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Social mobility marxism
Social stratification and mobility in capitalist system
Social mobility marxism
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Many small businesses endure the same inevitable outcome upon the opening of a corporate business. A 44-year-old, rural grocery store in North Carolina faced a “30% sales drop” immediately after the opening of Walmart (Wolff-Mann “Walmart Closes”). To counteract the drastic drop in sales, the mom-and-pop ran grocery store lowered their prices in hopes to attract more customers. In return, Wal-mart matched and undercut their prices in order to reduce surrounding competition. Failing to compete with Walmart, the rural grocery store “succumbed to [its] inevitable last October, closing up entirely” (Wolff-Mann “Walmart Closes”).
Wal-Mart's “corporate monopol[y]” (Frick “Is Wal-Mart”) doesn’t only impact the small, locally ran stores, but can affect
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Capitalism places the “power in the hands of wealthy business people who aim mainly to maximize profits” (Shipley xi). People living under the reign of capitalism look up towards the “wealthy business people” as idols, as this economic system places them in the top class. Attempting to partake in social and financial mobility, individuals expect to rise to the top by adopting the ideology of continual profit maximization. Thus, resulting in the universal understanding that “the striving for wealth...[is the sole] purpose of being wealthy” (Webber 116). Striving to accumulate an increase of wealth, regardless of the possible negative repercussions, creates the basis of capitalism that “greed is the essence of capitalism” (Richards 119). This financial greed, creates a mindset in most consumers, begins to fuel and foster “individualistic self that includes [a] competiti[ve] lifestyle, private ownership of property, [and] instability or liquid life” (Guitart “The consumer”) as being the foundational ideology to live by. The exponentially increase in focus on competition and the “ownership of property” causes shift from traditional values, the belief in family, god, and community, to the love and obsession over money and materialism, ultimately demonstrating a major flaw that capitalism has on the mindset of consumers. Capitalism centralizes human …show more content…
The Earth has seen “many instances of the destruction…. [caused] by human agency” (Sweezy 86) throughout history, with one of the justifications dealing with an economic affiliation of each nation. For example,“[capitalism creates, a] system that has only one goal, the maximization of profits in an endless quest for the accumulation of capital on an ever-expanding scale...is a system that is soulless...[and will] never be green” (Magdoff and Foster 96). Capitalism enables a system that places all attention on achieving the goal of maximizing profits regardless of the impact made on the environment. Many ecologists agree that over the past century “fossil fuels, the energy sources of capitalism, destroy life-from the territories where they are extracted to the oceans and the atmosphere that absorb the waste” (Klein 176). Ecologists associate fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas, as “energy sources of capitalism” because of the negligence and support that capitalists give when using these energy sources. Capitalism is a reckless economic system that disregards environmental impacts for the sake of
Mallaby admits Wal-Mart can treat their employees and other retailers unfairly, but as a result everyone can share in the 50 billion in savings that American shoppers consume annually. The pay that employees get is the price they must pay for low priced merchandise. Because of the minimal pay to employees, Wal-Mart strengthens its’ consumer buying power. Giving the American shoppers the savings they need, Wal-Mart’s has ultimately been them successful. Wal-Mart has potentially wiped out the middle class as an employer, but the employees can now work and ...
I don't see Wal-Mart as a huge retailer trying to take over the world with cheap prices. I see Wal-Mart as business that has played their cards the way they were dealt. Our economy is poor right now; banks are hurting because people a...
In his work, “Overselling capitalism,” Benjamin Barber speaks on capitalism’s shift from filling the needs of the consumer, to creating needs. He tells how it has become easier for people to borrow money, so that they no longer get as much satisfaction from affording necessities. He says capitalism can be good when both sides benefit, but it has overgrown and must continue creating needs, even though the only people who can afford these needs don’t have any. According to Barber, people are still working hard, but them and their children are becoming seduced by unneeded shopping. He states that people are becoming more needy, and losing discipline in their lifestyle. Additionally capitalism must encourage easy and addicting shopping to
Quinn, Bill. How Walmart Is Destroying America (and the world), And What You Can Do About It. Third Edition. Ten Speed Press, 2005. Print.
Walmart is bad for America, as some say. The Globalization essay that was handed out in class had many good points. It states that Walmart puts many smaller businesses out of service. A recent study by David Neumark of the University of California at Irvine and two associates at the Public Policy Institute of California, "The Effects of Wal-Mart on Local Labor Markets," uses sophisticated statistical analysis to estimate the effects on jobs and wages as Wal-Mart spread out from its original center in Arkansas. The authors find that retail employmen...
In order to gain the success it has had, Wal-Mart has no doubt affected small businesses. But in the place of small business Wal-Mart has been able to do far more for Americans than small businesses could. It provides consumers inexpensive necessities for life, it provides work for those who would otherwise have none, and it has a stake in the global economy that benefits our own with trading. Wal_mart
Capitalism has widely been regarded as one of the most advanced intellectual achievements of the past few centuries. However, a system which is largely credited for alleviating “human misery” is actually perpetuating it (Goldberg, 6). Capitalism inherently fuels inequality, leading to poverty among the powerless. Jonah Goldberg in his article, Capitalism Has Lifted Billions Out of Poverty, attributed the economic theory to ending poverty, but failed to recognize that capitalism’s lofty goals are merely fulfilled on paper. Equal opportunity must exist for capitalism to end human misery, however the stratification of society ensures that no individual has equal access to the keys to capitalist success.
