preview

Capitalism Is An Efficient Market System Essay

Good Essays

Capitalism is an incredibly efficient market system yet it comes at distinct costs. A core problem of capitalism is the manner it fulfils human need and desire. It is a system of preference satisfaction. This is a problem because people’s preferences seldom align with the things that will actually make them happy. If only I had a faster car, computer and cell phone, I would finally be… The end of the sentence is never even finished. The ultimate end of happiness is replaced with the proximate ends of fulfilling a desire, inculcated by capitalism to begin with. This is advanced in the 21st century where we spend much of our time absorbing media designed by the capitalist system to stimulate our expenditure; to create desires that never existed, that when fulfilled will bring no fulfilment, no happiness. A core notion of capitalism is freedom. Freedom from the government to pursue whatever ends you believe will bring you happiness. With the protection of private property, what is ours, what we own, is our ends .To this Marx provides a perfectionist alternative and a detailed exposition of the problem of alienation (Marx, 1844). This essay is a nuanced exposition of Marx’s alienation with a brief critique of two aspects of Marx’s theory.
To understand alienation we must first delve into Marx’s historical materialism (Kymlicka, 2002: 176). The start of capitalism begins when feudalism ends, industrialisation. Feudalism was defined by its unmasked class divisions and alienation

Get Access