Capitalistic Government Of US Essay Example For Students

Capitalistic Government Of US Essay We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal,that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, thatamong these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness That to securethese Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powersfrom the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomesdestructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolishit, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles,and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely toeffect their Safety and Happiness. (Thomas Jefferson, Declaration ofIndependence) When Thomas Jefferson wrote these words, he wrote them with theintent of establishing a new government that would not give anyone favoritismover others. After 224 years, this idea is still believed in by the citizens ofAmerica, but not practiced by their government. As the years passed, the valuesof Amer ica have slowly altered to materialism. The people trusted our governmentto make the best decisions for the entire country, but some decisions seem tofavor the wealthiest citizens rather than all of the citizens. Not to say thatthe government is completely corrupt, but their priorities seem to have amonetary value, and they must pay for it some how. As a country with acapitalist government, one that has the main focus of making profit through freemarkets, money has an unfortunately big influence on policies that are made bythe government. According to the public, which was based on middle-class adultsin the US, business editors and college students, the general consensus came outto be that they believed that capitalism must be altered before anysignificant improvements in human welfare can be realized. This can beseen throughout history in the positions taken by the government about freemarkets, unionization, and . The United States of Americas government ishyper-capitalistic, becau se the markets are freer than in any other country. Weconsume more and are more dependent on working. The markets in the US have notalways been so free. In the beginning we had small markets that people did notdepend so much on because of the fact that they were all farmers andsharecroppers. The existence of slavery was in very recent in history back then. America was not considered a capitalistic country, but instead a feudal onebecause everyone traded and didnt expect monetary compensation for theirproducts. When the goal of production (around the end of the 19th century)changed from being used for exchange to profit, the US began to becomecapitalistic. To establish a definition of capitalism, I shall establish it aswhen goods are produced to be sold; the revenues made are then used to be whatyou need with intent to make a profit in the end. Our capitalistic ways areeffective in the US government because it small enough to allow the businessesto make their own decisions. As the US became industrialized, the need tomass-produce came into effect, and the boom in the labor market began. Theproblem with this is that the freedom of the markets allowed the businesses tomove around as they liked; only when they were knowingly signing a contract werethey forced to make a commitment. Markets dispersed power that kept thegovernment from being able to say anything to the businesses that were makingthe most money in the market. The government decided to not involve itself whenit came to the market, even though they knew that the bigger companies wereovertaking the smaller ones. The wealthiest owners had the power in the marketsand this allowed them to have more say as to what goes on in the free market. The government could intervene in this situation, but they do not because itwould be too risky for them to put restrictions on the companies that right nowhave the power in the business world. The free market of America is one thatclaims that everyone is free to gain power, but what happens when businessowners decide to be a monopoly? Competition is good, but there are competitorsthat are so powerful that they are willing to crush any smaller competition. Thegovernments role in this situation can be seen as unfavorable for the smallerbusinesses and favorable to the wealthier businesses. The government chose tominimally involve itself in this situation under the pretext that the citizensof this great country did not wish to have the government to get involved. Theyknew that monopolies were being created by the big businesses but that fact didnot get them to involve themselves. Their lack of involvement in situations suchas these where the wealthy are conquering the poor shows that the y are sidingwith the wealthy business owners by not fighting against them. This is not tosay that they government never involved itself in such instances, but theynevertheless do little for the smaller businesses with their policies. TheSherman Act of 1890 prohibited conspiracies in restraint of tradeand other monopolistic practices, but these acts were too outdated for oureconomy. Therefore, congress established the Federal Reserve System as areaction to the power that the financial monopolies had in America. It washeaded by a board with fair representation of financial, agricultural,industrial, and commercial interests, and the geographical divisions of thecountry. All these laws and systems have not done much to keep the economyfrom monopolizing, however. In the 20th century, the working class becamethe most important antimonopoly force. Many labor organizations and thepolitical parties based on the