Down With Capitalism!

So earlier today, my history teacher showed our class this video about the economy. Basically, the two professional economists got together and did a survey on some random people. The survey was asking them what they thought the current wealth distribution was among the various social classes in our country and what they thought the ideal wealth distribution was. After collecting the results, they put together a chart that the creator of this video used when making it. The survey showed that, of the people tested, most thought, of course, that the wealth wasn't fairly distributed, but the percentages they gave to each class of people were at least enough for them to live fairly nice lives. The survey also showed that, as for the ideal distribution, the 'wealthy' actually didn't have too much more than the middle and lower classes. The really shocking part, though, was when the video showed the REAL distribution of wealth in our country. About 40% of the total population had so little money that you couldn't even see it on the graph! Then the other 40% (the upper middle class) had what seemed like nothing compared to how much the rich had. Their percentage went so high, it wasn't even on the graph anymore! They actually had to cut it off and put it off to the side so we could see just how much of our nation's wealth belonged to the rich. Lastly, and most horrifying of all, was when they showed what the 1% of the population owned. By the 1%, I mean the very, VERY few people in our country that are exceedingly rich, like Bill-Gates-rich. This 1%, OF OUR ENTIRE POPULATION, owned , by far, the highest percentage of our nation's wealth. In fact, I'd even guess that the amount they owned was easily more than all the money owned by the rest of the population combined! And there's one major reason for this; one major reason why we've got 40% of our population living on pocket change and 1% living off of more than half our nation's wealth.

The reason for this disturbing distribution for our nation's wealth is all thanks to that which created it: Capitalism. That's right, this form of economy that our country takes such pride in is what's severely throwing off the balance of wealth in our country. Sure, the government promotes it as the idea of the 'American Dream,' that surely if we work hard and love our country we can totally, 100% guaranteed, make ourselves rich and live happily ever after on some hillside with a spouse, a few kids, and a happy little dog or something or other. Sadly, though, the government must have been a little delusional when they came up with that idea, considering how that is basically impossible. For starters, let's be honest: simply working your hardest is NOT going to make you rich. Sure, it was probably nice to believe that in America's earlier days, considering the nation needed hard workers to build itself up. Also, many of today's inventions and tools didn't exist yet, so striking it rich on the next great invention was considerably easier to do than it is today. Secondly, very few people in the world today actually even work hard for their riches; in fact, in that same video I mentioned earlier, we learned that the average CEO from that top 10% of our population makes about as much money in 1 HOUR as the average employee makes in just over a month! That's right, AVERAGE employee; not some employee working in a dead-end, no-skills-required job, but working in an average job that probably even requires some form of college education! So clearly the entire basis of our American Dream of getting rich through hard work is just not even realistic, let alone POSSIBLE these days.

Ultimately, it's not even the flawed reasoning behind Capitalism that makes it so bad. The worst aspect of it is that, over time, the rich only get richer and the poor only get poorer. Through placing only a direct few in charge of production in the economy, it becomes rather inevitable that those in charge will take in the majority of the wealth while the workers scramble for the leftovers. In a society like our's today, with the vast majority living their daily lives on pocket change, one can only hope that the future gets brighter for these people (and maybe a little greener... you know, like a dollar bill).