snowball essay first draft

INTRO

Capitalism-An economic system in which major companies that provide for the people are privately owned and run by individual citizens of that country. This kind of economic system supports the idea of one person making profit off of the labors of another. In the case of the U.S., the people making profit off of others form the minority of the population while the laborers form the majority. Capitalism also forms a system of social class so that the laborers, because they have a lower income, are placed in a lower class than the people making more money. This economic system makes the richer more rich by taking resources from the poor.

Government policy-This dictates the way people act through force. Anything the policy is against, the government will reward with punishment such as a sentence in prison or they will force you to pay a fine for a parking ticket. Government Policy is a set of rules we are forced to follow for fear of punishment. It is more acceptable to break social norms than to break government policy, most like because social norms rely less on force.

Social Norms-Specific manners of acting that society as a whole deems acceptable. If someone does something that is socially unacceptable, there is no real forceful punishment, but that individual will become less accepted by society. This will make it more difficult for that particular individual to live in that society. This is not always the case however. There are many social norms that can be broken without any repercussions of any kind, and the social norms are dependant on where you are.

CAPITALISM

“Capital” is wealth invested to create more wealth. Whenever a business owner sets aside money for something like advertising, a machine that will do work, more property on which to do business, anything that will help create more business (and therefore, more money) is Capital. Using Capital can help a business grow or expand, and this is the idea that capitalism revolves around.

Socialist Karl Marx once stated, “Capitalism profanes all that is holy.” and while the negativity against capitalism can be debated, it can be observed that capitalism affects everything. Everything can be bought or sold; clothing, food, entertainment, power, sex, all perfectly attainable-with the right amount of currency. The unfortunate aspect of capitalism is that not everyone can have the right amount of currency. Class difference can be credited to Capitalism. This feeling of class difference has a tremendous impact on all of our lives and causes different groups of people to have different types of upbringings, types of homes, types of parents, families, etc. This affects people from infancy to death, through all life stages. Capitalism relies on a social pyramid in which the owning class or upper class people (executive class) are at the top, and make up a very small percentage of the population (say, 3%.) The middle section is made up of the managerial class, people who give orders but also take orders from people higher up than them. They make up a larger percentage than the executive class (17%) The remaining mass of people (80%) are made up of the lower class, people who constantly take orders and have to struggle constantly in order just to survive.

Infancy/Childhood- At first, it may seem that capitalism has no real effect on children. They don’t have jobs, they don’t worry about money, they don’t have a business to take care of. However, one aspect of capitalism, social class, greatly affects children. A child brought up in a rich household will not only have a completely different upbringing, they will also have many more opportunities and benefits than a child brought up in a lower class household will have. Because they have more money, they will be able to attend a much more expensive college, where they receive a “better” education, with which they will be able to receive a higher paying job. In the film, 7 up!, children in the UK of age seven were taken from different social classes and interviewed. The upper class children, when asked about what schools they would be going to, seem to have a very clear idea of where they would end up going; they would go to this school for this amount of time and they would have to take this test in order to get into this university etc. Though they were very young, they seemed extremely confident that everything would go according to the plan they had outlined. The lower class children, however, didn’t have such a clear idea of where they were going. One even asked, “What does university mean?”

Teenagers- It is at this stage in life that what you intend to do for a living becomes very important. At this time you start thinking about college and what your major is, or if you don’t intend to go to college, what job you get after high school. Most of the decisions you make at this stage revolve around your career. But, in order to into the college you want, you need money. So, you get a (usually) low paying job at a grocery store or fast food restaurant, something low-paying and uninteresting where you have to take orders from your boss, and the customer. Teenagers are easily exploited by capitalist business owners so that they can get more labor for less cost. Teenagers are also still affected by social class at this point.

Adults- At this stage, our lives are pretty much defined by what we do to make a living. Whenever anyone introduces themselves, they are identified by their occupation. “Hello, I’m a doctor” or “a teacher” or “a construction worker” It is also apparent at this stage that everything has a price. You have to pay for housing, electricity, plumbing, water, food, entertainment, everything must be paid for with your labor. People’s lives revolve around their job, working class people have to work for long hours for most of the week with little payment, while the few upper class people make money off of the working class’ labors.