Capitalism : The Great Depression

The Great Depression is probably one of the most misunderstood events in American history. It is routinely cited, as proof that unregulated capitalism is not the best in the world, and that only a massive welfare state, huge amounts of economic regulation, and other interventions can save capitalism from itself. The Great Depression had important consequences and was a devastating event in America, however many good policies and programs became available as a result of the great depression, some of which exist even today.

In chapter 21, the Great Depression greatly affected the migrant families and local farmers. Mold of cruelty is a metaphor describing the harsh living condition that the migrant workers received from the landowners. In California, the local landowners didn’t want the migrants to take over “their land” so they armed themselves in order to prevent any uprising and threatening actions that will threaten their superiority. They felt they had a right to treat the migrants bad because they were the first to claimed the land. This treatment could be linked to WWII as the Nazi discriminated the Jews in Germany and in the United States, some people are still discriminating that immigrants the moved to the United States. Although, the men that were armed

Capitalism is a social system based on the principle of individual rights. Politically, it is the system of laissez-faire (freedom). Legally it is a system of objective laws (rule of law as opposed to rule of man). Economically, when such freedom is applied to the sphere of production its result is the free-market. Capitalism might not be a perfect system, but it is not that evil. There is evidence proven that capitalism has helped the U.S. become the wealthiest nation. The primary concept of capitalism is totally devoted to the creation

Some argue that Capitalism is beneficial for everyone but that’s not true at all. There is this article called Capitalists, Arise: We Need to Deal With Income Inequality by PETER GEORGESCU from the new york times.

There was a steel mill company created in the 1900 in Gary by a president of the United States name Elbert H. Gary it was named after him. The steel started getting popular because everyone nationwide was using it to build railroads and homes. There three things they used to make steel such as iron ore, limestone, and coals. There was variety of coals that was used but the only one they use was called coke they had to burn a fuel that turned into coke. In order for them to make it, they had to make the coke burn at an extremely high temperature so they can produce it to melt big quantity of limestone and iron ore.

Marx thought of capitalism in a pessimistic way, he saw the relationship between the employee and employer in a capitalistic society as toxic. To Marx, in a capitalistic society the employee would always be at a constant struggle for power be never endlessly repressed by the bourgeoisie. The employer would pay employees only what they needed to survive making it impossible to move up in class or society. He also recognized that in capitalism everything becomes corporatized. Things like marriage go from a sacred bond between two individuals that once never included money or the government, to something that is regulated by the national government and must be done through the federal court and include ties between the individual's financial status. Small businesses would also become corporatized, a local family doctor has now become part of a larger practice that brings in complex forms of payment such as insurance instead of simply paying a small family doctor directly. He also goes into the downfall of capitalism. The way capitalism works is through a series of economic highs and lows, each high is marked by prosperous times, high employment rate, and overall happiness. But the lows are marked by deterioration of the national economy, low employment rates, and struggle for all classes. To Marx’s these highs and lows are what's killing capitalism with each low being worse than the last until the people revolt and create a new form of government. The next would be socialism and once this fell like capitalism, the new governing system would be communism. Communism is an ideal system where people are never struggling for money and are paid based on their needs rather than their particular job. Through this system a

Capitalism can be defined as a political and economic system where private owners control industries and trades to make profit. Capitalism leads to economic growth because it is efficient. Capital businesses have incentives to be efficient and produce goods in high demand for the public. These incentives end up cutting costs for consumers. State owned businesses are not as efficient, keeping surplus workers and having fewer incentives for innovation. When businesses work harder to be innovative, it catalyzes economic expansion. Economic expansion increases GDP and, in theory, is supposed to improve living standards. In capitalism, the market determines prices rather than the government, which leads to economic growth. Private property rights allow for anyone to produce items and services to sell in the market. Capitalism allows for economic growth because fast growing economies produce more jobs and more wealth. Capitalism envourages

The Great Depression is probably one of the most misunderstood events in American history. It is routinely cited, as proof that unregulated capitalism is not the best in the world, and that only a massive welfare state, huge amounts of economic regulation, and other Interventions can save capitalism from itself. Among the many myths surrounding the Great Depression are that Herbert Hoover was a laissez faire president and that FDR brought us out of the depression. What caused the Great Depression? To get a handle on that, it's necessary to look at previous depressions and compare. The Great Depression was by no means the first depression this country ever had, but it was clearly the worst. What made it different than the rest? At the time

“The population of unemployed and underemployed explodes. There is a vicious circle here. Because so many seek work, wages are very low. Because one wage cannot support even a small family, more and more family members must seek employment. This move adds to the pool of labor and further depresses wages.” (Syracuse U. Press) Further, if wages begin to rise in one country, other countries seize the opportunity and lower their wages even further. With this cycle of falling wages and more and more people needing jobs, poverty increases drastically. With wages so low, the owners of these large companies get richer and richer—the vast majority of wealth in a country becomes concentrated in one small group of people. While this is good for those few, the vast majority of citizens are shorthanded. Capitalism is an excellent system for the elite and for increasing efficiency, but as far as providing for the needs of all of its citizens, it falls short. Thus, capitalism is a system that causes and perpetuates poverty, and exploits its lower class.

