This paper by R.A. Radford came via Tim Harford who comments.

Introduction

After allowance has been made for abnormal circumstances, the social institutions, ideas and habits of groups in the outside world are to be found reflected in a Prison of War Camp. It is an unusual but vital society. Camp organisation and politics are matters of real concern to the inmates, as affecting their present and perhaps their future existances. Nor does this indicate any loss of proportion. No one pretends that camp matters are of any but local importance or of more than transient interest, but their importance there is great. They bulk large in a world of narrow horizons and it is suggested that any distortion of calues likes rather in the minimisation rather than in the exageration of their importance. Human affairs are essentially practical matters and the measure of immediate effect on the lives of those directly concerned in them is to a large extrent the criterion of their importance at that time and place. A prisoner can hold strong views on such subjects as whether or not all tinned meats shall be issued to individuals cold or be centrally cooked, without losing sight of the significance of the Atlantic Charter.

One aspect of social organisation is to be found in economic activity and this, along with other manifestations of a group existence, is to be found in any P.O.W. camp. True, a prisoner is not dependent on his exertions for the provisions of the necessaries, or even the luxuries of life, but through his economic activity, the exchange of goods and services, his standar of material comfort is considerably enhanced. And this is a serious matter to the prisoner: he is not simply "playing at shops" even though the small scale of the transactions and the simple expression of comfort and wants in terms of cigarettes and jam, razor bladeds and wrting paper, makes the urgency of those needs difficult to appreciate, even by an ex-prisoner of some three months' standing...