Capitalism: Exploitation of the Poor and Resource Monopoly Essay

May 23, 2021 by Essay Writer

Exploitation of the Poor

Most analysts on economic issues argue that capitalists extort the poor by exploiting them. These people argue that capitalism helps the rich men and women get more wealth at the expense of the poor, who gets poorer. This leadership style attributes to what most people would consider as classical economic prediction. In this theory most men and women with assets believe that income from land ownership and huge capital in big businesses would accrue; however other theorists believe that both land and capital fluctuates unpredictably.

Most defenders to capitalism would not agree to this objection because they believe capitalism presents equal opportunity to both the poor and the rich. Although land (renting rates) and capital in form of interest rates fluctuates, one observation is that they remain unchanged.

Defenders to capitalism would therefore attribute such fluctuations to uncontrollable forces within the marketplace, which are not easy to control under either capitalism or federal leadership style. Other defenders would use an example of power supply in a country.

In this example, if electric power becomes cheap and readily available to the entire population, capitalists argue that it is the poor that benefits the most as opposed to the rich community. This is because the rich would get pressure to pay flunkies for alternative services.

The above reply needs a critical evaluation to either agree or disagree to it. As much as one would agree that market fluctuations are beyond the control, it is still possible for a willing leadership to adopt effective measures that ensure a fair play in the market segment.

It is therefore not true that poor men or women would reap more benefits than the rich because most of the legislations in such environment favour the rich community. Therefore, this reply is not convincing because capitalism centres most of its legislations in favours of the rich, which exploits the poor.

Resource Monopoly

Monopoly of resource is the second most serious objection on capitalism. This refers to an act in which a group of people within the top leadership holds and controls a large amount of resource. Although these resources are for the public use, those in leadership would keep the materials far from reaching out to the common citizens. The general public would not be in a position to have equal share of such resources because the few individuals on top leadership have the final decision on resource utilization.

Most defenders would convince those discrediting capitalism that effective strategy of replacing resource monopoly should not adopt another monopoly that is not responsive of market forces.

These people view capitalism as effective in responding to such forces, to them the leadership style experience constraints and challenges in which the only way of ensuring equitable utilization of resources is through implementation of capitalism. Other defenders believe capitalists have a major role of ensuring economy remains stable and steady over a given duration by checking economic forces. This is possible through controlled utilization of resources.

This defence is not as convincing as one would expect it to; resource monopolization puts the poorest people in a disadvantageous position because they do not have equal share in the national cake. As much as most businessmen would expect effective control of market forces for productive business environment, capitalism does not offer the best option because the negative effects outweighs the benefits.

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