Essay about Capitalism: Karl Marx and Industrial Revolution

Submitted By Godfa
Words: 1108
Pages: 5

I choose two memes one that said “work harder my vacation homes don't pay for themselves” while a CEO lookalike smokes a cigar and another that says “Capitalism in Action: making people rich since the 16th century” and shows a field of rundown houses. Capitalism is an economic system in which the raw materials and the means of producing and distributing goods and services remain privately owned. It is based on a few things: working for a wage, private ownership, and production for exchange and profit. Capitalism is for those with money, they just invest it and accrue more capital. Those without money most sell their labor in exchange for money. Capitalism grew very fast with the start of the Industrial Revolution because the key fundamental feature of the Industrial Revolution was mechanization, introduction of new external power sources such as oil, steam to hand tools and modes of transportation. It killed the human pace and took the place of skilled workers, and was able to start mass production, mass transportation, and mass distribution. These systems are governed be the laws of supply and demand, so as the demand rises so does the price. With mechanization it was able to take over small businesses that were family owned and now they have competition with big corporations. You would think that people would see a big gain and the workers are compensated for their hard work, but that's not the case they are paid low wages and their job is not guaranteed. A sociologist named Karl Marx broke down the people into two categories the bourgeoisie, the owners of means of production, and the proletariat, those individuals who must sell their labor to the bourgeoisie. Marx believed that the pursuit of profit was behind the explosion of technological innovations. With these classes social dynamics of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat people were thought to have “double consciousness” as said by W.E.B. DuBois mostly the proletariat who some couldn't afford the products they were making. DuBois talked about the double consciousness of African Americans or “blacks” while living in Philadelphia. He also wrote about the color line, a barrier supported by customs and laws separating nonwhites from whites, especially with regard to their place in the division of labor. He traced the color line origin back to when people were scavenging for Africa's resources. If it were not for the way of thinking of the Europeans and the western world Africa will be rich because the land produces so much different type of resources. But they had got enslaved and their land taken away. Today it got a little better, but separation is still implemented in subliminal ways when it comes to higher positions and positions of status. Not only did Africa get colonized by Europe and the western powers but 80% of the world was colonized by Europe. Ideology, a set of beliefs that are not challenged or subject to scrutiny by the people who hold them, was the main factor in Europe colonizing the world. Capitalism was spread by invasion and conquest by western imperialist around the world. Whole civilizations were brutally destroyed and communities driven from their land into waged worked. Africa was 100% colonized by western imperialist and worst than waged worked got taken into slavery. Everywhere capitalism developed peasants and early workers resisted, but were eventually overcome by mass terror and violence. The bourgeoisie have created a new class but not as high as them but also not as low as the proletariat called the middle class. The middle class is designed to keep the rich from having to deal with the poor. I think it will be too much for a bourgeoisie to have to deal with the common issues arriving from common worker, all they want to see is their next profit. The middle class which are the managers and supervisors are like a check or two from going broke but they well get ruthless with the poor just to keep the rich happy and from actually doing the