In American history, the Great Depression ranks second as the longest and most severe crisis ever experienced only dislodged from the first position by the Civil War. The Great Depression marked a period of economic downturn that resulted in severe declines in output, acute deflation, financial insecurity and severe unemployment rates. This was a sharp contrast from the early 1920’s when the country was experiencing a period of tremendous economic growth and prosperity. The Great Depression was brought about by a number of factors that included the declining consumer demand, a natural slowdown in the cycle of business, misguided government policies, panics within the financial markets and environmental disasters among others. Everyone felt the effects of the Great Depression on every part of the country, rural or urban. From the rich to the poor, the young to the old, white Americans to African Americans, no one was spared from the devastating effects of the depression. The experience of millions Americans suffering as a result of the Great Depression paint a clear picture on how serious the crisis was. Many Americans believed that it was the government’s role to alleviate them from the suffering and also offer relief aid to curb hunger and starvation. Letters sent to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Mrs. Roosevelt with photographs taken by photographers of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) show and tell the social experiences of many Americans during that period.

When we look back through history we can find many opportunities to learn the lessons of economic theory but The Great Depression is a particularly relevant historical event when discussing economics. It is a defining event in the history of America as politics and economics intertwined, transforming the role of the federal government in the economy. Due to the length, severity and global effects an entire decade is known as the Great Depression. Theories continue to be debated on how or why the Depression took place and the reasons for its eventual end however, what most will agree on is that “The Great Depression (1929-39) was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world” (History.com Staff, 2009).

If one asks most Americans their opinion about when our nations’ economy crashed the most severely, they would most likely say the period between October 1929, until 1930 when the United States went through the great depression. The great depression was a time where people lost nearly everything, from houses and farms, to families and children. People were starving and left out in the cold. The worst part about this was that once people lost their belongings, they were gone forever. In the 1900’s there weren’t many programs to help the public such as health insurance, welfare programs, or unemployment. All the money that individuals had saved throughout the course of their lives, and deposited in to banks was gone.

Capitalism started up as a system of investing and sharing money in order to increase the value of resources in the future. Capitalism was just an economic system, but then soon turned into a complex system of ethical practices. Harari defines capitalism as, “a set of teachings about how people should behave, educate their children and even think” (Harari 314). This economic system evolved along with the people that were endorsing it. Capitalism enables the rich to get richer, while the poor continue to get poorer. There are many benefits to capitalism, but there are downfalls as well, and these downfalls tend to be masked because of the rapid speed capitalists grow at. Harari first presents a definition for capitalism, and soon goes into great detail on why capitalism, while fast paced and unforgiving, is able to stand unwavered while other productions fail.

Capitalism is an economic system in which industry, trade and factor and means of production are controlled by private investors or owners with an aim of making profit in a market economy. It affects the rate of capital accumulation, labor wage and the control of competitive market. This usually affects the economy of different societies since the government has no control over the economy. The forces of capitalism greatly affect the societies in that the poor continues to be poorer while the reach society continues to accumulate wealthy and become richer. It widens the income disparity gap. It influences both the economic aspect and social aspect of the societies largely. This mainly is influenced by the forces that

For example, when a good is scarce, the prices goes up, so consumers try to avoid buying and therefore conserving the resource. Then, the suppliers want to find more of the source as to get a better profit. The reasons behind their actions are selfish, yet they benefit all of society. Smith identified that the pursuit of profit and the power of self-interest would increase motivation and result in more advances in technology. His model of capitalism was on the basis of freedom and selfishness as a motivator for society. It was also on the basis that the economy would go through recessions and expansions but fix itself. Recessions are periods in the economy in which unemployment goes up, while profits and spending goes down; a slowdown of the economy. An expansion is essentially the exact opposite. The classical model of economics states that the economy will continue to go through these fluctuations over time and will fix itself with no help, thus not needing a government to give influence.