An analogy even a socialist could understand

The story of the garden

from JoeUser Forums

Once upon a time...

There was a man with a garden. He worked very hard tending his garden and produced far more vegetables than he would ever be able to eat. So he gave some of his vegetables away to up and coming gardeners who used the seeds to start their own gardens in exchange for the gardener getting a tiny percent of the profits they generated.

But then one day, the king decided socialism was a more "humane" way of doing things. He forced all the gardeners to give him all the extra vegetables they made to give out to the "poor".

Because of this, the gardener didn't have any extra vegetables to provide to up and coming gardeners to get them started.

In short order, the number of new gardeners came to a stand still while the population continued to grow even higher since, for now, there was a lot of free food thanks to the socialist king.

But soon after, people began to starve because there was no longer enough food to feed the growing population. The king couldn't understand why and decided he should take more and more food from the "Greedy" gardeners. But the problem only got worse as now no gardeners had enough vegetables to use to plant more crops in their own gardens for next year.

The moral of the story is that it's never a good idea for the government to confiscate from those who are producing things to give to those who are not producing - especially if it interferes with the ability for the producers to produce even more. Because in the end, all the people will suffer as a result.

 

politics
37,719 views 122 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Great Analogy, but I dont think they will get it.
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
What if there is no infinite supply of land and there cannot be another gardener?
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
What if there is no infinite supply of land and there cannot be another gardener?


Then people need to stop breeding so fast?
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top

What if there is no infinite supply of land and there cannot be another gardener?

Then Market Forces tend to drive R&D to find new ways to grow more on less areas and Moron Forces drive Hippies to oppose those technologies.

Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
What if there is no infinite supply of land and there cannot be another gardener?


There'll be famine and civil war brought about by the rise of regional lords (under the king) who are prepared to guarantee access to food supplies by taking the land of others. That's just how we humans roll.

On the analogy....


It's not very persuasive. There are few social groups less open to encouraging competition over land and resources than hereditary peasants. It's highly unlikely they would be giving valuable crops to people they don't know.

There's also the problem of the kind of society these farmers are living in. For an analogy to be persuasive it has to have an element of reality about it. But this one doesn't seem to. If the society is feudal or, indeed, nearly any kind of monarchy, why doesn't the king use his own lands to farm for the poor? After all, in nearly every society's version the king owns his peasants. They're his to do with as he wills. If he wants them to work themselves to death and produce only enough for themselves to survive that's damn well what they'll do if they know what's good for them.

Personally I've always liked the fishing analogy. Here's a version rewritten about Mexicans.

A business man was at the pier of a Mexican coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna.
The business man commented on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied only a little while. The business man then asked why didn't he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs. The business man then asked, "but what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria. I have a full and busy life, senor."

The business man scoffed. "You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds of the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Soon you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York City where you would run your expanding enterprise.

"But what then, senor?"

The business man laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company's stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions."

"Millions' senior? Then what?"

The business man said, "Then you would retire and move to a small fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids and take a siesta with your wife.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top

Moron Forces

Would that be the Moron National Forces - or MNF?

Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
Personally I've always liked the fishing analogy. Here's a version rewritten about Mexicans.


Brad was doing Socialism, not capitalism. Wrong analogy.
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
Here...let's rewrite cacto's piece the socialist way:

The setup's the same...businessman, Mexican, yellowfish tuna...so I won't rewrite it.

The businessman says "Why, you lazy oaf! How can you fish and catch only enough fish for your family while people go hungry in your village. You should catch ten times what you need and give the surplus to the village"

"Ay Caramba!" says the Mexican, "That would take me all day and all night and I would have no time to play with my ninos or enjoy the company of my wife".

"But that's the beauty of it," says the businessman, "we can take your children and put them into our schools to learn how to work for the state, and your wife can go to work in our sweatshops. There should be no unproductive citizens in the country"

"But what about those people loafing and making money off of the fruit of my labor?" the Mexican protests

"Oh. They're the government workers we're paying to make sure you do your job right!"

Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
(Citizen)Gideon MacLeishMarch 4, 2007 17:18:10


Game set and Match!
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
Isn't when a king runs the land a monarchy rather then a communist/socialist state? I don't want to critize your story Brad but you lost me when you said, he "gave" away the extra vegetables rather then "sold" away how exactly did he raise the currency or barter necessary to provide for the necessities of life by which he could not produce?
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top

It's not very persuasive. There are few social groups less open to encouraging competition over land and resources than hereditary peasants. It's highly unlikely they would be giving valuable crops to people they don't know.

I didn't say he was giving them away. He was trading those crops to other farmers in exchange for a % of what they brought in.

Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top

Personally I've always liked the fishing analogy. Here's a version rewritten about Mexicans.

The problem with your analogy is that it is written by someone who is not a business person.

Let me give a more realistic story:

"So what do you do with the rest of your time?" said the Business Man?

"I spend hours toiling to fix my fishing boat, keep my house and car repaired, and fixing broken equipment for my fishing boat." said the Fisherman.

"Well," said the businessman, "since you are so good at fishing, why don't you spend a quarter of the time you spend toiling on other things fishing and then hire specialists who can fix your boat, repair your house, and get new equipment?"

"Oh, I had never thought of it like that, Senor. Our local socialist convinced me that struggling to do the things I'm not good builds character and only the BOURGEOIS would have others do the unpleasant things for them. I thought being part of the proteriat was good."

"Nah," said the business man. "That's the sort of talk that has led your country to having water with so much shit in it that you can't drink it safely, boats and cars that you have to import from elsewhere and poverty everywhere."

 

I work about 60 hours per week. But I get to spend a lot LOT more time with my wife and children and get to look forward to spending my summers in a brand-new beautiful, on the beach, lake cottage. Because I don't spend any time on my weekends doing home repair, fixing cars, etc.

And when I vacation across the country, I don't have to drive across country with my family, wasting days of the vacation in a car, but instead can afford to fly us all so that we spend the maximum amount of time actually on vacation. And most successful business people enjoy doing what they do at work. They're not "puting in their time" they're doing something that they would do anyway.

 

Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top

Here...let's rewrite cacto's piece the socialist way:

The setup's the same...businessman, Mexican, yellowfish tuna...so I won't rewrite it.

The businessman says "Why, you lazy oaf! How can you fish and catch only enough fish for your family while people go hungry in your village. You should catch ten times what you need and give the surplus to the village"

"Ay Caramba!" says the Mexican, "That would take me all day and all night and I would have no time to play with my ninos or enjoy the company of my wife".

"But that's the beauty of it," says the businessman, "we can take your children and put them into our schools to learn how to work for the state, and your wife can go to work in our sweatshops. There should be no unproductive citizens in the country"

"But what about those people loafing and making money off of the fruit of my labor?" the Mexican protests

"Oh. They're the government workers we're paying to make sure you do your job right!"

Ha. Brilliant!

Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top

don't want to critize your story Brad but you lost me when you said, he "gave" away the extra vegetables

Clearly since just a few words later it talks about the exchange part:

he gave some of his vegetables away to up and coming gardeners who used the seeds to start their own gardens in exchange for the gardener getting a tiny percent of the profits they generated.

Or put in modern terms:

As soon as successful business people finish paying for expenses, they take the rest and invest it. That's how rich people get rich. They build assets through investments. Those investments then fund other businesses and ventures that create more opportunity.

Even Cacto's analogy clearly misunderstands the basics.  The goal of business people isn't to work themselves to death. Rich people don't get rich working infinitely harder. They get rich because they use their extra capital to build assets, typically in the form of investments of various forms. 

When the socialist comes along and says "You should pay more taxes because you can "afford" it" what they don't understand is that the rich person can afford higher taxes but the rest of the population can't afford to lose that investment.  The government doesn't use capital as well as successful private citizens.

Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top
"I didn't say he was giving them away. He was trading those crops to other farmers in exchange for a % of what they brought in."

Well maybe you edited it what I read was...

"produced far more vegetables than he would ever be able to eat"
"he gave some of his vegetables away"

I assumed he would eat the rest of those that he did not give away as it didn't say otherwise.
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
Because I don't spend any time on my weekends doing home repair, fixing cars, etc.

