Saturday Morning Socialism

My daughters were watching the Smurfs on TV this morning while I was fixing breakfast. I watched too, in between flipping pancakes.

The plot had to do with some smarter-than-average Smurf (I believe his name was -- I kid you not -- "Greedy") who baked up a bunch of delicious biscuits. Naturally, every Smurf wanted one, and demanded that he "share" with them. Just then, a little devil appeared above his shoulder and told him to charge them for his goods. He did, and soon the Smurfs were bringing all sorts of valuable stuff to him to exchange for a biscuit.

When Grampa Smurf wanted his roof fixed (for free, natch) the Carpenter Smurf told him he had traded his tools for a biscuit. Grampa Smurf was quite put out by this, and got all mad. Everyone started getting mad at Greedy for making something nice and tasty and then having the nerve to charge them for it.

By this time, I was pretty disgusted and turned it to something less idiotic. I wondered who in this day and age would still think socialism is a good idea, but then I also remembered that the Smurfs are a French invention, so there you have it.

In the real world, Greedy would see that his biscuits are valuable, and so he would naturally want to make more. He would go to Farmer Smurf and pay him something to grow more wheat, and then he would pay Miller Smurf to grind it for him, and hire that Smurf chick to help him to bake it. All along the way, he would be paying out what he took in, and pretty soon everyone would not only have yummy biscuits to eat but they would earn back whatever they paid in the first place.

The Smurfs would then become wealthy enough to buy weapons, kill off that insufferable wizard and his silly cat, take his money, and then build themselves a autonomous collective commune somewhere in the Bordeaux region, where Grampa Smurf could anoint himself a guru, bilk the rest out of their savings, and buy a bunch of Rolls-Royce limos with the proceeds. That is, until the Smurf chick, strung out on meth and ecstacy, turns him in to the local narcs and tax investigators in exchange for a plea deal.

Now I'd pay to see that episode.