Another of Grandpa’s analogies that helped me understand how things are and why things cannot be as we wish, or as we may have perceived them to be. I guess I must have been in my 20’s when he put this one to me. I believe we were talking about socialism and people on benefits, possibly because I had not quite grasped yet the finer points of people, yet thought I knew about society. I didn’t understand why people just wanted handouts, really wanted them on an ongoing basis. Here is what he said

You have three people who start equal in wealth, and have a farm each to grow beans.

The first farmer works really hard and gets a good crop, the second farmer has not such a good year, but still worked hard enough, but got less. The third farmer couldn’t be bothered and didn’t grow any beans.

Socialism = the first farmer must share out his good crop, benefitting the lazy farmer as well as the second farmer. So each year, there is no incentive for the third farmer to do better, and can make the first and second farmer not want to bother.

Capitalism = first farmer buys out third farmer and owns more.

Communism = All farmers must grow the same, lazy is not an option.

That’s a black and white view of what was put forward or at least how I viewed it. Because the lines become a bit blurry it seems between socialism and communism. And as I have gotten older, capitalism appears to be so very heartless, therefore it doesn’t seem the way forward if we are to benefit as a group.

I asked someone once I knew who was on benefits for a number of years after a MH incident, which was valid initially. But after 5 years or so I asked “when are you going to get back out there, into the workplace?” The answer disappointed me very much. It was this “well, I’m just going to stay on benefits for a bit, to work out what I want to do with my life”. I was shocked, not gonna lie. This was someone close to me in my life at the time, so not what u was expecting. I was working really hard, trying to build my business, paying taxes and employing people, and was a bit disheartened by that attitude. That the taxpayer was there to buy other people time to sit back, let their kids have no structure and be paid for by handouts and ‘take their time’. Not me. I didn’t like that attitude at all, and chose to not be around it after it becomes obvious you can’t help them along, they will only hold you back. Harsh, but true.

I am not foolish enough to think we can have some utopic society where we are all the same, and have the same wants, needs and goals and it’s all smiles and laughter. That would be weird, but there does need to be some balance to it all. And it woukd be nice to just have unlimited time and resources to be what you want, but whose time are you wasting? Yours.

While we are the whim of a corrupt prevailing attitude from the people on the ground to the people at the top who run the show, there will be no cohesion or way forward. Not yet at least anyway…

(c) K Wicks