You fail to realize that many people get great pleasure out of working on their homes or cars. I count myself as one of those that finds home improvement/maintenance as a leisurely activity. You make it sound painful, and seem to be forgetting that because you don't like something, doesn't mean other people subscribe to your thinking. I think the personal touch around the home is far more important than hiring a mindless contractor drone, whom more often than not don't even do jobs right. Also you seem to neglect the fact that having kids help with tasks builds character and a strong foundation. Tossing them infront of World of Warcraft for the weekend accomplishes nothing for their long term benefit. How often have you taken your kids fishing?

I don't have to drive across country with my family, wasting days of the vacation in a car, but instead can afford to fly us all so that we spend the maximum amount of time actually on vacation.

Yes we know how fast, easy and hassle free flying is. NOT! Once again you fail to understand that for many people, there is great fun driving across the country and seeing the sights while relaxing in the car. For many people this is an integral and fun part of a vacation without the hassles of dealing with flight delays, planes sitting on the tarmac for 22 hours, overly abusive TSA screening, lost luggage and other nonsense. Flying comes cheap, people that avoid flying usually do it by choice and not for economic reasons. You seem to make it out that only the poor and uninformed choose to drive, yet I personally think that the uninformed and impatient are the ones flying.

"That's the sort of talk that has led your country to having water with so much shit in it that you can't drink it safely, boats and cars that you have to import from elsewhere and poverty everywhere."

So instead of debatably dirty water, our corporate overlords have granted us toxic tap water filled with carcinogenic chlorine(and subsequent chloroform gases in the home), and cumulatively degrading fluoride(pesticide residue) and an assorted list of VOC's. I'd rather drink out of a horse trawl than the garbage that comes out of the tap in city water that requires expensive filtration systems to make it non-carcinogenic.

Who appointed you the overseer that determines what poverty is? Personally, I view people that work 50+ hours a week slaving over stressful positions as living in poverty. They lose track of what life is about, and instead focus on the pursuit of the all-might-dollar oblivious or uncaring to the real world around them. They close themselves off, push forward a me-first elitist mentality and begin to look down on anyone not on the same plane as them. What they don't realize is they aren't any better than the next guy, they certainly aren't any smarter, and they probably aren't any happier. More often than not, they are miserable neurotics suffering from random bouts of depression. They spend so much time aquiring wealth and giving up their health to aquire it, then eventually they lose their health and then spend all of their money trying to get their health back.

Quite honestly Draginol, you don't have a life I admire, rather I feel sorry for you. Seriously.
Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top
Nope, apparently socialists DON'T get it!
Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top

You fail to realize that many people get great pleasure out of working on their homes or cars

 

But most do not. Hence the incredibel array of businesses to cater to us. There are far more garages and oil change places in a city than there are shops for do-it-at home hobbyist.

Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top

Yarby: I was giving examples that apply to me.

The point is, money allows people to not have to do things they don't want to do so that they can spend that time doing things they do want to do.

Reply #20 from JoeUser Forums Top
The problem with your analogy is that it is written by someone who is not a business person.


Have you ever lived in a fishing village? I spent several months in one on the east coast of Java in Indonesia. The men who owned their own boats didn't actually do much repair work; only those who worked for the corporate trawlers spent more than a couple of hours every morning working hard. The rest of the day was spent variously drinking, gambling and hanging out. The women did all the hard work like making nets, keeping the house in order and handling the finances.

I suppose the men handled the boat repairs, but I never saw them do much of that. As for house repairs a village can build a house from scratch in a few days, so that's not something that takes long anyway.

The influence of western capitalism makes people better educated and longer-lived, but it does take a lot of spare time in exchange.

Which side you stand on depends on how you value your leisure time and how much you value having an old age.
Reply #21 from JoeUser Forums Top
Quite honestly Draginol, you don't have a life I admire, rather I feel sorry for you. Seriously.


No offense Yarby, but only a person who knows nothing about Draginol's life would say they felt sorry for him.
Reply #22 from JoeUser Forums Top
"You fail to realize that many people get great pleasure out of working on their homes or cars."

