yeah, fuck that professor inside out. that’s one school of economics. they didn’t like it when i talked communism at the econ school, but i did anyways. how there’s multiple goals of an economic system and capitalism optimizes the wrong one. communism, socialism elevate equity over efficiency and that lifting the people at the bottom of society instead of the top caused the economy to grow faster because (this was a long argument we all drew charts and graphs that we all knew were complete bullshit to make our points. we were undergrads and so about at the intellectual level of the Austrian school of Economics) but i have what felt like damn good evidence when it happened:

in high school, all my besties (only friends who’ve stuck with me through thick and thin) and i would toss our lunches in the middle of the table and share. when we’d do that, no one went hungry. not even when someone forgot their meal or lunch money. and we’d always have a little left over. when we all ate our own lunches, there’d be nothing left and we’d all still be a little hungry. The additional variety let each of us get all 5/6/7 flavors (it’s a can of worms just roll with it) and when you get all the flavors you’re satiated easier. I didn’t know anything about flavor theory back then, but it totally makes sense to me now that i learned how to cook. but like, because of that we became the best of friends. no one was forced to do it, it was purely voluntary to join the lunch pile, but damn it was the best lunch experience i’ve had with someone who wasn’t my wife. one of our besties always refused to join in for some reason and that’s fine, but if he forgot his lunch he got to eat from the pile. he was still one of us.

anyways, that’s my “communism is better than capitalism” example.