Capitalism seems to be the ideal market within our society, but when examined closely it seems to be the exact opposite. In Schweickart’s essay on Capitalism, you can clearly see the amount of inequality, unemployment, and even overwork among citizens under Capitalism.
In this essay it was said that “if we divide the income of the United States into thirds, we find that the top 10 percent of the populations gets a third, the next 30 percent gets another third, and the bottom 60 percent gets the last third” (92). When looking at these statistics, it is easy to see the inequality among citizens in our country. I am in no way saying that it would be feasible for there to be no extremely poor, or no extremely rich. There is obviously going to be a divide among income and classes, but in my opinion, things need to be modified so that this distribution among income is more equal.
Unemployment is also a large issue that is continually growing in the United States, as well as every other country in the world. It seems to be a new growing problem for the United States since we are not used to this term “unemployment.” Schweickart says that capitalism requires unemployment, and this may be the case, but shouldn’t our economy find a better system that would require less unemployment than capitalism? One way in which the U.S could slow its unemployment rate would be to stop shipping jobs to overseas plants in order to reduce costs. In return, if these jobs were not shipped overseas, what would the people in these countries do for work? There must be a middle ground that can be reached.
With so many people in the world, how is it possible that we would ever have the problem of overwork? Although I do not agree with it, it makes sense in a capitalist economy. The more competitive that the economy becomes, the more that companies push harder for their workers to work longer hours in order to get things done. If the current workers do not want to work the long hours, they are simply fired, and replaced by the many people standing in line waiting to receive a job. With our economy continually becoming more and more competitive, something needs to be done in order for this “overwork” to stop.
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The OP’s claim that “capitalism seems to be ideal in our society, but is exactly opposite is inaccurate. First, people are the byproducts of the economic and political systems they live, therefore are forced to take part in the game. Although capitalism has its faults it is a system that works within our political system. Economics and politics of every country work in a symbiotic fashion, which is why government is the inseparable combination of the two (economics and politics).
To continue to say “Things need to be modified so that this distribution of income is more equal” makes it seem like capitalism is against equality. Equality in my view is the ability to choose or freedom or access and mobility between classes. If equality by minimizing the income gap was emphasized, then we would be living in a communist market where the distribution of income is flat and there is no ability to gain profit from the work you put in.
Furthermore, the OP continues her claim and feels that we should have a lower unemployment rate by stopping outsourcing to reduce production cost. Although a high unemployment rate is negative in that it reflects the strength of the economy, unemployment is another minor fault within a proven economic system (capitalism). By having an unemployment pool, it gives workers incentive. They are under the force of being laid-off. To address the issue of outsourcing, we have a higher unemployment rate currently because of economic pressures other than outsourcing. The purpose of capitalism is to maximize profit; therefore if outsourcing provides a lower production cost, then outsourcing is necessary for corporations to stay in competition. If corporations cannot maintain progress by staying in this competition consumers will see a “trickle” effect in the products they purchase.
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