Let it Fail

America traditionally represents the greatest possibility of someone's going from nothing to something. Why? In theory, if not practice, the government stays out of the way and lets individuals take risks and reap rewards or accept the consequences of failure. We call this capitalism - or, at least, we used to. - Larry Elder

 

During my senior year of school, I had to take a class on government and civics.  To understand the principles behind capitalism, we were given a project where we needed to create a small business and try to make money.  Each group needed to produce something that could be sold in the school.  We were responsible for manufacturing, distributing, and selling our wares.  My group decided to sell popcorn - we could buy popcorn kernels in big bags rather inexpensively so could pop it and then sell it pretty cheap.  We thought that by setting a lower price point, it would increase overall sales enough that we would come out on top.  That demonstration taught us the importance of profit margin - sometimes you need to set your price just a bit higher in order to cover all your costs and actually make a profit. 

 

While we didn't rocket to the top of the class with our venture, we learned that not all businesses will succeed.  There was no bail out for the struggling high school popcorn industry that year.  The groups that did well did not offer part of their profits to help us out.  Had we been able to do the project again, we would have learned from our mistakes, made the appropriate adjustments, and hopefully been more profitable.

 

Schools give grades to students based on merit.  If the student fails, the class or grade level needs to be repeated.  Unless the student changes his or her knowledge of a subject, that student will not be successful in that class.  If I failed a test, I studied harder to make sure I didn't bomb on the next one.  I did not think that we would all get the same grade regardless of the individual effort put forth.  The free market is the report card of businesses.  When a business flounders in the market, the company needs to adjust or it will fail.  This potential failure does not make capitalism a bad idea.  To me, it reinforces the need for hard work to bring about a favorable outcome.

 

Success is earned, not given.  There is no constitutional "right" to succeed, only the opportunity to try.  Businesses need to be able to try and they need to be able to fail.  The governments needs to step out of the way and let the people speak through the free market.