Wal-Mart has had a significant economic impact on the US, as well as the economies of countries that have relations with the US. Wal-Mart is the world’s biggest company of any kind, with 80 percent of the households in America purchasing something from the superstore; it is the nation’s largest retailer. Wal-Mart’s continuing price reduction has given Americans the advantage of being able to afford 15 to 20 percent more than they previously could. (Hansen) In a world governed by globalization and greed, competition has become rigid; as a result firms like Wal-Mart have utilized advanced marketing strategies to insure that they are on the ‘neck’ of competition, and are the core deciders of the market. (Ortega) However, Wal-Mart made decisions that were of a disadvantage to aspects of the economy, including the depletion on a small scale of Small Town USA.
Capitalism, is among one of the most important concepts and mainframe of this application paper. According to the 2009 film “Capitalism a Love Story,” capitalism is considered as taking and giving, but mostly taking. Capitalism can also be defined as a mode of production that produces profit for the owners (Dillon, 72). It is based on, and ultimately measured by the inequality and competition between the capitalist owners and the wage workers. A major facet of capitalism is constantly making and designing new things then selling afterwards (Dillon, 34).Capitalism has emerged as far back as the middle ages but had fully flowered around the time o...
The richest of humanity see the most of improvements, and the poorest of humanity see the least of these improvements. Through capitalism the world has changed tremendously in a short amount of time. A host of new technology has been innovated, especially in the last 100 years. Humanity as a whole is much better off than it was before. As an example, most of us are able to take an airplane to travel from one country to another in one day or have fairly easy access to advanced health care. In a word, like Bill Gates said in his article “How to Fix Capitalism”, “Capitalism has improved the lives of billions of people- something that’s easy to forget”(Gates). But, it is not getting better fast enough, and it is not getting better for everyone. A multitude of people live on less than a dollar a day and it can be extremely hard for a person in such a situation to drag themselves out of poverty without help from others. Capitalism has the ability to harness self-interest in a helpful and sustainable way but only on beh...
Capitalism as an economic system has not been around for a very long time. Stanford indicates that this economic system began in the mid-1700s in Europe . For a considerably young system, it almost seems impossible to imagine a different way of living. Capitalism has become deeply embedded in our social structures; it is naturalized as a way of doing day to day things. If this is the case, then we as humans have a long way to go if we are to achieve social and economic justice. The question I aim to explore is whether capitalism is capable of achieving socio-economic justice. I am arguing that it cannot achieve justice because there is too much focus on profit rather than people and it dislocates the consumers from the modes of production which indirectly promotes social inequality. Our current economic system which I will be interchangeably using as capitalism throughout the paper will examine why the focus on profit is detrimental to the social well-being of people and explain how capitalism is divisive and why this can pose negative outcomes for individuals and communities. It is with these arguments that outline the need for a fundamental change to how our economy is structured and managed.
Wal-Mart’s competitive environment is quite unique. Although Wal-Mart’s primary competition comes from general merchandise retailers, warehouse clubs and supermarket retailers also present competitive pressure. The discount retail industry is substantial in size and is constantly experiencing growth and change. The top competitors compete both nationally and internationally. There is extensive competition on pricing, location, store size, layout and environment, merchandise mix, technology and innovation, and overall image. The market is definitely characterized by economies of scale. Top retailers vertically integrate many functions, such as purchasing, manufacturing, advertising, and shipping. Large scale functions such as these give the top competitors a significant cost advantage over small-scale competition.
The opposing side believe that local businesses are suffering due to “big box stores” and not being able to give as big of discounts or have as big of a selection of products. “People say, ‘Well, you lost your little stores,’ and that’s true. But it’s money-driven...if its $5 cheaper at one of the larger stores, we take advantage of it. I guess that’s human nature.” Carl R. Baldus Jr.
Marx is able to demonstrate the consequences that result from transforming values into productions suited for profit, as he writes, “This boundless greed after riches, this passionate chase after exchange-value is common to the capitalist and the miser; but while the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser” (Marx 63). There is no sense of abhorrence for a particular individual in Marx’s interpretation of capitalism and instead focuses on the capitalistic economic structure. However, it is through this quote that a sense of inequality starts to emerge. As a result, a hierarchy is produced, creating an enduring structure of capitalism, where those who control the circulation of money are granted unlimited power. This has become evident in recent years, as in 2008, a social power analysis by Dr. John S. Atlee and Tom Atlee was published. In “Democracy: A Social Power Analysis” Altlee describes the power of money and status as he states, “People with lots of money, muscle, status, intelligence, etc., can usually successfully influence other people. In most (but, significantly, not all) circumstances, they have more social power” (Atlee). Economic power is proven to be pivotal in attaining another individual’s attention and status of capability. Thus, the capitalist is free to develop their own sense of
Through out history money, wealth and capital have dictated a way of life to the masses. Wealth dictated the lives that the rich lived and the lives of the poor that worked for and surrounded them. In some cultures your class could never be escaped in life, you had to wait for your next incarnation, while in other cultures the idea of wealth transcended a life and allowed for growth from one class to another. This is the reality of a capitalist society that was first discussed by Karl Marx in the 19th century.