Socialism, Capitalism, and Starburst

To think that the number of starburst you received at the beginning of our class activity on last Thursday determined how wealthy you would be in our mock capitalist society is admittedly quote absurd to imagine. Although that was the case, it certainly had its purpose. We spent our class learning about Capitalism and Socialism, and even though the idea of using starburst sounds silly, it was a lot more helpful in explaining how the societies worked than you would think.

Upon entering class, Ms. Bailey handed each of us either three or ten starburst, thus determining your position in society. There were a lot less people who ended up with ten, and a lot more of us who received only three (I was one to receive only three). The reason for the difference in numbers was to show how some people are born into more money than others. So few people were given ten to demonstrate how there are so few people sharing such a great amount of wealth, in our case starburst, in the upper class of societies, and how the little money left had to be spread over a much larger amount of people. After distribution, we were told we could play rock-paper-scissors with each other to try and gain more starburst, this was to demonstrate how no matter your class, you can gain or lose money. Trading ensued, and the class ended up figuring out alternative ways to gain, such as stealing and begging. Through this, anyone had a fair chance to gain or lose starburst. Then Ms. Bailey collected all of our starburst, no matter how many we had gained or lost through trade, a redistributed the starburst, each of us receiving three. This caused some rage, mostly from the people who had worked hard to gain (or steal) starburst, because they were now equal to all of the others, even though they worked hard to be successful. The newfound equality of starburst among us was to demonstrate a socialist society. I was personally really frustrated when the candy was collected, because although I stole the majority of the candy I ended up with, it was still hard work.

In the socrative seminar there were a lot of great points made about both the activity, and about Capitalism and Socialism. April had a simple, but very relatable comment on the redistribution of the candy, which was: "If you're working hard for something and you become successful, to have it all taken away just really sucks". I really couldn't have said it better myself, and everyone seemed to agree that having it all be equal wasn't fair to the more successful people in the class. There was also a mutual agreement about socialism, being that it's a great system for the poor and lazy because they're provided with an equal source of income without much work required, but for the wealthy and hardworking it is very frustrating that they receive the same amount of money as people who don't work half as hard as them; coming to the conclusion that how the system is flawed. Socialism allows for inactive members of a society to remain inactive and be rewarded for it, and grants no real reward for those who work 3 times as hard and deserve 3 times as much income as everyone else. Julianne put it well, saying that socialism "destroys natural competition", meaning, without social classes there is not only no way for people to get ahead, but nothing for anyone to aspire to be or have, thus creating lazy members of society. But, Capitalism isn't perfect either. Julianne also said, "Capitalism is intended for people with good intentions and working habits, but societies don't always support that— the rich don't always help out the poor, and the poor don't always work", which I again, couldn't agree more with.

 Karl Marx, the father of Communism, and co-creator of socialism, and Adam Smith, creator of Capitalism and the “Invisible Hand” both had the poor of society in their best interests, but had very different theories on how to help them. Marx believed that with Socialism economic equality could be reached through the government’s complete ownership of industry, meaning there was no free trade. Through Socialism Marx aimed for a classless society, which seems great from the perspective of someone living in poverty. If there were no classes and no one had more money than others, there would be no more poverty; but this only works to a certain extent. Everyone earning the same amount of money would mean that a Neurosurgeon would be paid the same salary as a fry cook, which isn’t fair in the least bit. With that idea in place, what motivation would one even have to become something as important as a surgeon, if they would be paid the same money as someone working half as hard as them? Socialism is great in the sense that poverty wouldn’t be as big of a problem, but it creates a lazy society in which people won’t work as hard to earn salary, because its equal to everyone else’s. But that doesn’t mean Capitalism and the Invisible Hand theories aren’t just as flawed.

Smith’s idea of Capitalism would work perfectly in a completely honest and good society, but those, unfortunately, do not exist. Capitalism is the idea that there is private ownership of industry and freedom of competition, or, in other words: people are born into the money that they’re born into, and depending on how hard they work they will be able to change social classes. But, it results in unequal economic classes and due to the greedy nature of many humans, much poverty. Capitalism is made to work in an ideal society in which the rich would help the poor, but that is very few times the case. The Invisible Hand is also made for an ideal society, for it is made to work like this: the people would govern themselves, if competition between companies arose they would battle it out until one becomes more prominent, leaving the other to find something different to market. This way the things people want are produced with no excess, and the market grows. The problems with this theory are that it would only work if people were all good and honest, and there were unlimited supplies for people to move onto working with. It is very ideal and unlikely to work, not only because of the said reasons, but also because the economy could stall and it takes a very long time to reach equilibrium in an economy.

I would have to say there isn’t one theory I like best. I would say capitalism, but only if the society was perfect and all of the ideals in Capitalism worked out. I feel like a blend of both Socialism and Capitalism might be key, but just what that blend might be, I don’t have a clue. I kind of liked what Ryan came up with in the Socrative Seminar, it was to give everyone just enough money to live on, plus a little more. The extra money could be used for anything, and with it, people could either get ahead or fall behind. There would be social classes without complete poverty or absurd wealth. But, I also disagree with that theory because I don’t think everyone should just automatically get paid for being a part of society, only those who were ambitious would rise up, and everyone else remaining stable yet somewhat lazy because they could rely on the same amount of money to have all the time without working too hard. So I guess my answer is I have no idea. Both work in theory, but neither is really a GREAT solution, even though I prefer Capitalism to Socialism.