by Russell Gurney

Created on: February 12, 2009

Imagine a kindergarten class. There are about 15 or so kids, one teacher. In an average class, the majority of the kids are fairly well behaved, they are good kids. And, of course, there is always one or two other kids who are less than well behaved. That's just natural.

So let's imagine that it's snack time. Each kid has their own packed snacks for the day, and sometimes they trade and share amongst each other. Well one day, the teacher brings out a big cake during snack time. She places the cake on a table, and sets out a stack of plates, a stack of napkins, and a package of plastic forks. She walks over to the class bathroom to rinse off a kitchen knife for cutting the cake. Meanwhile, over at the table, one kid seizes the opportunity and takes a plastic fork and starts to cut out his own piece of cake. The piece is huge and messy as he places it on a paper plate. The other kids start hassling him, telling him that what he did wasn't fair. "I'm hungry," he says to them. Another kid sees the sense in that, and gets himself his own piece of cake. The other kids hassle him too. At this point the teacher comes back over to the table, and sees what has happened.

Let's stop for a second and think about you would do if you were the teacher. Would you tell the other kids to move on and then get a piece while you still could? Or would you talk to the two other kids and tell them that they have to wait their turn and share the cake, and then proceed to cut everyone an equal piece?

Set your own opinion aside and let's try and see what would be the reasonable thing to do . Should we cater to a few kids' greed, and let the kids fight over the cake themselves, or instead cater to the rest of the kids, and give them smaller portions, so everyone can have some? Here we must decide between A) a few kids' greed, or B) the will of the majority.

I would like to think that people would count equality, justice, opportunity, and responsibility as valuable ideals. Most people will tell you they do believe in these things. But in a capitalist system, these are the exact concepts that are thrown out the window in exchange for some quick cash. And if you can throw those things away so easily then they weren't valuable to you in the first place.

The most fair and responsible thing for the teacher to do would be to equally divide the cake amongst the kindergarteners. Do we not raise our kids on good morals like sharing, playing nice, and being fair? We must be doing a pretty crappy job. Because as soon as we become adults, it seems we forget everything and start to think only about ourselves. This ego problem, this greed, is at the heart of capitalism. It is a dog eat dog system. It allows some people to walk all over others and exploit whatever resources we have. Shouldn't we strive for something more? Don't we have the ability to look beyond ourselves, and see that there are others out there too?

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