Capitalism: Does It Cause or Alleviate Poverty?

Capitalism: Does it cause or alleviate poverty? By: Zahoor Khan [email  protected] com To tackle the issue of poverty has been remained a massive challenge in the known history of human civilization for all global economic isms of the world. Each economic ism has its own strategies to address this issue. Capitalism tries to resolve the issue of poverty on the basis of demand supply forces.Capitalism is generally considered to be a philosophy of economic systems that favors private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit or income by individuals or corporations, competitive 1 markets, voluntary exchange, wage labor, capital accumulation, and finance . There may be two possible solutions of the issue of poverty in Capitalism. Firstly, each individual economic agent has monetary incentives to work and perform various economic activities. Thus monetary incentives stimulate the economic agents towards the performance of various economic activities. This may be considered as an indirect solution of poverty in context of Capitalism. Secondly, individuals possess ownership rights. They can possess various productive resources and have the right to use these resources for production and consumption purposes. Each economic agent (Consumer Producer, Government) is assumed to be rational and will therefore try to optimally utilize their resources in their best interests. Thus, this behavior works as an automatic stabilizer in the 1 http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Capitalism economy to resolve the economic issues including the issue of poverty of all masses.The in-depth analysis of the system reveals that both possible solutions of the issue of poverty suggested by the system are factitious. The first solution is viable if fortunately all people become part of the labor force in an economy. This solution does not take into consideration children, housewives, old men and women, insane, and permanently disable people that from where they can access to the basic facilities (food, shelter, hospital†¦). The second solution is based on the assumption that all the people of the economy possess some productive resources, which is unrealistic.This assumption may be questioned in many ways: From where the people will get the economic resources? What will be the way of acquisition of resources? All the people cannot participate in the labor force, then how these people will acquire economic resources etc. One other possible way may be the intervention of government, to take some steps towards the solutions of the issue. This method is feasible as compared to the earlier methods. Unfortunately, this method is not very effective to address the issue because of many hurdles.Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon which cannot be effectively addressed only with the help of the government. This issue requires multidimensional measures at the micro, Meso and macro levels. The issue of poverty is considered as a social issue in Capitalism. The society, in capitalism is divided on the basis of ‘have’ and’ have not’. The upper class, ‘the capitalists’ controls the entire economy on the basis of their capital while the ‘worker class’ cannot own capital irrespective of their efforts in the process of production. Thus capitalists accumulate more and more wealth on the basis of their capital.This phenomenon naturally intensifies the earning gap between the two classes. The ultimate outcome of this process will be in the form of macroeconomic evils i-e income inequality, poverty, accumulation of wealth. The issue of poverty gives sub-birth to many social and economic issues. Some important of them may be in the form of income disparity, class conflict, and deprivation. The philosophical foundation of Capitalism can make it more clear that whether the system has the required potential to resolve the issue of poverty effectively or otherwise. Capitalism is ba sed on three philosophical pillars. i.Materialism ii. Individualism iii. Hedonism. Capitalism as a living ideology believes in a materialistic world view. According to this philosophy all human needs and desires are subject to material satisfaction i-e whatever is needed/desired will be satisfied in this material world because there is no concept of the world hereafter. So unlike an Islamic consumer, a capitalist consumer will be always conscious about his material utility and will therefore try to spend all his money on material commodities. The second important element of Capitalism’s philosophical foundation is â€Å"individualism†. Individualism refers to ndependent behavior of economic agents to accomplish their economic goals. According to this concept all people’s interests are independent from each other’s. Each individual has to work for his own personal goals. Thus, the resulting outcome of this behavior will be in the form greed, unconsciousnes s about other’s rights, immorality in business practices, weakness of social bond etc. The last foundation of Capitalism, as a living ideology is ‘Hedonism’. Hedonism refers to a philosophy where one’s become pleasure seeker and ‘self-centered’ while to accomplish various goals. Hedonism is the logical consequence of ‘Individualism’.Looking into the philosophical foundations and ideological structure of capitalism it seems that the capitalism is a byproduct of human reason which promotes individualisms, self satisfaction as a supreme priority, greed, unconsciousness about other’s rights and unconsciousness about the overall welfare of the society. In the light of these logical consequences resulting from the Capitalism, The system will ultimately worse off the poor and marginalized people, followed by the increasing gap between the poor and rich and thus the extreme level of living standards and provision of many social and sub-economic issues†¦

Operation MARKET GARDEN - September 1944 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5750 words

