It's Obelix's birthday, and Asterix lures the new garrison at Totorum to The Indomitable Village for him to clobber on his own. When word of this gets back to Caesar, he sends in Caius Preposterus, a graduate from the Latin School of Economics who had suggested "the profit motive", or a conquest through capitalism. Preposterus travels to Gaul and offers to buy the menhirs which Obelix carves and supplies. He later offers more money if Obelix can give him more menhirs, so Obelix begins paying the other villagers to carve menhirs and hunt boars, becoming one of the wealthiest and influential villagers in the process. When this starts to fuel resentment, Asterix makes a suggestion which results in Fulliautomatix, Unhygienix, and Geriatrix setting up their own menhir carving businesses. And they're employing villagers as carvers and hunters, so eventually the only people who aren't making money are Asterix, Getafix, and Vitalstatistix (whose shield-bearers have gotten new jobs). Meanwhile, Caesar now has a surplus of menhirs, so Prepostorus suggests they sell them to Roman patricians by marketing them as status symbols. But things get complicated when a Roman patrician starts undercutting costs by selling slave-carved menhirs.
One of the big running jokes in this album involves Preposterus explaining his plans to people in business terms, and then having to explain in whatever lies below "Lay Person's Terms". Which make frequent use of "heap". This is going along with the overarching theme of an economic system being applied to what are essentially big rocks. Even Getafix (who has been providing magic potion to all the villagers carving menhirs) mentions that he doesn't know what the menhirs are actually for. There's a particular scene when Prepostorus is explaining to Caesar his plan to sell the menhirs they've acquired. It's actually such an accurate depiction of business and marketing that it's being used in school textbooks on the subject.
With all that, I think my favourite joke has to be at the beginning when the villagers are trying to prepare Obelix's birthday surprise. Obelix begins to suspect something when he overhears Fulliautomatix talking about it to Unhygienix, who deflects attention by making a remark about the fish yet doesn't provoke a fight.
It's a pity that Asterix is not really involved in this particular story, but that's only a minor issue. After all, the album is called Obelix & Co. It's one of the best albums, and I might say it's required reading for anybody interested in studying business and economics.
This album was also the last story to be published during Goscinny's lifetime. The series writer died the following year, and his final story, Asterix in Belgium, was published posthumously in 1979.
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