1
Owens
Bethany Owens
30 October 2015
3250:226
Dr. Myers
How Free Markets and Western Capitalism Have Failed
In everyday life it can be seen how capitalism and free markets have digressed over the years. The data from the 2015 survey had the majority of the public agree that capitalism and free markets have failed which I found interesting.Capitalism can be defined as “characterized competition between producers. Other facets, such as the participation of government in production and regulation, vary across models of capitalism” defined by the website Investopedia. On the other hand free markets can be defined as also defined by Investopedia, a free market is “a market economy based on supply and demand with little or no government control. A completely free market is an idealized form of a market economy where buyers and sellers are allowed to transact freely (i.e. buy/sell/trade) based on a mutual agreement on price without state intervention in the form of taxes, subsidies, or regulation.” With this it can be detected the ways free markets and capitalism have failed, the data taken from the public corresponds to they have failed, there may be solutions to ease the issue of this failure.
To begin, this failure of capitalism and free markets can be identified in numerous areas of daily life. For example, Iranand the United States did not trade for several years because of all the restrictions. This is not free trade and free trade is beneficial to both parties in the average scenario. This is one way free trade has failed because politics get involved leading to a loss for some countries when it could have been beneficial to both parties to an extent. Today, basically everything is taxed and numerous areas of the economy are regulated. There is also the issue of subsidies and having so many of them such as the subsidy on cotton.
Second, the data taken from the survey shows that the public concurs with the failure of the markets and capitalism. The results reveal that out of the thirty individuals interviewed sixteen out of the thirty agreed while one person strongly agreed with the failure. The results show that over half of the public interviewed concurs with the statement. Only six individuals neither agreed nor disagreed were indifferent with the statement. To continue seven out of the thirty individuals disagreed with the statement, showing that the majority of those interviewed agreed with this decline within the economy.
Third, a way to ease all the challenges that have been occurring with capitalism and free markets is through democracy. If there were less inequality and more equality the public would be more satisfied. The public would be more accepting of how the government is working if we had a true democracy. In an article by Gary Engler names a few things that can be done to ease this issue such as “replacing corporate ownership with social ownership, replacing capitalist entitlement with equal human entitlement and replacing master-servant relations with workplace democracy — the system that drives enterprises to maximize profits, regardless of the consequences, would no longer exist.” These issues can not be solved over night, but the possible ways to ease these issues are a start point.
In conclusion, every country has issues with how it is run. The public will have issues that they disagree on. Some of the issues with the United States is the issue with greed and capitalism as well as the way free markets are acting. These events that are happening such as the 2008 financial crisis are one way that reflects how the public is viewing the economy and markets which is as a constant decline. The survey helps reassure that the public concurs and that there are other possible ways to improve the situation.
Works Cited
Engler, Gary. "Capitalism Is the Problem, Democracy the Solution." Dissident Voice. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2015.
Investopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.
Investopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
SAS. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2015.