I was ten years old. Christmas had come and gone and I had not received the bicycle I was expecting. And, oh how I wanted a bike. The proverbial “all the other kids” had one, but not poor me. But, not to worry – I had a plan.

It was known in the neighborhood that Doug Lea had a used bike that he was going to sell. Doug was fourteen, and to a ten-year-old he was like a grown man. No wonder he was selling his bike – it was a mini bike and he was ready now for one of those big multi-speed units. It was also general knowledge that his sale price was $15. I had the cash for a deal. During the previous summer, I had sold bags of apples from our transparent apple tree in the backyard. I wheeled those apples around the neighborhood on my wagon selling them for 25 cents a bag and now had the sizeable profit (after subtracting the cost of the brown paper bags) of a little over $15! Do the math.

I discussed my intent-to-purchase plan with my dad. He agreed that, at that price, Doug’s used bike was good value. So I walked up the lane to the Lea house with my hard-earned fifteen dollar offer in hand. Mr. Lea answered the door and delivered crushing news to me. Doug was not home, but in any case, I was a little late. Doug had gone over to Barry Magliocco’s house to get the $25 that Barry had offered for the bike. Devastated!

Tears in my eyes, I ran home to tell my dad of this debacle. It just wasn’t right. The bike had been offered at fifteen dollars, and even you, dad, had said that the price was right. On top of all that, I had offered all I could afford and, besides, I really wanted that bike. I asked him to intervene on my behalf — go see Mr. Lea and demand that Doug stick to his earlier price so that I could purchase this object of my desire. And, besides, that used bike was only worth $15.

Boom! I was about to receive my first lesson in transactional economics. Dad sat me down, looked me square in the eye, and delivered his pithy opinion: “Son, any item, bike or otherwise, is ‘worth’ what someone is willing to pay for it.” At first, this 10-year-old had trouble understanding the veracity of a father’s wisdom. I had been a good kid (mostly). I had worked hard to earn the price of purchase. I wanted that bike – maybe even deserved it.

But that terrible Barry Magliocco had had the temerity to out-bid me. Yes, it took a while, but eventually my first lesson in capitalism registered with me.

Fast forward to the present. The concept of socialism is being introduced daily to us. This concept no longer receives a dismissive guffaw or a reproving comment such as Margaret Thatcher’s, “Socialism is a wonderful concept until you run out of other people’s money.” Many, especially on the Democratic side of the aisle such as Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, truly believe in the concept and want our government to move in that direction.

All of which makes me wonder: didn’t Ocasio-Cortez or Sanders ever have a childhood experience like my bike saga? And if they did, how did their parent handle it? Did Bernie’s dad go over to the other dad and demand that the original price be maintained? Or did he go over to see Mr. Magliocco to tell him that Barry was causing price inflation? Or, perhaps, did the elder Sanders cough up his hard-earned dollars to provide the “tax support” necessary to cover the “pedal gap”?

I can only hope that my little child’s parable can form the basis for serious discussions with young people (dare I include millennials?) about the differences between capitalism and socialism because jokes and dismissive comments about the latter are not doing it. This great country was built upon capitalism and is the economic envy of the world. Not even the socialists’ exemplars of Sweden and Denmark come close to emulating the   opportunity we have for self-improvement and reaching the quality of life to which the American citizens strive.

Another View is written on a rotating basis by a member of a group of conservative Midcoast citizens that meet to discuss issues they think are of public interest.