more than a thousand roubles. This so agitated him that he flung the reckoning beads down, and trampled them under his feet. … He thought that if he had put that lost thousand roubles in the bank, the interest for a year would have been at least forty roubles, so that forty roubles was a loss too. In fact, wherever one turned there were losses and nothing else.
—
“Chekhov on Opportunity Cost” (Anton P. Chekhov, “Rothschild’s Fiddle,” from Later Short Stories)
An intersting PDF (which I currently cannot find the source for) found browsing russian economic history articles in relation to russian literature. It’s kind of a weird fit for opportunity cost for Yakov in that there needs to be opportunity for there to be opportunity cost; an alternate use of his time, based on alternate economic choices (location, occupation, etc.) has not been laid out. Nonetheless, the implicit understanding that other opportunities are not offered by society, either because people cannot change professions, jobs are hard to come by, or an alternate explanation makes this an intersting look at societal opportunity cost. If there was something else Yakov could pursue or he had the mobility to find work in a another town, not only would Yakov be more productive, the society would be more productive for it. The opportunity cost for society is the sum of people like Anton less the cost whatever costs might be levied to offer greater opportunity.