working class, while supporting traditionalantimonopoly demands, increasingly foc used on labors claims againstmonopoly. In the 1970s, due to the lack of antitrust and antimonopolylaws, IBM won a lawsuit that was put against them by smaller business owners. Parts of a Holy Mass EssaySecondly, it puts the citizens of the city in danger. The citizens of the cityhave the deadly E. coli pollutant in their well water. Because of the plant thatthe government begged to come to its city, the citizens are not able to drinkthe water from their water systems. The government was willing to spend morethan $111 million on a company that would basically destroy its area, but it isnot willing to spend $750,000 for the citizens to be able to drink their water. The government is too profit involved. The phrase Money makes the world goaround is very true in this case. The citizens would not be giving themany money in return for the clean water, but the company would be creating jobsand revenues for that state. The jobs that the companies would be creating forthe state are not the greatest jobs ever. In the case of Nebraska Beef Ltd., anOmaha beef-packing company, the jobs it created involved sweatshop conditions. The workers were not given more than one bathroom break, they had one break 7and a half hours before they ended work, and that is only if they worked tenhours. If they worked nine hours in one day they got no break. The state ofNebraska gave the corporation approximately $31.5million and even with that muchmoney, it was not able to fully train its workers and provided them withlow-paying jobs. The state did not even think about putting work laws on theplants; it made no demands as to what it wanted in return for providing so muchto the company. One can say that it did create a program called Nebraska QualityJobs Board, but apparently it didnt help out in this situation. What is aquality job for Nebraska? Because of their bad choice in corporation to bringinto its state, the citizens refuse to work for the corporation. Citizens fromother states are the ones that are working in the plants, which pretty muchdefeats the purpose of bringing the corporations to the state. All it did wascre ate more problems for the state such as traffic and pollution for thecitizens of the state. One question that I have to ask myself is, if thesituation is this bad here, how is it over in the other capitalist countries? InCohen and Rogers On Democracy, they say that while capitalist democracycedes workers certain rights and liberties, including suffrage, it does noteliminate the subordination of the interests of workers to the interests ofcapitalists remains a necessary though insufficient condition for thesatisfaction of the interests of workers, and the welfare of workers is thusdependent on the welfare of capitalists. In Western Europe this idea wouldnot be completely true. The unions in Western Europe, first of all, are strongerthan the ones here in the United States. Europe was industrialized before theybecame democratic. Therefore, they had to get together in order to get anythingdone within the government in their favor. The workers do have an interest inthe capitalist, but no t to the extent where they would do whatever thecapitalist tells them to. The Western European governments involved their poorworkers more than the US when it came to policies because of historical legaciesand because of the constructed institutions. One thing that failed in Americadid manage to work in Europe, and that is the labor parties. The workers had tocreate their own parties. In the United States, the politicians crushed thelabor parties, but in Europe they remain strong. One thing that is important toremember is that governments that are very favorable towards the poor do sobecause the poor are able to overcome the resource constraint. In Europe this istrue but what is also true is that there is great solidarity in Europe, whichmade the workers so strong. Along with this the Industrial Revolution thathappened in the last half of the 18th Century greatly helped the labor workers. The Industrial Revolution was the first step in modern economic growth anddevelopment. The workers in Europe are big in number and the Revolutionbrought on new work conditions to the workers. Labor Parties established betterwages and hours for the workers. The labor parties were huge in number andcouldnt be put down by the government as easily as the United States put downits unions. In the United States, we have always believed that all men arecreated equal. Americans, however, know that even though we were created equal,we are not treated equally. The rich are the V.I.P to the government. They aretaken care of well, and pampered with money and privileges that the other hardworking Americans deserve more than them. We are in the age of profits, and ifthe government does not see any monetary value in something, they will notbother with it, even if it is its own people. BibliographyPeterson, Robert A.,Gerald Albaum, and George Kozmetsky.Modern AmericanCapitalism. New York: Quorum Books, 1990. Perlo, Victor. Superprofits andCrises: Modern U.S. Capitalism. New York: International Publishers, 1988. Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, Chapter 3 from Poor Peoples Movements:Why they Succeed, How they Fail,(Vintage, 1977), pp96-180. Lembcke, Jerry. Capitalist Development and Class Capacities: Marxist Theory and UnionOrganization. New York:Greenwood Press, 1988. Joel Roers and Joshua Cohen, OnDemocracy, (Penguin, 1983), Chapter Six, Democracy, pp146-183. Industrial Revolution Encarta Encyclopedia