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.