A few
days ago we learned about economic systems. This lesson had the potential to be
really boring and dry, but it turned out to be the most fun class that I had
all week. We began our lesson, and each person received several pieces of
chocolate. I was gifted three pieces, as were most of my classmates. Three of
the more lucky individuals in my class started with nine to thirteen pieces. We
then modeled the system of capitalism by playing rock, paper, scissors, shoot with
each other. The person who lost had to give the person who won one of their
pieces of chocolate. No one was allowed to not participate so that they could
eat the chocolate. Everyone kept playing until we ran out of chocolate and had
to sit down. I did well for the first few minutes, but I eventually had to sit
down. There were complaints from everyone that the game was unfair because some
people started out with more chocolate than others. The people who started with
lots of chocolate tended to end with an absurd amount the candy. Little did I realize
it at the time, but this activity showed how Capitalism works.
My teacher then helped us picture Socialism by
redistributing the chocolate again. This
time she gave everyone an equal amount of chocolate. This change made the
people who had excessive amounts of chocolate upset and the rest of the class
happy. We were then given the option as to whether or not we want to play rock,
paper, scissors, shoot with each other again. I was one of the few people who
wanted to play, given the fact that we got to eat our final amount of
chocolate. We never actually played this second round, but we did get to eat
our chocolate. This lesson was effective because it had solid connections to
real life. The people with more chocolate than me were considered wealthy,
while the people with less chocolate were considered poor. This lesson was both
fun because of the chocolate, and frustrating if you were like me and didn’t have
lots of chocolate. This frustration is a very basic form of the frustration
that some people feel about these social systems.
Both Adam Smith and Karl Marx
wanted to help the poor with their proposed government systems. Marx thought
that the poor would stand up for their rights, and the economic system would
change from Capitalism to Socialism and finally to Communism. Karl Marx’s ideas
are referred to as Marxism. Marx thought that the current system of Capitalism
would cause the poor to revolt because of the unequal opportunities that they
were given and their struggle to survive. Marx said that after the successful revolt,
a system of Socialism would be created, which would give everyone equal amounts
of income and it wouldn’t restrict people from making more money than they were
provided. Marx thought that Socialism would eventually turn into Communism.
Communism would be ideal for the poor because everyone would receive an equal
amount of money, and no one would be able to make more money than their
neighbor. If perfect Communism was achieved there wouldn’t be any classes,
which would fix the problems that the poor had previously had with other
economic systems. Adam Smith proposed how the “invisible hand” would benefit
the poor. This system is when the government leaves the people alone to buy and
sell goods among themselves. This would add healthy competition to the market
which would result in cheaper prices and higher quality goods. The poor would
benefit from the decrease in price and could buy and sell freely. People that
sell expensive or poor quality goods won’t get much business and vice versa.
This system would work well, but it would take a long time for the economy to balance
out and it could possibly stall. This downside to the “invisible hand” is why
it is hard for governments to use.
I
believe that Capitalism is the best theory because of the faults of Communism
and Socialism. Socialism is a poor theory because of its indecision between
classes or no classes, and Communism and Capitalism. Communism is nearly
impossible to achieve and would leave people with little incentive to work hard
or to choose jobs in challenging fields because of the equality in salary.
Capitalism, while not perfect, is a better option because it doesn’t have the
downsides of Socialism or Communism. I think that the most ideal economic
system would have freedom to buy and sell goods in order to balance quality and
price, and limited government control so that minimum wage and interest rates
still exist.
Video Citations
The Invisible Hand - 60 Second Adventures in Economics
(1/6) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulyVXa-u4wE&feature=youtu.be
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