Choices

This is an era of survival with all the things happening around the world. Every person has to have certain needs met in order to survive and those needs are called necessities. People in different parts of the world practice different ways to achieve the goal of survival. The way to such necessities, is most of the time, motivated by a political ideology which is a type of thinking that motivates how a state should function. During this period of worldwide economic crisis, people are given a choice as to how to meet their necessities. There may be different ways by which countries approach this process of how its people will achieve that goal of survival. Some states provide every citizen everything that they need so that there is a sense of security in people’s lives. Other societies believe that it should be the individual who must make the choice of things they need. Having a wide array of choices for each citizen to decide on their needs can be better in the long run because it gives the people freedom on how to run their lives.

To understand why a society that provides everything to its people is not an ideal way to manage a state, it is crucial to know how this type of political thinking called ideology of socialism functions. One of the most important thinkers of the socialist movement, Karl Marx, justifies why necessities should be given to the people directly rather than letting them choose. Marx believes that capital should not be provided to common people, like citizens who have well paying jobs. He believes that it is a kind of wealth that should be shared among the people (369). Capital is something that is earned through work, a person’s salary is a form of capital. Important necessities include food and housing. Marx believed that necessities must be distributed evenly to all of the citizens of a particular state so that no one will have more capital than the other, regardless of education, age, work experience and other inherent qualities a person has. This is, in essence, a basic socialist belief. People who work in socialized societies usually receive the same pay set by the government no matter what occupation they have. They usually work in government-owned establishments where their pay is “capped.” It will sound great at first if a state provides all of its people free housing and food because supporters of socialism believe that the housing and hunger problem will be kept under control. The downside of having “socialized housing” is that the state determines how big or small the houses are going to be. Most of the houses in North Korea are not very convenient to the families because of very small living spaces provided to them. Houses built by the government are either apartment-style or townhouses that would allow as many living spaces as they could fit in a very small piece of property. This may sound housing security to the homeless; however, the state may put regulations on how many people can live in a particular dwelling. This can mean having only one child per family as is the case in China. Socialism controls the number of children a family must have. As with free food, the idea of supply and demand will come into play. When the country’s population rises, then there will be the problem of how to feed its entire population. Provision of free food by the government is detrimental because once the food supply is disrupted in any way, there can be less food to distribute, and consequently, the prices of food will skyrocket considerably because of the scarcity of supply which traders take advantage of. There is more expense involved to purchase sufficient supply of food from different sources to feed the people living in the socialist state. Because of this theory, it will cost the state more to feed its people. This also results in long lines in bakeries and meat markets with angry people trying to get their state-provided food and only to be turned away because of a food shortage. Also, there is a limit to the amount of food supply provided to each family. That is the consequence of having a state run by a socialist system; there is no freedom of choice at all. It is clear that the opposite of socialism will indeed bring the opposite lifestyle of what this type of society offers.

If having total control on housing and food sounds restrictive, just think about what life would be like if the government gave its people the opportunity to choose their necessities in life. A state that gives all of its citizens a chance to choose what they want in their lives is the ideal way that countries must run its people. Citizens have the choice to make important decisions that are fair and without the pressure from anybody like the government. The Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights proclaims that any type of authority which is not proclaimed