Deconstructing Capitalism

Many of you might know, the current economic system we are employing right now is the capitalist mixed economy system. I'm sure you should also know how this economic system works in general. This post is an attempt to deconstruct capitalism, to help you discover, recognize and understand the underlying and unspoken ideas and framework that form the basis of this economic system in 2 parts, the political aspect and the social aspect.

The Political Aspect
The very fundamentals of capitalism is already a contradiction, as the ultimate goal of all firms is to have complete domination over the market, however the government must do everything they can to prevent that from happening in order to keep the system going because if a firm has too much market power, it can choose to set prices or produce at whatever quantity they want, and also the firm will not be motivated to improve the quality of the good due to lack of competition, thus resulting in market failure. Although firms having complete domination over a certain market are rare, there exists firms with a considerable market power because they have a large share of a particular market. These firms are your multinational corporations(MNCs). Because of their importance to a country's economic growth, they can use their power to sometimes change government policy by threatening to withdraw from the country's economy. To get these MNCs to set-up in their countries, governments usually offer incentives such as tax breaks, finished buildings with full utilities, free movement across borders and much more to them. These MNCs, taking advantage of these incentives, will occupy many countries across the world, and use all of the countries's resources for production. The target of these MNCs are usually third world countries, however, countries where they can exploit the people by giving them low wages for long labour hours are also ideal. The workers, even though they labour, do not own the goods they produce, nor are they paid the true price of the good as it is sold in the market. The capitalist system is based on creating large amounts of profit at expense of workers. These MNCs are also a menace to the environment, as they hold the production power to strip Mother Earth of whatever resources she has left. However, governments still encourage them to work in their countries, allowing them to exploit workers and destroy nature all in the name of economic progress. Still think the government is 'for the people, by the people'? They make various laws such as taxes to keep much of the state wealth in their own hands, because they want only themselves and MNCs to be able to afford the cost to the means of production. The average worker, with his lowly wage, will therefore never make enough money to take the means of production from them, thus they become trapped in the vicious cycle. The main reason for the government to advocate this capitalist economic system is because they feel at ease and strengthened in this economy; they recognize their power in this economy, the worker however, sees in this economy its own powerlessness and the reality of an inhumane existance.

The Social Aspect
Capitalism encourages ownership of property. Everything becomes turned into property owned by someone: tables, chairs, oceans, forest, airspace, ideas, sometimes even people! Something is either yours or mine, there is no share: "Wanna share? Sure, pay me money.". This is how many conflicts arise, because everyone is fighting over the right of ownership to things. We humans love the joy of giving; however, because we were all taught to think the capitalist way, we are prevented from doing so. Capitalism has reduced everyone to acting based on economic decisions to maximize personal gain to earn one owns living. From a 'give' to a 'get' way of living, selfishness runs rampant through our veins. This concept of maximizing personal gain has changed our social life greatly in other ways as well. People are willing to go to great lengths just to maximize personal gain, for example, boot-licking, spreading false rumors about your competitor, becoming someone else totally, or even murder! We have also become very afraid of being judged negatively, for the fear of losing 'face'. This 'face' is our exterior looks; it is how we appear to others in our economic relationships that define us. In this capitalist world, we are all individuals with varying amounts of economic worth, and 'face' is directly related to our economic worth. If we lose 'face', we might end up losing economic worth, and the opposite might be said when we gain 'face'. If you feel this world is very 'fake', you are probably right because everyone is trying their best to up their economic value, by putting up a false exterior with hopes of being judged positively, thus increasing their social status and reputation, or 'face'. And who determines positive and negative traits? Why the media and government of course. Which traits were positive and which were negative. For example: hardworking is deemed a good trait, because it implies one is constantly working, and is most likely to achieve most profit; while laziness is deemed a bad trait, because when one is lazy he is not working at maximum efficiency and productivity. In order to determine our productivity value, we were forced into education and as such, we turn to various forms of entertainment such as video games and materialism to escape this harsh reality.

Sparked by the Industrial Revolution and the efficient productivity of the capitalist economy, the increase in technology developments led to globalization across many countries. Because of globalization, people now have shallower relationships with other people than they would normally; it is now possible to buy everything online without even leaving your house, just to state an example. This would lead to difficulties in understanding and adapting to each other uniqueness, which would be the cause of many conflicts.

To compare us to farm animals: 1)A farm animal has loss of freedom, in a sense that it is restricted to where it wants to go, or when it wants to work, 2)The farm animal exists merely for the sake of production; it does the same routine everyday while awaiting its death, 3)A farm animal has no choice but to work, because if it does not work it will be left to starve and die. Does this situation look familiar? Well its because we are in the same scenario: A single capitalist employs an army of workers at wages just sufficient to provide for their basic necessities, the worker thus becomes a slave, he is no longer a free productive being because he absolutely must produce to meet his basic needs. This leads to the worker being separated from the act of working, because work has become a meaningless activity with little or no satisfaction. An average worker works 8 hours per day and sleeps 8 hours per day, but if the worker does not treat work as part of his life, am I right to say that we only truely lived less than 1/3 of our lives?

People form the basis of every economy, if there are no people, there would not be economy. No economic system can ever succeed if the people are not happy.