The Perfect Economy

     In class we had an activity different than normal. Our teacher started handing out heresy kisses to everyone, two each. After she asked how many everyone had, the majority of the class had two candies, but a small amount of people had eight. Everyone was frustrated and confused because we didn't know how this was relating to history. We were also trying to find out why some got more than others. Our next task was to play rock paper scissors, if you won you would gain a chocolate from your opponent, if you lost you would have to give up a chocolate. Some of my fellow classmates lost their chocolates in the first two games, luckily for me I ended up with seven chocolates. We later learned the chocolate represented wealth; if you ended up with more than five chocolates you were apart of the bourgeoisie, the higher class during the industrial revolution. If you had under five you were apart of the proletariat, the lower, poor class. After, the "government" (Ms. Gallagher) collected the chocolates and redistributed so everyone got two candies. This angered me because i worked so hard for my earnings and they were lost so everyone could be equal. This stage represented communism. The purpose was to introduce us to Marx's theory of capitalism, socialism, and communism.

   Both Marx and Smith both wanted to the poor, but they had very different approaches. Marx's theory was that the poor could help themselves. For example, Communism would take away all the money and redistribute it to everyone equally, creating a classless society. In communism, there is absolutely no government. The poor would no longer be considered poor, but they would not live the luxurious life as a rich person would. Another theory that  Marx thought would help the poor is socialism because the government controls all ownership of industry. The government would collect all the money and redistribute so everyone would get even earnings, thus providing more money for the poor, but less for the rich. The aim is socialism is to make a classless society and try to bring economic equality. Marx also came up with a theory completely different from communism called capitalism. Capitalism is basically freedom of competition for all businesses because they are all privately owned. This would create different classes, including a poor or lower class. This poor class would grow and grow because businesses would get to competitive. Marx believed that once this happened the poor would overthrow the rich; they would be successful because the poor class is much bigger than the rich. Smiths idea was different but had similar ideas to Marx's; its called the invisible hand. He thought that the government should stay out of peoples businesses, and let people buy and sell freely. As long as people are buying high quality low price products, businesses will succeed because they will have many customers. Eventually products will be so low that even poor people can buy. Basically people, rich or poor, are customers; if the prices are to high for an item they will loose profits because they are poor and can not afford them

Karl Marx. May 5,1818-March 14, 1883

     If you were trying to completely eliminate the proletariat I think communism would be the best choice. But, i think equalizing the economy is a horrible idea. I think having some people richer than others is how society should be. Companies should be competitive and always strive to be better, because that's how our society grows. Personally, i think a combination of socialism and the invisible hand is the best solution. I choose these two because the economy can take a long time to reach their equilibrium. Socialism strives for equal classes, which I feel is a good thing, but the invisible hand makes companies competitive. This would make the "average" people wealthier. The government would just help out (by giving loans) with businesses that don't succeed at well as others, until they are back competing freely with the rest of the market.