“Little Marxists”

15 Dec, 2008 by Melissa Clouthier

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Dr. Helen answers a question from a librarian/teacher about goose-stepping 4th graders and how to help kids get properly educated about such things as capitalism versus socialism.

In our kids’ school, the Third Grade project is starting a business, paying more rent for better space (the front classrooms), choosing partners, making a product or service to sell, marketing it, etc. Well guess what? There’s much gnashing of teeth when a kid picks a slouch for a partner. There’s agony (even though the teachers try to spin it positively as our “civic duty”) when the teacher comes and collects the taxes from hard earned bucks. It’s a nice learning experience all the way around.

What would be an even better solution in my opinion is to create a socialist week, in all it’s mediocre glory. So everyone works as a group, makes a crappy product that no one wants to buy, two kids do all the work, but all the kids get the same pay and the government takes 80% of their income. Then, a kid decides he’s hurt his toe and can’t work but gets the same pay. If they work harder they only get a C.

If kids got to experience both capitalism and socialism, they’d make the right choice because socialism is inherently unfair, rewards failure, and is a disincentive to achievement and production. Kids are hardwired for fairness. They get it.

While I know education is important, I think how a kid is raised is even more important. A dull-witted parent emphasizing self-esteem over honest achievement will destroy the best school lessons. And a parent who emphasizes hard work and morality will inoculate against soft-headed ideas rooted in post-modern and Marxist philosophies.

Team sports help because there’s winners and losers. Individual sports help because there is only achievement. Getting a job during High School helps a kid manage his energy and money.

Marxism has to be taught and indoctrinated because it goes against natural law. It is antithetical to how men are wired and ignores basic psychology. Marxism sounds great on paper and stinks in real life. It feels good to believe in collective everything, but it falls flat in practice. That’s why any training about these philosophies needs to be taken out of the realm of theory and into real life.

Get a kid on a ball field or court and he’ll learn the concepts of talent, hard work and winners and losers pretty quickly. Let him makes some money and then have the government take half to spend how they see fit, and he’ll understand why excessive taxation is a disincentive.

Real life cures Marxists.

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com