Session 1: Economics: Capitalism and Socialism (written on 2.17.010)

The Connecticut Wits: A series of semi-serious comments from Connecticut’s brightest wits.
The Connecticut Wits existed in the late 1700's, consisting of various revolutionaries, and lead by Joel Barlow. They were a group of American writers from Yale, who lambasted their political opponents with genius wittiness and satirical verse. This is a modern take from a similar point of view.

Economics: Capitalism and Socialism 2.17.010

NBA players should be paid much more money to play basketball, because they are the best of the best in their specialty. As a matter of fact, the ‘salary cap’ is the most liberal socialist form of socialism in America today. The best of the best in business, finance, and any other career get paid unlimited amounts of money, and it is completely unfair and un-American to restrict athletes.

Why does Kobe Bryant get paid a mere $23,034,375 for one season of basketball? Because of socialism. Why did Lawrence Ellison, CEO of Oracle, earn $84,501,759 in 2009 for 1 year of, being an executive? Because of capitalism. Thank goodness for capitalism.

Capitalism is what makes America work. Without capitalism, our economy would crumble to the feet of the poor. Under capitalist rule, our economy have seen get things like the technology boom of the 1990’s, and the amazing rise in pay to American workers during the 1920’s. Although both cases of explosive economic glory and growth were followed by full economic disaster, things rise and they fall. The trick is to be alive at the right time, which brings us to socialist healthcare, the fall of America.

If we were to insure all Americans, a few things would happen. First, people would start living longer, but not be able to, or would not be willing to work later into life. Secondly, after a few years, hospitals would see less traffic, especially in the ER. This would be devastating to ER workers, nurses, and doctors, as they would be forced to work less hours, and not be on overload all the time. Most importantly, the overall improvement in American health, mortality, and a decrease in diseases would be crippling to the insurance and pharmaceutical executives.

You may be wondering to yourself, is there no way to use some aspects of socialism, and some aspects of capitalism, to create the best possible ideals for each best suited situation or policy? The short answer is absolutely not. Combining the two ideologies goes against the most basic principle of Capitalism: Socialism is bad. If the two were to be combined in any way, it would immediately become socialism, and no longer be any form of capitalism.

So in conclusion, we have learned that not only is socialism bad, but to veer away from complete and total capitalism, would to be total and complete socialism. It is also to be fully noted that most Americans have little to no interest in the NBA, and that the foresaid comparative theory can be applied to the other topics and words I have presented.