Life's Unfair!!

 "The Invisible Hand - 60 Second Adventures in Economics (1/6)." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 8 
Oct. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulyVXa-u4wE>.       


In our class last Friday, October 3rd, we learned and experimented the ideas of capitalism, socialism, and communism.  We did this by using hershey kisses as Industrialists' money.  We did two experiments using them.  In the first experiment, we used the system of capitalism.  In this experiment, most of the class received two pieces of candy each.  However, a few people received more than two and one person received eight pieces.  After it was distributed, we all had to play rock paper scissors.  If we won, we gained a piece from the person we played and if we lost, we had to give one up.  Some gained more but a decent amount of people lost on their first two rounds (like me or course).  If you lost, you were out of the game.  The people that had the least to begin with were more likely to get out first.  At the end of that round, the candy was recollected.  Then, our second experiment came along.  This time, everyone got an equal amount of candy.  Then we had a choice of weather to play again.  Most of the class declined to play.  The fun part was playing but it would get frustrating when you lost all of your candy.  It was also frustrating to see those who had more to begin with continue to play and have enough to backup the candy if they had lost.  We could not do a thing at that point.

Karl Marx was a German philosopher, an economist, and a revolutionary socialist.  He observed all three systems and came up with a theory of communism.  Karl Marx was concerned about the poor.  His theory basically revolved around how the poor would react to all the systems.  In capitalism, he theorized that they would revolt because capitalism brings unfair economic classes in.  In capitalism, there is private ownership of the industry and there is freedom of competition of businesses and the people.  However, there is a major class struggle and the poor workers revolt against the wealthy.  He supported the poor, yet he wanted them to revolt against the others who were wealthy.  He then theorized that this would lead to socialism.  In socialism, the government owns the industry and takes the resources and redistributes them out equally and the goal is to create economic equality and have a classless nation.  This would lead to communism.  This system is an achieved goal of a classless society and the government is not needed because it has done it a number of times that the people can do it by themselves instead.  Marxism states that there will be no revolts from the poor because there will not be a poor and it will a be a highly organized system.  However, a man named Adam Smith who was a Scottish philosopher and political economist believed in a different approach than Karl Marx.  Smith was also concerned about the poor.  Long before Marx published his ideas, Smith wrote a book called Wealth of Nations.  His book revolved around a simple question; why are some countries wealthy and why are some not?  He had a theory of mechanism or the Invisible Hand.  This is also a type of capitalism, where the invisible hand is always pointing people at an item that is the lowest price and has the highest quality.  He said that the government should be limited.  He said that the way for the poor to gain wealth and to raise their estates is commerce, free trade, free immigration and market.  Now, he said that people should handle their own hand because if people can make good businesses, they can earn more money and make their own decisions about their own businesses.  Now, for the poor, the free market would allow the poor to rise up.  For example, the mill owners are business owners.  The workers are technically customers.  The owners want customers so they need to make an affordable or low price for items.  Paying everyone a low wage won't get the business customers so the mills need to pay a maximum wage to the workers.  The harder one works, the more he/she should be paid.  People are always looking for the best quality item for the lowest price.  So, the Invisible Hand works more for the poor than Marxism because the free market/trade would allow the poor to earn money and get wealth while being able to buy every day necessities.  There would be no revolts from the poor because the Invisible Hand is always pointing them to the lowest price at high quality.  

Dealing with an economy can be very tricky if you are the government.  There will always no matter what system you have be people that are left out and people that say the current system is unfair.  However, I believe in capitalism, but the government must regulate it.  Smith believed in his theory of capitalism that the government should not be involved and let the market roll out alone.  The only problem is the fact that the market being free takes a long time to roll out on its own and can stall at times.  The people need the necessities immediately.  Smith believed that this would occur but would bounce back up which can it be depended on.  Marx's theory has the government and the wealthy sticking side by side and that is why the poor would revolt.  If the government regulates it at a reasonable rate, then a system can work.  Our system is like that today, but there are systems that the government provides like welfare for those unemployed, and student loans.  This is can relate to today's system but there are still poor people in the U.S., so the government being a little more involved with the poor can be the alternate to both Smith's and Marx's theory.  If the government is involved, then the poor will not revolt as the programs for the poor are put in.  This is not completely Marx's theory because he said he poor would revolt. Therefore, I believe in government involved capitalism.