This week in class we did an activity to learn about capitalism, socialism and communism. We each got three hershey kisses except for two people who got ten. Then we had to play rock paper scissors shoot with other people in the class, for every game you lost you had to give the other person one of your hershey kisses. Everyone had to keep playing until you ran out of hershey kissed and it did not matter if you wanted to keep playing or not. It was very frustrating for me because I started with only three hershey kisses and I only played three games before I had to sit down because I had no more hershey kisses. Also while everyone was still playing, you just had to sit there and watch other people play rock paper scissors shoot. After the games were done, the teacher collected all of the hershey kisses back and redistributed them evenly. The people who had a lot of hershey kisses were angry and protested. Once we got three more hershey kisses we had the choice to play rock paper scissors shoot again. If you choose to play you would have to keep playing and you could lose all of your hershey kisses again not get anymore or you could become richer; if you choose to not play then you just keep your three hershey kisses and there is no way you can lose any but you will not be able to get anymore hershey kisses. The purpose of this activity was to show how Marxism was created through the processes of capitalism, socialism and communism.
Both Karl Marx and Adam Smith wanted to help the poor, but they both had different approaches as to how to do this. Marx theory of communism starts with capitalism. Capitalism is the private ownership of industry, freedom of competition and the results of unequal economic classes. After capitalism came socialism, this is where government had ownership of industries. The goal was to bring economic equality and Marx aimed for a classless society where no one individual is better than another. Finally after socialism was communism, this is where the goal of a classless society was achieved and no government was needed. The circumstances that lead to the development of Marx’s theory was that people were starving and were very poor so he had to find a way to even out the playing field and achieve equality. Marx’s theory continued to influence people in Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba and around the world.
This is a picture of Karl Marx:
Adam Smith is the other person who wanted to help the poor. Smith’s main idea was the invisible hand. The invisible hand was meant so the that the government would leave people alone to buy and sell freely with whomever they wanted and the economy would regulate itself so that people could do what interests them. What motivated Smith was the idea of free trade and migration and also allowing people to do what they want, there would be more options for the poor and they will be able to eventually be able to pay for things like everyone else.
This is a picture of Adam Smith:
Here is a link to a video that talks more about the invisible hand: The Invisible Hand
In my opinion i think that the invisible hand is a better idea because it gives the people freedom to do what they want and trade and sell to whomever they want to with. Also this can give the poor a chance to get a job and be able to make money to pay for food and clothing. Even though both of these ideas are good there could also be a good third alternative. The alternative could be a system that more jobs are created and that people who make the most money do not have to be stripped away from them for the other people in the community like in Marx’s theory where everything should be equal.
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