In this weeks episode, Spike the baby dragon celebrates his birthday with the mane-6 ponies. Prior to his birthday, Spike voluntarily and generously gives Rarity a precious gemstone he was planning to eat on his birthday (Dragon's eat gems in the MLP universe). After receiving several presents from various residents of Ponyville, Spike starts telling ponies it's his birthday with the specific intent of procuring more and more material possessions. While this was not necessarily dishonest, it was a tactic driven by pure, unmitigated greed.
The next day, Twilight Sparkle awakens to discover that Spike has grown in size and has hoarded more and more possessions. Upon investigating further and with the help of Zecora, Twighlight discovers that dragons are prone to greed and as their greed grows, so to do they until they become destructive monsters. This proves to be true, as Spike greedily starts taking and stealing things, growing into a Godzilla style monster, leaving destruction in his wake.
Eventually, after seeing Rarity and being reminded of his earlier generositiy, Spike is magically transformed back into his baby self and realizes the importance of generosity, how it is better to give than to receive and that kindness and generosity are what lead to true friendship.
As Spike demonstrated in this episode, his greed motivated him to cheat other ponies for his own gain, and eventually to run on a rampage, destroying Ponyville and injuring other ponies. While there are many who would like to believe this behaviour personifies capitalism, the important distinction is how Spike also demonstrated that greed is defeated: generosity. The combination of both the destructive nature of greed and the reconcilatory nature of generosity is what actually personifies capitalism.
Capitalism has a highly undeserved association with greed. While it is true, there are capitalist who are greedy, it is equally true that there are socialist who are greedy as well. Greed is an undesirable part of the human condition. It is undesirable in that it is byproduct of covetousness and envy and it is a motivator of forceful and fraudulent human behaviour.
Generosity on the other hand is a highly desirable part of the human condition. Generosity is the byproduct of love and it is a motivator for fair, honest dealings. Fair and honest dealings are the hallmark of capitalism as capitalisms cannot exist where interpersonal transactions are initiated through the use of force or fraud from one party against another. Anytime one person is compelled to act because they are threatened or lied to - that is not capitalism.
Conversely the ONLY way socialism can exist is through the initiation of force or fraud by one party against another. Equal distribution of wealth is a hallmark of socialism. In both practice and in theory, wealth CANNOT be distributed equally and the failed notion of socialism proves unequivocally that attempting to equalize wealth only results in wholescale force and fraud that ultimately destroys the society it is practiced in.
In practice, socialism is an unconditional failure as different variants of socialism throughout history clearly show. National Socialism in Germany during the 1930's and 40's, communism in the Soviet Union and China, or crony-capitalism (a twisted version of capitalism that privatizes profits and socializes losses) in present day western societies such as Canada and the United States - they ALL are founded in the belief of equal wealth distribution, they are ALL built on a foundation of fraud and force, and they are ALL complete and total failures.
In theory socialism is an unconditional failure because the very nature of the physical world is such that tangible resources that are representations of actual wealth are not distributed equally across the world. It is impossible to attain perfect equality of wealth because the world is diverse and non-uniform. It is naive, foolish and arrogant to believe that human effort can turn a heterogenous world into a homogeneous one. Time and time again whenever it has been tried, the results have been catastrophic.
In both practice and theory, capitalism is the best system to ensure the most equal distribution of wealth possible in an unequal world. With capitalism, wealth is redistributed through voluntary transactions freely initiated by all individuals of society. Without a central authority to restrict or regulate this economy, the sum of these transactions unleash the maximum collective intelligence of every participant. This is a truly demcoratic system, as every transaction that results in a transfer of a good or service is a vote of confidence of the relative importance of that good or service.
In a truly capitalist system, force and fraud are highly regulated by BOTH profits and losses. If an individual defrauds, steals, robs or even murders another individual, the victim will have major disincentive (or a complete inability) to not transact with their victimizer, resulting in losses to them that hinder their ability to continue to operate in that fashion. Conversely, an individual that fairly and honestly transacts with another individual gives incentive for repeat business, resulting in profits helping them to grow their and repeat those kinds of trades.
In both cases, the decisions are voluntary and both parties have recourse to punish force and fraud and reward fairness and honesty. Both the voluntary choice of adopting a greedy and generous mindset are welcomed, but consequences for both choices are present.
Conversly, in a socialist system, there is no choice. Greed and generosity is mandated, not freely chosen, and there are no recourses to either reward or penalize either behaviours.
If Equestria was a socialist society, Spike would not have been able to freely adopt a mindset of generosity and voluntarily give Rarity the gemstone he so desired. Likewise if Equestria was a socialst society, early on when Spike's greed ran rampent, Twighlight and her friends would not have been able to help her, as Princess Celestia's comissars would have had the legal obligation thrown Spike in a concentration camp and redistribute all of his property.
Of course up to know, we have been shown that Equestria is not a socialist society. Equestria is a magic society possesing the magic of capitalism.
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