Governing to Help Society

In Monday’s class we completed a fun activity.  Our teacher handed out Hershey kisses to each student.  Most students only received two Hershey kisses, but two students were given eight Hershey kisses.  We then played many rounds of the game, Rock Paper Scissors, to try and win as many Hershey kisses, as possible.  If you won a game, the opposing student would have to give the winner one of their Hershey kisses.  If, you ran out of Hershey kisses, you had to sit down.  This was stage one.  Our teacher then collected all the Hershey kisses from everyone and redistributed two Hershey kisses to each student; this was stage two.  Our teacher then asked if we would risk it all and play Rock Paper Scissors again in order to obtain more Hershey Kisses; most students said that they would not risk it, myself included.  This activity was meant to show us that stage one represented Capitalism, stage two represented Socialism, and stage three represented Communism.  This activity also showed us how each type of society, oftentimes, went from one form of government to the next.  I found this activity a lot of fun and quite entertaining because we had to physically do something in order to understand a concept.  However, this activity was also frustrating because it was annoying when some students received more Hershey kisses and when I had to sit down because I ran out of Hershey kisses and therefore no longer play the game. 

This is a picture of Karl Marx.

 Karl Marx and Adam Smith both wanted to help the poor, but they came up with two very different approaches to accomplish this goal.  Karl Marx believed that the poor would essentially help themselves by transitioning between the three different states of Capitalism, Socialism, and finally Communism.  Marx created the theory that the poor people of the Industrial Revolution would revolt against the government and thus form socialism which would eventually develope into communism; this process is called Marxism.  Marx defined Capitalism as the private ownership of industry where there was freedom competitive freedom.  However, this system was flawed because it resulted in unequal economic classes where some people would “win”, labeled as the bourgeoisie, while other people would “lose”, who were labeled as the “proletariat.”  Capitalism caused there to be a class struggle which led workers to   revolt.  However, Marx then said that Socialism should replace Capitalism.  He defined Socialism as when a government has ownership of industry.  Marx said that the goal of Socialism is to bring economic equality and to aim for a classless society so that there will no longer be a class struggle like there is in Capitalism.  After Socialism, Marx then said that the majority of society would no longer crave competition which created divisions between rich and poor.  Since most people would want this, they would do anything to achieve it, even if it meant violence.   Once this was achieved they would transition into Communism.  Marx defined Communism as when a classless society is reached and no government is needed anymore.  Karl Marx also created the Communist Manifesto.  Unlike Socialism or Capitalism, there is no longer any government involvement in society when Communism is reached.  So, poor people have essentially helped themselves and fixed their society to accommodate their needs, as well.  Very different than Marx, AdamSmith devised a new way in which to help the poor.  Smith created the “invisible hand.”  As we learned in the video that we watched in class, about the invisible hand, it helps encourage people to do their own thing.  The invisible hand is Adam Smith's version of Capitalism, which is similar to Marx's version of Capitalism.  The invisible hand creates competition between companies.  It helps a particular company see that an opposing company has lowered their prices to be more competitive and therefore, more people will come to that company to buy items instead.  The other company will then lower their prices to hopefully gain back customers.  This will result in people being able to buy everything they need, no matter what their social status.  Adam Smith also discovered that the way to help the poor is to have free trade and market.  If companies realize that their consumers are also their employees, but they aren't paying their employees enough to buy their goods, they will have to increase their pay in order to pay for the goods.

This is a picture of Adam Smith.

           

   In this image we see that there is an invisible hand holding up two fingers beside a salesman’s back to most likely encourage the costumer to ask for a low and reasonable price that she can afford.

                I think that Adam Smith’s theory is better than Karl Marx’s theory.  This is because I strongly believe that creating a free trade and market would make the lives of the poor a lot better.  If trading and marketing products were openly competitive, the poor would be able to obtain goods that they need to survive without having to struggle with the fee.  I also agree with the other side of Smith’s theory, that if companies acknowledge that they need to increase their employees pay in order to increase consumers, it would really help the poor, even if it took a while to really change the economic status of the poor in society.  I think Adam Smith’s theory on how to help the poor really focuses on the poor, and not the society as a whole like Marx’s theory, because poor citizens are the ones that need the most attention.