Here's the first post on my new blog. Yay. Oh btw, ignore that weird little box at the top of the page. I was trying something.
If People were robots, Socialism would work.
But we're only humans, imperfect humans. (Or at least I certainly is.) We live by certain instincts and desires telling us, "Eat, Drink, Sleep, Eat cookie, Drink coffee, When are we going to get on with this?" They not only tell us what we need to survive, but they go much further; us humans want purpose, to prosper and progress, to eat more cookies.
To get rich and prosper is not a bad thing as long as you do it the right way (I know I certainly want to). Actually is if very health for the economy. Can you imagine if every body did the least amount of work they could, or just did it sloppy. Because I've got absolutely no imagination what so ever, this little story help me.
When the pilgrims first came to Plymouth they set up a little government with a common store house. They would take the people's food and pop it in there. They only got back out what they absolutely needed. This made the younger people feel jipped. They did no like working to feed other people and their families. So they began to stop working and a lot of them started steeling. The settlement became chaos. Finally the governor came up with a brilliant idea: give every body their freedom back. Well it worked. Almost immediately ever one went back to work, and in a little while they had such a surplus of food they were actually exporting corn. And all that hadn't starved to death lived almost happily ever after. The End... yeah... anyway, here's a quote from a book written by the governor:
The experience that was had in this comone course and condition, tried sundric years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanitie of that conceite of Platos & other ancients, applauded by some of later times; —that ye taking away of propertie, and bringing in coiiiunitie into a coirfone wealth, would make them happy and florishing; as if they were wiser then God. For this comunitie (so farr as it was) was found to breed much confusion & discontent, and retard much imploymet that would have been to their benefite and comforte. For ye yong-men that, were most able and fitte for labour & service did repine that they should spend their time & streingth to worke- for other mens wives and children, with out any recompencc. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in devission of victails & cloaths, then he that was weake and not able to doe a quarter ye other could; this was thought injuestice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and [97] equalised in labours, and victails, cloaths, &c., with ye meaner & yonger sorte, thought it some indignite & disrespect unto them. And for mens wives to be commanded to doe servise for other men, as dresing their meate, washing their cloaths, &c., they deemd it a kind of slaverie, neither could many husbands well brooke it. Upon ye poynte all being to have alike, and all to doe alike, they thought them selves in ye like condition, and one as good as another; and so, if it did not cut of those relations that God hath set amongest men, yet it did at least much diminish and take of ye mutuall respects that should be preserved amongst them. And would have bene worse if they had been men of another condition. Let none objecte this is men's corruption, and nothing to ye course it selfe. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in his wisdome saw another course fitcr for them.
HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH PLANTATION p. 135
That stuff is so hard to read...
Through out history this same thing has happened. Karl Marx assumed that people were perfect. But that's the problem with socialism: we're all human. We weren't made for this. We have to have a goal, ambition. "A man's got to have a code, a creed to live for." [John Wayne... actually I got that off a John Wayne coffee cup sitting on the table just now...] The reason our country is where it is today (as in one of the most prosperous and powerful country in the world) is because of its freedom and potential. |