Operation MARKET GARDEN - September 1944 - Essay Example With a lot of American, Commonwealth and British troops stationed in London, the unified Anglo-American command sought to find a way of entering Germany. Some of the Allied leaders believed that the entry into Germany could be done if it was launched from the south of the Europe through Italy into Germany. However, pressures from the bombing of London by periodic German airforce raids over Britain created a case for an urgent action to stop the Germans from bombing London. General Montgomery came under intense pressure by the British government to seek a military intervention across the English channel to mainland Europe. The Americans who overwhelmingly outnumbered the British and Commonwealth troops had command over the joint Allied command. They did not favour the direct invasion of Germany through the northern frontier. They supported an incursion through a weaker point in the German defence lines. With his influence and respect, Montgomery planned an operation meant to lead the Allies to enter German territory. This led to what became know as Operation Market Garden. In the operation, the Allied forces were to seize a series of strategic positions like bridges and cause a number of Allied troops to parachute behind enemy lines to lead to penetration. The plan of the operation was to break the Nazi frontier and liberate the rest of Europe by December 1944. However, due to large scale operational failures and the strong and efficient control of the frontier by the Nazis, the operation failed to live to expectation and it the Allies were forced to use a different approach several months later1. However, the operation came with so many important lessons that are relevant to modern military warfare. It can be applied to numerous situations and can be used to plot several hypothetical cases. The fact that there are numerous approaches and systems to the Operation Market Garden means that it could be evaluated and

The Hughes H-1 racer Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The Hughes H-1 racer - Essay Example Hughes, Jr.1 In 1934, Hughes formed the Hughes Aircraft Co., a division of the Hughes Tool Company. Their mission was to build the best racing planes in the world. Hughes Aircraft did just that when it built its first internally designed airplane in 1934: the H-1 racer. Howard Hughes, along with Richard Palmer and a small team of engineers, designed the H-1 racer and Glenn Odekirk, together with his team, built it.2 The wood and metal single-seat monoplane was streamlining at its very best, designed for speed, pure and simple. Designing, building, and extensively testing the plane took the team 18 months but it was well worth the effort. On September 13, 1935, Hughes himself piloted the H-1 to a record-breaking 352 miles per hour at Martin Field, near Santa Ana, California. The previous record was 314 miles per hour. The H-1 was not only the fastest plane, but it was the fastest plane that could fly from standard runways, had practical flight characteristics, and had an almost unimaginable range of nearly 4000 miles (Parker, 2002). The H-1 had two sets of wings. The wings Hughes used to break the landplane speed record were of a low aspect ratio and shorter than those which he used for high-altitude transcontinental flight. The former was originally intended only for short flights at low altitudes; in the latter, Hughes set a new transcontinental record on January 18, 1937 for long-distance, high altitude flights when he recorded an average speed of 332 miles per hour over a course of 2,490 miles.3 The H-1 was powered by a Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasp Junior radial piston engine rated at 700 horsepower at 8,500 feet but which could deliver 1,000 horsepower for high-speed flight. According to Hughes (as cited in Michel, n.d.), â€Å"the H-1 racer was fast because it was clean and yet it attained its speed with a Pratt and Whitney engine of perfectly

Managerial Applications of Technology (Virtual Workforce) 3 Assignment

Managerial Applications of Technology (Virtual Workforce) 3 - Assignment Example Remote workers need to have proper communication with their colleagues, the managers, and other teams or team members in the organization. Technology also provides support to organize through availing IT services and appliances which makes remote workers more effective. There are a number of advantages of using virtual employees. One advantage is that it reduces the amount of physical space that an organization allocated to its employees. Virtual employees have flexibility which enables such organizations to have flexibility to some extent (Tedesco, 2013). For instance, a virtual employee would not be affected, by any physical disturbance in the organization’s premises. The other thing is that virtual employees can be more productive because of less commuting time. The disadvantage of virtual employees is that they have minimal interactions with their colleagues thus it can be hard for them to work together. It is also hard for an organization to motivate virtual and protect them from distractions. Given that the usage of virtual employees has both advantages and disadvantages it is good to come up with strategies to maximize the advantages and minimize the disadvantages. An organization can do that by improving their communication with the virtual workers to make sure that they feel like a part of the organization. For things like motivation and distraction an organization can organize seminars where they can advise the virtual employees on how to best manage time and avoid distractions. To maximize on their output an organization can set goals for them to meet in certain duration (Amigoni & Gurvis,

Moral Criticisms of the Market Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Moral Criticisms of the Market - Essay Example Most corporations expressed this through creation of foundations or through the exercise of corporate social responsibility. Business, if led with administrators or managers with benevolence to sustainability not solely for one’s company but also for the welfare of employees, would be able to manage and balance desire for profit also for the good of others and for the community where business is undertaken. But while Ewert argued that this innate selfish precept of human being is inherent to his â€Å"fallen nature†, it cannot be however assailed that selfishness cannot be induced from the environment. Human greed nowadays has already developed into structural forms. Whenever government is corrupt and have misuse the revenue exacted from peoples and from business establishments, the rest of the society are encouraged to adapt to a system that promotes greed and selfish interests. In most nations where corruption is rampant and were done with impunity, its followers also debase its moral standard to fit in with what is expedient and best at a moment.

