Socialism vs Capitalism an Email Exchange

[rmathis]

This was a little email exchange I thought I'd share, with my coworker who always is arguing his extreme fiscal conservative capitalist agenda.

From: John
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 9:56 AM
To: Richard Mathis
Subject: Econ wisdom

I imagine this story is a hoax, but the moral is accurate. Made me think of Anna and the other professors you talked

Comments

[anonymous]

Wouldn't the problem of the first system be more of expectations than any flaw in the system itself?

If, for example, the students were studying to learn rather than to get higher grades (which is part of a second, separate system from the one in the class), then wouldn't they study just as hard regardless of the grade they received? The "A" students would still work hard, not because they wanted the A, or because they wanted to help others, but because learning the material - or having it to use later - was their actual goal?

Also, wouldn't it have been more beneficial to help the "poorer" students to study, so that they could perform better - thus raising the average grade?

[rmathis]

The point of his story is that human nature is the problem with socialism, something I think is valid and has been born out throughout the world. A moderation of both has more success at working I think

[sitesmithscott]

That first story is a variation of one that gets forwarded to me every once in a while.

Coincidently I'm having a little back and forth debate with a person on facebook about something similar. Love how a talk about implimenting some regulations onto a system that has previously been wide open and has shown irresponsibility and poor business sense immediately got turned into communism.

[rmathis]

Yeah, I used to be pro totally free market, but not anymore, business has shown that they can't be trusted with that power, society has to mandate restrictions to make sure everyone is doing things that benefit everyone. A good question: Does the existence of a particular business make society better as a whole? And if the answer is no, then we as a society shouldn't allow it to exist or at least change how it can operate to benefit us.

What I think is really bizarre is a lot of the people arguing so strongly against any kind of regulation are often not doing so well financially, its like peasants arguing the dictator's case. What are they getting out of it? Nothing, they've just been brainwashed into promoting their upperclass overlord's interests somehow.

Speaking of social sites, how come you haven't gotten a twitter account yet? My account is topwebcomics

[sitesmithscott]

Mainly because I am not a twitter fan. It is bad enough that I have a facebook account that I put up some notices from time to time