Chocolate + Communism = Chocunism! Or is it Choconism?

As a start to the activity, everyone in the class was handed 2 Hershey kisses, with the exception of two random people, who received 8 each. The initial reaction was calling favorites, that this was unfair and that everyone in the class should’ve received the same amount. However, rock, paper, scissors was then brought into play. Between two people, each would bet one of their chocolates and play rock, paper, scissors to determine who won them both. Once people ran out, they went to go sit back down.

Different tactics were deployed during the course of the activity. Some of the chocolate-poor asked the rich to “invest” in them in exchange for half of their chocolate when the activity was over. Of course, this didn’t always work out, and the investors were furious when their investments ran out of chocolate and sat down. I found myself having good runs and bad runs, bringing my chocolate up to 8, and then coming back down to 1, up to 6, until I ran out. Additionally, there were a few “Robin Hoods” that gave away chocolates to get people back in the game, which is how I got back in. I made it back up to 5 chocolates before the game ended.

When it was over, all the chocolates were collected and then redistributed so that each person once again had two, including the favorites. Those who had built up large stocks of chocolate, especially having started with two, were disappointed that their chocolate had been given away, but those who had run out were glad that they once again had some. The class was given the choice to either continue with the game, or to stop. Some of the ambitious and gambling ones decided to take another chance, regardless of whether or not they had run out before. However, most of the class decided not to take the chance, as two chocolates was better than none. Because of the majority vote, it was decided that the class could no longer play the game and everyone had two chocolates each. This is a great model of Karl Marx’s theory of economics, known as Marxism.

"The Invisible Hand," the first in a six-part series on economics
from ouLearn. It explains the system of capitalism as
imagined by Adam Smith.

There are two prevalent theories of economics from the time of the Industrial Revolution. The first was what Adam Smith called "the invisible hand," which is known today as capitalism. It is a system in which government takes a hands-off approach to the economy. The Invisible Hand is what moves people to buy goods in their own self-interest: the highest quality goods for the lowest possible price. Under this system, businesses compete with each other to get low price, high quality goods to their consumers. Honest businesses win, while businesses that cheat their customers go out of business. All classes can take part in trade and commerce, because even the poor have enough money to buy the low priced goods. The main problem with this system is that the economy takes time to stabilize, which means that there will be hard times before the invisible hand has fully done its job.

The main opposition to this theory is from Karl Marx, who created Marxism. It begins with capitalism, in which industry is privately owned and have the freedom of competition to raise their quality of life. Capitalism results in unequal economic classes, so those that end up poor revolt and progress capitalism into socialism, where the industry is government-owned and wealth is redistributed to bring economic equality. Although the former wealthy would want to switch back to capitalism to have more control over industry, the poor instead revolt, using force to keep classes equal and insure that they will never have to experience poverty ever again. This turns socialism into communism, a truly classless society in which government is not needed to redistribute wealth.

Each of these systems has strong points and weak points. I believe socialism to be the weakest because it requires some level of altruism from the people: if people know that any excess wealth they make will be redistributed, and that they will receive money from the government if they make too little, then why work at all? I find this an innate problem with socialism because there is no incentive for people to work, innovate, and succeed. Communism also has this problem, but to a lesser extent because there is no government for people to fall back on. The population knows that communism is a group goal, because any and all wealth they get is directly derived from the people. I prefer capitalism over communism because capitalism promotes ambition and innovation. In a communist system, there is no “success,” only the collective population sharing wealth. In capitalism, it takes hard work to get ahead. I think that individual success should be encouraged, to keep the world moving forward. However, the downside of capitalism is that as a consequence, it creates economic classes, meaning that someone will always be on the bottom of the economic ladder. It’s impossible to make any money in capitalism if you’re completely penniless. I think the tax system is a helpful step to solving that problem: it resembles the redistribution of wealth in socialism and communism, but doesn’t go to that extreme. The government takes taxes (not enough to drive anyone to poverty, but a reasonable amount) and invests it in the country and in the poor, so that the poor can also take part in the free market and rise in economic standing. Of course, no system is absolutely perfect in reality, but I think we can get close enough.