History of money Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

History of money - Essay Example The function of money is identifying the value of a standard measurement of goods and services. Money is used as a denominator where one can express the measure of the value of a commodity. Money is also identified as existing through human convections. For this reason, human beings have the power to change the value of money or change it. It is in the nature of money that it is identified as being subject to fluctuations due to value with all other commodities that it may be compared to. Money is, however, more stable when compared to goods. This is because good’s value is related specifically to the individuals that demand the goods. Use of money is a measure of value for establishing the proportional value that could make it possible to equalize all commodities with this standard where it is accepted and makes the community and enables exchange.The nature of money is that all commodities, things, and objects are measurable by money. Exchange of goods and services for money occur when the parties reach a common ground for agreement on exchange basing the agreement on the idea of proportionality. The nature of money allows humans to reach an agreement that serves the needs of their intercourse and interaction although it might not be possible to for different goods to be equal.The nature and condition of transactions are dependent on the good and service that the buying party wants. Since nature requires equality, where unequal individuals receive shares unequally, the significance of money in the act of exchange is demonstrated

Contruction & analysis Exercises Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Contruction & analysis Exercises - Essay Example The curtains flapped about in the draught caused by a carelessly half-closed window. And on the floor, to the left of the chairs lay Jerry Pinto, very, very quiet.in fact, very, very dead Mary Pinto entered the room. She had a tranquil air about her; her skin looked translucent, her mouth was soft, and her eyes large and dark, giving her an appealing wide-eyed look. She was six months into her pregnancy-a fact barely discernible on her slight figure. Mary deposited her shopping bag on the sideboard next to the half empty glasses, humming a tune, and smiling to herself. "Jerry, how are you, darling" she said with genuine affection, in the direction of where she expected him to be sitting Not hearing his reply she turned around, and stood stupefied for a momentonly for a momentthen she ran to where he lay fallen on the floor. She seemed somehow to understand, as soon as she saw him, that he was dead. Perhaps it was the way he lay. In that strange and stiff fashion She ran over to him and sat down by his side, gently lifting up his head, cradling it in her lap. The sobs came hesitant and rasping at first, but louder and more abandoned as the moments passed. She must have sat thus, for what seemed like an age to her. But it must have been no more than five minutes Mary suddenly stopped crying, and wiped her eyes. ... The voice at the other end was familiar " Quick! Come quick! I think Jerry's dead!" said Mary into the receiver " Mrs. Pinto yes Mrs. Mary Pinto here. I think so. He's lying on the floor, and I think he's dead" she said, as her voice caught on another sob. The call over, she busied herself in the room, moving here and there, straightening up the furniture, trying not to look where it layItHe was it now. No longer Jerry. Before long, Mary heard the sound of a car. Even before the knock, she was at the door to open it. Two plains clothes men stood there. She knew them wellthey were Jerry's colleagues after all. On seeing them, Mary suddenly felt the tears start again. James Hendricks, the young officer who had joined the force only recently was plainly moved. He helped Mary gently to a chair. Aneez Afzal, the other cop, a veteran, kept his face expressionless. But as he moved towards Jerry, it crumbled for a moment in an expression of grief and despair. Jerry was his colleague and friend, and they'd been working together for the last five years "Is he dead " Mary managed to ask. "I'm afraid so", replied Afzal. "Tell us what happened, Mrs. Pinto. Where were you, and how long back did this happen" "You know, how punctual Jerry is", said Mary. "He had just returned from the police station by 5.30, as usual. I was sitting here with my sewingI hadn't cooked any dinner today. You know, every Wednesday we go out for dinner. But Jerry was so tired"Her breath caught on a sob again, and she took some time to compose herself. "I thought it better to have dinner at home. I put a leg of lamb in the oven, and nipped across to Vipul's, you know, Vipul's the Indian store down the road I didn't have any vegetables at home. I left Jerry to unwind over a drink. I was hardly away