Morality and Economy walked into the world hand in hand. From within their grasp emerged a third, Polity, nick-named "Pig the Impaler". Together they founded the first academy of moral philosophy, called The Aedinborough College of Jurisprudence & Edification. Such was how civilisation emerged and spread throughout the animal kingdom.
Another version of this tale relays that Pig came first, a great tusked beast of some five hundred pounds forcefully waddling down the avenue and from his swinging arms, each ending in clenched hoof, emerged a twin hog plodding along on either side. Ant, cockroach, dog and horse fled from the path as the trialectic unity unwieldily rumbled ahead. This first street gang launched civilization, and lumbering past misty meadows and simmering feedlots, came upon the grainery and feasted upon dried corn, oat and legume which had once been gifts intended for distribution throughout the countryside. The sign at the gate cheerfully announced "Come one, come all!" In no time at all, the entire contents had been consumed.
The other animals, bumpkins one and all, now blamed the store house itself for their hunger, and conspired to burn it down. The pigs, after all, were no more nor less bumpkin than themselves: "They wouldn't do that to us!" But these crafty pigs became apprised of the situation and, having feasted to great contentment, proceeded to burn down the facility themselves. When the other animals arrived the next morning armed with torch, scythe and pitchfork, they saw the ashen spectacle and cheered the forthright bravery of the pigs ‐ "Liberation at last! Hunger is a thing of the past" they cried. To return this kindness, torches were quenched and the mob scattered into the countryside, pitchfork and scythe at the ready, to return with lavish gifts of prunings and leavings and apple tree gleanings. Thus was simultaneously born centralised government, the revolution, riot, the insurance scam and the morality of labour.
After a thousand years of peace, albeit, an overall thin piece, small gangs of delegates (called "councils"), already freed from production in order to compose co-ordinating gleaning-committees, were redirected by popular appeal to petition the central office for increases in allocated distribution. While each increased allocation was celebrated as a revolutionary victory, the growth of bureaucracy meant fewer actual gleaners, whose own work-load obviously increased proportionately.
Another thousand years saw labour-saving devices cropping up everywhere alongside vast increases in litter size. But the more effort put into creating and distributing these tools meant a corresponding growth of bureaucracy to manage it. The animals praised bureaucracy itself as a wellspring of provident solution. But the piece was still getting thinner with every passing day and many started to blame their increasingly precarious conditions on the very tools meant to lighten the load. Sabotage spread throughout the land. Paradoxically, this only exacerbated the problems since even more effort was applied to tool replacement and its security. In fact, the three little Pigs hung a banner between the gate-posts which read: "Remember your Heritage! Sabotage for Progress, Destruction Provides Growth!" and warfare and patriotism and planned obsolescence emerged through spontaneous generation. Soon, tools began to sabotage themselves.
A growing sense of defeatism began to spread, and it took little time at all for the animals to become apathetic toward their own misery. In fact, they became apathetic toward everything. This is how the animals lost their consciousness. Even the pigs were witless! For the first time in ages, the world seemed to be running itself. So it still took another thousand years to reach the point where nothing whatsoever was accomplished. The tattered sign at the old central office, now abandoned and, rumor has it, moved to an underground cave, read: "Your Heritage Lives in the Future!" With no possible means to continue growth, the sky fell with no prior announcement and to no one's particular surprise.
A single precociously pregnant cockroach cried out: "The sky has fallen! The sky has fallen!", but there was no one left near it to hear it. Disappointed, she turned away, walked a bit, paused, raised an eyebrow and said to no one in particular: "Was that a grainery I passed by earlier?"