Garcia1

David Garcia

Mrs. Tubbs

English 1301-054

July 23rd, 2020

A Society Cannot and Should Not Function on Pure Forms of Capitalism or Communism

Democratic governments are typically thought of to have been made for the people who

are a part of it. Capitalism and Communism are both forms of government. The two ideologies

can be polarizing, however they don’t have to be mutual thoughts; To me, they are two parts of

the solution to move society forward in a way that can help everyone progress in a positive way.

Capitalism is a society in which people are allowed to fail or succeed based on their own

merits. Communism is a society in which everyone believes that all people are truly important

and have value to add to society. However great they sound in definition, they both have their

pitfalls and extremes; In pure Capitalism, the government is almost non-existent and gives

control to businesses to decide how to govern; In pure Communism, the government controls the

means and products of labor, and dispenses it out equally among its’ citizens.

The appeal to Capitalism is the “reward system” that involves currency flowing amongst

people to purchase necessary goods. The issue with Capitalism is that most of the currency

gathers amongst those that have already acquired wealth, much like a generational relay race

those that are ahead tend to stay ahead. The appeal to Communism is that it fixes the

aforementioned issue with Capitalism -- in that there is no stagnant currency, they have

confidence in their constituents to progress their society without a Win/Fail system. The issue

with Communism is the “human” one, the belief is that humans are unable to make a society
 Garcia2

thrive without some form of punishment or reward towards their individual production; Which of

course is imperative in keeping a civilization thriving.

Luckily, we can reject the bad ideas, and accept good ideas from both government types

in a way that can truly advance humankind. The idea of Socialism is a version of Capitalism that

ensures through government means that businesses and wealthy people pay taxes in order to

facilitate government programs that help poor and impoverished people. There are different

levels of Socialism however, governments can choose to allocate more or less resources into the

government programs; The less resources available to the masses the more the government fails

to carry out its basic task. We must invest more in such programs in the US because wealth

inequalities are at an all time high. “Wealth is distributed in a highly unequal fashion, with the

wealthiest 1 percent of families in the United States holding about 40 percent of all wealth and

the bottom 90 percent of families holding less than one-quarter of all wealth.2 (See Figure 1.)

Notably, 25 percent of families have less than $10,000 in wealth.” [1]

[1]equitablegrowth.org