Is the Free Market a Waste of Time?

Bear with me as I retell a story I heard from someone a while ago...

A Harvard busines grad goes to a popular tourist location in Mexico for vacation. The business man is fascinated with one particluar fisherman he sees returning each afternoon from the ocean. For whatever reason, he feels inclined to talk to the fisherman about his lifestyle, anxious to employ his new found business knowledge. Shortly into the conversation the young man has gathered that each day the man leaves early into the morning to go out to the sea and fish. The man elaborates on watching the sun rise and getting an occasional show from a passing pod of dolphins. He comes back from fishing and spends each afternoon and into the evening with his family. Each night the man finds his way to the local cantina and relaxes with his closest friends and a couple of beers, chatting and strumming away on his guitar. This the man repeats each and every day with little variance.

The business grad spends the evening perplexed by the man's problem and barely sleeps as he creates a beautiful business plan to enhance the man's life. The next afternoon, as the man comes in from the ocean, the business grad chases him down to present the man with his epiphany. The business grad then reveals his plan of buying a second boat and hiring someone to fish in a second boat all day and hiring two others to fish starting in the afternoon. He then shows how the man can slowly purchase more boats and increase his earning potential. With his new earnings, the man can then chase down his own contact for selling the fish to and add to his profit the money made by the middle man. From there, the man can save up his profit and open his own fish canning facility and own the production line from beginning to end, undoubtedly making the old fisherman millions of dollars. With all of this new income, the man can then retire.

The old man laughs at the business man and asks him what he would do then?

The business man quickly replies that the man could wake up early and watch the sunrise. He could go out on a small boat and enjoy some fishing on a small tranquil boat and perhaps watch a pod of dolphins play. He could spend time with his family. And he could hang out in the evenings with his closest friends and have a few beers and play his guitar.

The old fisherman gives the young businessman a condescending pat on the back or something and that is where the story ends.

I think the story is meant to illustrate how stupid capitalism really is and that we should all just fall in line like good little stooges and do our respective jobs without complaining because life really is great and we wouldn't change what we enjoyed if we had all the money in the world anyway (deep breath now after that tirade...)and fluffy bunnies and unicorns and rainbows and blah, blah, blah!

Ignorance really pisses me off, and the point that is missed is the freedom the man enjoys from being a capitalist. The untold part of the story shows the difference...

One day the man wakes up to go hit the ocean. He is now 68 years old and there is a storm brewing. He has to go out on the ocean anyway because the approach of the huge storm caused the fish to move away from their regular routes and he hasn't caught anything for three days now and his rice and beans are all gone. So he fumbles through the dark, barely able to see because his eyes have been ruined by the sun beating on them off the surface of the ocean water for years now, and gathers up his equipment in arthritis stricken hands. He gets out to his boat and begins stuffing cloth into the several holes in his small boat because he hasn't had the money to repair it, and heads out for his miserable day on the wild ocean waves.

With a very small catch he finally heads back in to shore and approaches the market with his catch. Unfortunately, he got back too late because it took so long for the old man to row back in from the storm tossed sea, and no one is at the market to buy his poor catch. The fish go to waste and the man must return empty handed to his family. The man's grandkids are crying with hunger pangs as he approaches his little hut and makes his report. His daughter, whose husband died recently, gathers her children close to comfort them for the long wet evening they have ahead of them. The man's son whose legs could have been saved with a simple medical procedure when he was young huddles in the corner. The man kisses his wife good bye and heads for the cantina.

The man sits alone in the corner of the cantina, watching longingly at his ex-friends drinking, singing and laughing. He reviews in his mind just how much money he owes each of these people and just how long ago he borrowed from each of them. He pulls out his guitar and strums for a while on the four strings that are not broken, not sure of what tomorrow brings.

I am sure that it is the fault of the young, entrepreneurially minded, Harvard Business School grad this man suffers so, because his hard earned wealth really should be taken from him to fix this man's problems. Instead of teaching this man how he can still look his friends and family in the eyes again, he should have just voted for the wonderful socialists in our world who would so carefully manage his finances for him and make sure that this man gets 'bailed out!'

What do you think?????