Capitalism and Socialism

                The definition of Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. The best example of capitalism is the early United States. Many might argue that the United States is still has a capitalistic economy, but I disagree. The United States is moving more toward a socialistic economy and away from the capitalistic economy. Socialism is social and economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy, as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system. Many people would argue this to. When founded, the United States was set up to be a capitalistic economy, but over the years especially starting in the 1900’s monopolies grew and began to take over the economy buying out small businesses.

                If you look at our economy today we see large businesses controlling the majority of the markets and even politics. Almost everything is controlled by either health care systems or oil companies. Oil companies control the gas prices, high gas prices makes shipping more expensive, expensive shipping makes products go up in price. Health care companies also control a large part of the economy. They charge so much for healthcare that many people cannot afford to pay for simple medicines needed. Heath care also makes it hard for some people to get insurance to pay for healthcare. Heath care is so expensive that insurance companies will not cover people because they would lose too much money doing it.

                Wal-Mart is another large company that controls a big part of the economy. Living in South Dakota or any other smaller areas of the country we see how a company as large as Wal-Mart can control an area. I have seen many times how Wal-Mart has come into small towns and put small privately owned businesses out of business. 

                With all of this I don’t think that capitalism is such a bad thing but I do think that the United States has begun to move away from capitalism and more toward a socialist economy. Socialism I think has many up sides to it but it also has many down sides too. The upside the government takes are of its people. The problem is that the government takes care of its people. When the government is in control of people’s businesses they get to control the decisions of the company. The people don’t get to make the decisions that they think is the best for their company.

Democracy

“Democracy ... while it lasts, is bloodier than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”

             -John Adams

 

I believe that John Adams fully knew and understood the true concept of democracy. I also believe that his definition or description of democracy is spot on. When John Adams says, “democracy is bloodier than either aristocracy or monarchy”, he is right. Democracy is not cheap, and I don’t mean cheap as in money, I mean that you have to fight for democracy and the freedom that comes with it. Look at how much it took to gain our freedom from the beginning. We fought the British in the revolution to first gain our freedom. The revolution which cost us over 25,000 lives and took us 8 years of fighting to win was one of the bloodiest wars up to this date. Then again in 1812, when the British tried to regain the land that they lost 30 years ago, we lost another 20,000 Americans. That is why democracy isn’t cheap. But like John Adams said, democracy does not last long as will eventually commit a type of suicide. We see this almost happening today. As Americans we have seen many wars over the years that were fought for our freedom. But when we do this, we almost bite off more than we can chew. We have military based all around the world and control a lot of land, almost too much. What we have makes other countries jealous. Our people are free to do as they please and that makes other countries hate us. So they all want to destroy what we have. As you can see today, America is getting so big that it can’t support itself. We rely on other countries for things that we need to survive. We are going to get so big that we will collapse. It bound to happen in the future, John Adams knew this. Why? It has happened in the past. And every time, it was good when it was good but after a while it began to fade and eventually collapsed. I had never heard this quote before today but I can honestly say that it is one of the most true quote I have ever heard.

Bicameral

The constitution immediately established the bicameral governments because that is what the people were use too. When the original 13 colonies first originated, they originated from Great Britain. Great Britain has a bicameral government and always has so the people used that as an outline for our government today. I think that bicameral government is very effective. It favors both small and large populated states so all states have a fair share in policies that affect their state.