In the purely economic sense it doesn't make sense to not divert all labor into specialization. But there are always other factors involved and economics is rarely the only one or most important one to people.

"the day was spent variously drinking, gambling and hanging out."

This is what people value over making money lots of times. To be honest. In the economic sense though, if the most amount of labor is to be accomplished, you should pay someone who is better at a job to do it, while you do the job you are best at. Again it is rarely the case that the most amount of labor be produced, or the best quality be applied. Efficiency is important though.
Reply #23 from JoeUser Forums Top
The influence of western capitalism makes people better educated and longer-lived, but it does take a lot of spare time in exchange.


cacto,

Compared to "primitive" societies, I would tend to agree, but if you compare our information age society with early industrial age societies, I would strongly disagree. In a long ago article I compared/contrasted life for the working class in the modern age with that of urban life at the turn of the 20th century; the improvements we've made in working conditions, work hours in the week, and life expectancy are amazing. We actually HAVE a lot of free time, it's just that we choose to use it watching "Dancing with the Stars" instead of actually playing with our kids.
Reply #24 from JoeUser Forums Top

Have you ever lived in a fishing village? I spent several months in one on the east coast of Java in Indonesia. The men who owned their own boats didn't actually do much repair work; only those who worked for the corporate trawlers spent more than a couple of hours every morning working hard. The rest of the day was spent variously drinking, gambling and hanging out. The women did all the hard work like making nets, keeping the house in order and handling the finances.

I suppose the men handled the boat repairs, but I never saw them do much of that. As for house repairs a village can build a house from scratch in a few days, so that's not something that takes long anyway.

The influence of western capitalism makes people better educated and longer-lived, but it does take a lot of spare time in exchange.

Which side you stand on depends on how you value your leisure time and how much you value having an old age.

Sigh.

Let me repeat carefully: I said the analogy you presented wasn't written by a business person.  I said nothing about the fishing village.

People have this false belief that successful business people work themselves to death and miss out on fun and enjoyment. Real successful business people are generally not the way you describe.

Even now, I suspect a good porton of the people here could live in an Indonesia fishing village if they chose to live in those conditions.

And most successful business people could retire and live in luxury by the time they hit 40 if they wanted to do so.  I could retire right now if I wanted to for instance. But I make computer games and desktop enhancements for a living working amongst interesting and excellent people and still get to spend immense time with my wife and kids doing very fun and interesting things with them.

Reply #25 from JoeUser Forums Top

"You fail to realize that many people get great pleasure out of working on their homes or cars."

In the purely economic sense it doesn't make sense to not divert all labor into specialization. But there are always other factors involved and economics is rarely the only one or most important one to people.

"the day was spent variously drinking, gambling and hanging out."

This is what people value over making money lots of times. To be honest. In the economic sense though, if the most amount of labor is to be accomplished, you should pay someone who is better at a job to do it, while you do the job you are best at. Again it is rarely the case that the most amount of labor be produced, or the best quality be applied. Efficiency is important though.

Except this is rationalization at its worse because for every time they get together and drink with their friends while fixing the car or painting their house there are 10 instances where they are fixing their car in the freezing cold garage on the freezing cement floor or they're spending their weekends out in the hot sun painting their house by themselves.

Let's be real, it's not as if there's a special "secret" club here. Most of the time, people fixing their cars or fixing their houses are doing it because they can't afford not to and it's usually unpleasant, time consuming work.  And while there are probably people who just enjoy spending a good chunk of their summer vacations up on the roof fixing their gutters, I am willing to bet they're in the minority.  It's akin to when people moving to a new house trying to turn moving their stuff to the new house into some party where people end up bruised and furniture chipped rather than being able to afford having professionals move your stuff to the new house while you go to an actual REAL party with your friends and drink.

No, rather than fixing shingles on my roof on a 96 degree, 95% humidity day in July, I think I'd rather hire out that work and spend that time going hiking with my sons in the woods or going swimming with the family in the lake or flying to Manhattan for a romantic weekend with my wife.