Quasi-Capitalistic Micro Economy

This page undergraduate paper discusses the change in the quasi-capitalistic micro economy over time. The paper also refers to a shift from the classical study of economics from Adam Smith that is from the free market system to a more Keynesian approach. The paper highlights how technology has changed how we work as the employee is no longer just a factor of production to be exploited but a meaningful part of the business.

The year 1917 has become synonymous with a fundamental paradigm shift in the political and economic history of the empire encompassing one-sixth of the world’s total land area. A shift from government by the tsars and tsarinas under a quasi-capitalistic system financed in large part by foreign capital, the October Revolution of 1917 brought political power into the hands of the workers and the peasants of the Russian Empire long oppressed by feudal landlords and capitalists. Beyond economic oppression, their leaders twice since the start of the 20th century had led the people of the Russian Empire into military defeat and great demoralization. The loss in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and the disasters of World War One created severe distrust of the tsardom and the imperial government. After Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne in March, the Soviets wrested power from the Provisional Government in October. Nearly a hundred years later the change in the quasi-capitalistic micro economy is clearly visible.

In a Quasi-Capitalistic society people normally do not seek to change or expand their production, so much as to conserve a way of life set by tradition. This ideology of resistance to social and cultural change is a major obstacle to development; yet it would be rash to damn it without reflection. In other words, having learned by experience that his surplus-producing capacity does not guarantee the kind and quality of public services the state is supposed to provide, the people refuse to produce more.

From time to time over the last century there has been talk of some new restriction on human liberty in the economic field, some new attack on private enterprise. People have always pondered over what they could do to fight the inflationist or socialist trend. The answer is seldom an easy one. It depends on the circumstances and ability of the questioner who may be a businessman, a housewife, a student, informed or not, intelligent or not, articulate or not.

This task has become tremendous, and seems to grow greater every day. A few nations that had gone completely communist, like Soviet Russia and its satellites, try, as a result of sad experience, to draw back a little from complete centralization, and experiment with one or two quasi-capitalistic techniques; but the world's prevailing drift — in more than 100 out of the 107 nations and mini-nations that are now members of the International Monetary Fund, is in the direction of increasing socialism and controls.

One of our gravest problems is that we find ourselves confronting armies of bureaucrats already controlling us, and with a vested interest in keeping and expanding the controls they were hired to enforce.

I can easily criticize capitalism by recounting my family's employment problems and I can easily think of some collectivist economic models as alternatives, such as democratic socialism or "participatory" economics. First of all, we don't have a completely laissezfaire capitalist system. Our economic system is inestimably burdened by regulations on what you may buy and sell and whether you can even go into business. To go into business, you must comply with countless directives governing how you operate your enterprise. Also, federal, state and local governments confiscate through taxation about 47 percent of what all Americans produce. Yet our system survives because of the enterprising nature and work ethic of our people. The operating principle of free-market capitalism is individuals trading freely with one another. The unholy trio of big business, big government and big labor has always worked to undermine this basic free-market principle.

Under a laissez-faire arrangement, no one is forced to work or to accept their station in life because they are under socialism or other slave-labor systems. Free-market capitalism is the only system in which you are completely free to keep what you earn or choose your own profession – you can even start a worker-owned business.

Even under the academically hip notion of "democratic socialism," your life and your work are subject to the tyranny of the majority. The height of socialism's immorality is its complete denial of the individual's right to determine his own life.

Millions of immigrants have come to America to make a better life for themselves and to be free of tyranny – not to suffer “under the misery that capitalism has wreaked.” It is the capitalist countries who shower the third-world socialist backwaters with food aid and economic assistance. In doing so, we unwittingly prop up socialist military dictatorships who wreak nothing but misery on their own people.

With all of the problems staring us in the face there is a way of doing something, something that means well and an idea that will work for all. Taking in to account all political institutions, we are not able to denounce the government and move to Anarchism which would have a private sector that is profit goal oriented only. We would also not want some entity to have complete control of the private sector by some world government that could lead us into communism and slow or prevent economic growth that we so enjoy. This idea for the future presents itself basically resting in the middle, calling itself Social Capitalism. This Social Capitalism is a mixture of economies that are currently first world nations that economically and socially outperform the rest of the world. Since they outperform the rest of the world, it is only right to take that economic strategy and use it in a way that has not been seen before thus pioneering a new economy that basically already exists.

Capitalism has economically worked in the past and "is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned."(1) The Hegemonic union supports this claim and believes as this definition does and would not want to slow our competitive nature. Our union would exist with a definite claim to Capitalism but intervened with Socialism. We want our economy to prosper, but we do not want to discriminate or oppress the ones that we are trying to help. Find more papers at PhDify.com

Bibliography

1. Cunha, Mark. Capitalism.org bahamas: 1996,97,98,99 capitalism Definition. Online
2. Bell, Daniel. 1976. The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. New York: Basic.
3. Berger, Peter; Berger, Brigitte; and Kellner, Hansfried. 1973. The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness. New York: Random House.