Merriam-Webster's definition of socialism & capitalism:

Capitalism: an economic system of private ownership of capital.

Socialism: a social system based on government control of the production and distribution of goods; Or in our presidents words "Spreading the wealth"

I need things to relate to my life in order to gain a greater understanding of a concept or idea, here's how the above definitions look like in a restaurant:

CAPITALISM: Right now, the way it works in the restaurant is there are three waitresses working on the floor and each night we get a station with an equal amount of tables in that station and to keep it fair the stations rotate every night --this is our private property for the night. After tipping out the bartender and busboy we go home with the tips we've made for the night. Naturally, there's incentive and competition with this system, the quicker each of us moves our tables the more money we'll make. Also, over time, each waitress builds relationships with customers and in turn the customer might ask to sit with a certain waitress--that's building our private business. The outcome: the harder each of us works our tables the more each of us produces, in addition to us earning more, the busboy will earn more too if he works hard at getting our tables cleared, wrap any leftovers, and setting the tables quickly for the next customer--this is the trickle down affect.

This system not only works best for the waitress, bartenders, and busboys--it works best for the owner too. When the waitress works with a pleasant manner and tries to ensure that the customer is getting all their dining needs met, the greater the chance of a repeat customer. Moreover, the better the service; chances are the better the tip, the worse the service is; the greater the chance of a bad tip. There is much reward with capitalism. Capitalism with competition naturally creates better workers in the work place. To me, this is plain old common sense.


SOCIALISM: But what if my boss believed it wasn't fair that there was one person making much more than the others. Let's say I was the one making the better tips than my coworkers. Maybe my boss thought it wasn't fair to the others because I was younger ( :) ) and quicker at moving my tables than the other waitresses or maybe he thought that I had a greater advantage because I lived in the neighborhood and the other girls didn't. And now my co-workers were noticing and started to complain to our boss. Now my boss makes a decision and says "'Tricia, because you make better tips than anyone else here I want to try to make things fair for everyone. I want you, in addition to working your own section, to take two more tables out of your coworkers section, and instead of keeping the tips you earn from these extra tables I want you, at the end of each night, to split ALL your tips evenly with the others" (or redistribution of wealth). What if the other workers were just plain lazy workers with bad attitudes and that's why they weren't making as much as me? We've all at one point or another worked with lazy people. The restaurant that pools their tips is a great place for lazy people to work.

Remember, I was producing more not only for myself but for the restaurant too--But now, everyone will benefit from my labor--I will be working MORE for LESS while my coworkers will work LESS for MORE by taking from me--(or recieve welfare). Where is my incentive to work harder if in the end it will be taken away to give to my coworkers--there is none. Eventually, I'll grow weary and bitter of this system and look for another restaurant that practices keeping your own tips (or another name, capitalism), my coworkers will suffer, and my boss will lose one of his best producers and his business will suffer.

Again, capitalism creates and encourages hard work while on the other hand socialism creates or encourages laziness.

Of course this is all just hypothetically speaking--I work at a great restaurant with equally great coworkers. But I have worked at other restaurants where we pooled tips and without fail there were people I liked to work with because we were all working together and then there were the lazy ones who would walk out with the same amount of money as me but work half as much.


If you know your history the Jamestown settlers initially tried a socialist type common store house. Those who did little work rec'd a share of goods equal to that of the most industrious. It didn't work!!!! About a year later starvation and sickness had halved their numbers until John Smith put strong restrictions on the colony, including the biblical truth that if you do not work you will not eat (2Thess. 3:10).