Saturday, December 26, 2009

Arguments against capitalism examined

Here are some arguments against capitalism examined. Here they are;

1. One argument out there is that capitalism has failed. Alot of socialists and communists would would argue with the fact that the global recession was caused by the collapse of the housing market. The question asked would be was the fall of the housing market caused by the failure of capitalism or the government abusing it? What the socialists, statists, and communists don't realize is that the housing market has been controlled and manipulated by the government. It is the regulations imposed by the government that caused the housing market to fall, not the free market.

2. Another argument is that under a capitalistic system, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The poor are "fooled" into believing that they can gain under this system. Their wages hold them in place and the moment they are unemployed, it's gone. Well, if an individual is diligent and works hard in a capitalistic economy, he will get rewarded by having a raise in his salary or get promoted. If a person doesn't put effort in his job, he would either get fired, demoted, or will not get a raise in pay. Here is another fact, in the United States, the poorest person is richer than 90% of the entire world. The poorest Americans are far better off than the average citizens of socialists/communists societies such as the former Soviet Union, Cuba, and North Korea.

3. One argument is that a capitalistic systems are unplanned, leading to crashes and depressions. Does the economy go through hard times? Absolutely. But there is no other system in world that has raised the standard of living and the quality of life than capitalism. What has Socialism done to improve the way of life in Cuba and North Korea? Nothing! In Cuba, the country is still in the 1950s and people make enough money only to buy a chicken for their family. In America, if a person worked minimum wage during the summer, he can buy a laptop computer, a playstation 2, a radio, television, food, an ipod, a GPS, and alot of other things.

4 comments:

  1. Great argument Zach.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Some elements of capitalism are good, but capitalism needs to be contained. It is not as simple as if you work hard, you'll do well if you don't, you won't.

    If you take a step back and look at the big picture, there is just as good if not a better argument that your success in life depends on where you start. Many things that are out of one's control. No one can choose the family they are born into. Take most of today's wealthy people, go back in time and switch them at birth with most of today's poor people who live in ghettos. This interesting theoretical experiment would no doubt have a profound effect on the success or lack of success of all of the people involved. The experiment would not bode well for arguments about how "fair" capitalism is.

    If all the worker bees working at big companies for $8/hr vanished, CEOs and upper management would not be able to make the obscene amounts that they do now. If they all vanished, we would realize how valuable and necessary their services are. CEOs have rare skills/aptitudes and should be compensated well. But why not just $1 million instead of $10 million or $50 million or more?

    People should be rewarded for hard work and rare skills. But some of the upper end salaries were arbitrarily inflated. The overall income discrepancies in the United States have become unacceptable in my opinion.

    We can put on a caring and compassionate facade all we want, but the reality is our society is a greedy, consumerist-driven, self-serving place. I think a step in the opposite direction is a positive change. But nah, let's not worry about that. As long as I go to church on Sunday, it's all good.

    ReplyDelete