Capitalism, Socialism, Communism

Imagine winning ten Hershey Kisses in an intense ten minutes of rock paper scissors and then having to give them back. In class on Friday we played a game which involved a series of rock, paper scissors games. Everyone started with two pieces of chocolate, and every game of rock paper scissors someone one they were awarded a piece of chocolate from the person who was defeated. (Capitalism) As a skilled rock paper scissors I did well and went from two pieces of chocolate to ten pieces of chocolate. In this game if someone were to run out of pieces then they had to sit down and they couldn't play. After about ten minutes of this our teacher had us all sit down and we had to give the chocolate back. This was very frustrating because I was ready to eat. Next, she gave us all two pieces of candy, and told us that we could either play again or keep the candy. Everyone who did poorly did not want to play again but everyone who had ten or more pieces in the first round wanted to play again. Our teacher decided that we should all have two. (Socialism) In the end without any teacher interference everyone ended with two. (communism) I was not happy because I could have had ten, but we had to restart.

Adam Smith Painting

Photo of Karl Marx

Both Marx and Smith had different approaches to helping the poor. Karl Marx came from a middle class family and studied at a university in Europe. His wife, Friedrich Engles, a GWF Hagel, heavily influenced him. Marx’s theory was most similar to communism, but it had some differences. Marx felt that capitalism would always revolt in a revolt from the poor workers. These revolts would occur because the poor people could no longer afford the product they were making. After workers revolts a socialistic society would occur. In this society the poor would become much more equal with the wealthy with the help of the government. Eventually Marx’s goal was a classless society, which governed itself.  Adam Smith had a theory called the Invisible Hand Theory. This was that if the government kept their hands off their subjects then they would be more successful. Smith believed that if he allowed free trade, and free market then the people who were the most poor would benefit. He thought that if one company were to lower their price on cloth then everyone would go to them for cloth, and that would force all the other cloth dealers to drop their price.

 

Video on the life of Karl Marx and his theory. 

Video on Adam Smith's Theory. 

In my opinion there is no one solution to stopping people from being poor. There are always going to be people who are not motivated enough to make money and they will fall behind. On the flip side there are always competitive people who will always try and get ahead of others because that is what is in their nature. No matter the laws, or the penalties, that will happen. It is in human nature to be competitive. I feel that the best system is a combination of capitalism and socialism. The hope of this system is that people will be allowed to get ahead, but the government will help people who may be falling behind. Also, the government would create  a law for the people who are wealthy. This law would be something along the lines of; wealthy people must donate a small portion of their wealth to the poor in exchange for the government allowing them to get ahead.