The Invisble Hand Pushing People to Success

         In class we simulated economy and salary through Hershey kisses.  Everyone started with 2 except for Brian and Meredith who got 8. Many people thought this was unfair. After we received the candy, we then played rock, paper, scissors, shoot. When we played, we were gambling one of our kisses. If you won, then you take one of your opponents kisses an if you lost, they took one of yours. It was very frustrating only starting off with 2. Two losses right away meant you had to sit down. Once most people were out, the teacher told the rest of the kids who were in to stop playing. She then took all of their candy and distributed all the candy fairly to the rest of the class. This is called redistribution. After we did this, we watched different videos on Karl Marx and his theories on economics. We also watched a video on the invisible hand theory. So these are the things that we learned in class about the economic point of view of the industrial revolution.


         Karl Marx wanted poor people to help themselves instead of receiving money form the government. He believed that they should have their own product and sell that product on the free market. He did not want the government to interfere with the market. The free market  would distribute goods to people in a more efficient and cheap way. Communism though, is different. Communism has no state and classes; everyone gets payed the same amount of money even if they work harder than others. Adam Smith also had a theory called the Invisible Hand. The Invisible Hand is the natural force of the free market capitalism through competition of scarce materials. Smith said that each participant will try to maximize self interest, and the interaction between market participants, leading to exchange of goods and services, enables each participant to be better of than when simply producing for themselves. The theory also tries to have the most mutually beneficial exchange of goods so the buyer and seller both benefit. In class we learned that the Invisible Hand slowly lead to good quality goods sell for cheaper. So financially in-stable people would be able to get the stuff they need for cheap, which answers the question, how does Smith's theory of the Invisible hand help benefit the poor.


      I personally like the Invisible Hand theory the best. I think that the market should control itself instead of the government controlling it. I also think that its good that quality items sell cheaply so the poor can get good items. Communism is good for the poor people, but for the rich people who work hard for their money, but then they had to give it to the government so they can redistribute it back to everyone equally. So this is a brief summery of what we learned so far in class about communism, socialism, and capitalism.




Invisible Hand info.

Cartoon of the "Invisible Hand"

Invisible Hand Video we watched in class