Capitalism vs. Democracy and politics....brian

In the book, SUPERCAPITALISM, “Reich argues that these effects are undermining democracy. He states the “capitalism has become more responsive to what we want as individual purchasers of goods, but democracy has grown less responsive to what we want together as citizens”. “These effects” refer to, “… companies find their sales performance continually challenged by new and aggressive market entries. Such forces create a ruthless focus on meeting short-term targets”. Ethnic minorities or Big Corporations represent similar problems or conflicts with democracy. (p19)
The welfare of the majority is not a priority for either population. Politicians have an opportunity to change the rules or guidelines that corporations or the extremely wealthy operate within. Ethnic minorities live within a microenvironment, separated by from the population that they control with their big business, banks, and corporations.
Capitalism is a fast moving monster and democracy moves more like a slug. Democracy has its’ politicians who are very influenced by private party lobbyers, their money, and corporate interest. If capitalism is going to succeed and support the wellbeing of the majority in which it operates, democracies have to move swiftly and strongly.
We are living with the results of global economies operating to achieve short-term goal after short-term goal. The long term affects of these practices do not yield the health and welfare of the majority. They do not even take care of their employees, or the populations they exist within. Management and CEOs are making 200-300 times the wage of industrial or company employees. These CEOs are benefiting through each short-term period, and leave the ruins behind. The average citizen trusts or lives in the economy that is significantly affected by the behavior of ethic less companies or CEOs.
“Timely look at the role of democracy in an era of big business”, Paschal Donohoe: Innovation section; page 19 book review of Supercapitalism, by Robert Reich

Research Project

This article talks about how the garment industry has been so successful in the last couple years. It also talks about the working conditions of the people who are working in these factiories in the U.S. Mostly Latina woman are slaving away in these so called "sweat shops" for very little money.

Authors: Whalen, CT; Williams Coll, Williamstown, MA 01267 USA
Name of Article: Sweatshops here and there: The garment industry, Latinas, and labor migrations

colonization

The article I chose was titled, " Italian Colonization of Tripolitania" by Gary Fowler in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers copyright 1972. The article talked about how the Italians wanted some land to colonize and decided to take Tripoliania, Libya. When they did this they were unsure of what they were doing. Evidently the Italians were not great at colonizing and looked at how the French had taken over and settled in North Africa. They used everything that tripolitania had and tried to do it the way the natives had done things.
When things went poorly the Italians blamed everthing on the Turkish administrators and Arab farmers. They then had problems legally owning the land and even though they cam in and took the land the " Ottoman Land COde" decided to let the Italians have it. I find it so interesting how the European nations just took something if they wanted it and didn't care about the people they were stealing from. Also that when things went sour, the problem is not the Italians it is the poor people they stole everything from. It is their fault that they are not educated and able to work the land.

Article: "An Apology for Democratic Capitalism"
Author: Michael Novak
Published in: First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life
January, 2009

In Michael Novak's article, he explains the flaws that created the mortgage crisis in 2008. Claiming that "a free society has three interdependent systems, political, economical, and moral," Novak made it very clear where our government went wrong and why. The "misuse" of every system is very obvious and so is "the failure of the political and economical systems to the U.S."
I believe that the mortgage crisis was only a slap on the hand for the politicians who took advantage of a system that benefits them. We are trying to build a free country where everyone is equal. Unfortunately, the only thing making us do circles is the moral "beliefs" of more than half the nation, and more damaging are the moral standards of the politicians running it. When self indulgence and ignorance can be set aside, then we will move forward. We must be very careful about who we choose to speak for us.

Article: A Big Government Bailout
Author: Howard Zinn
Published: The Nation (Oct 27, 2008)

In my essay I came to the conclusion that government intervention is necessary in the free market system to assist development. This article gives a specific example of the US government "agreeing to spend $700 billion dollars of taxpayer money to bail out huge financial institutions" (4). Zinn says that the "historical truth [is] we have never had a free market [as] we have always had government intervention in the economy " (4). This is true since as long as government is intervening in the market, then we are deviating from the capitalist system.
However, I find it very necessary for government intervention in the economic system. Had it not been for these government interventions, farmers would have been out of business a long time ago and the number of workers losing jobs in the automotive and labor industries would have been far more than what it is currently. We must understand that these systems assume a perfect world - a fair world with no discrimination. This is however not the case with varying social and economic classes and ethnic diversity.

Research Assignment

Hi Class:

For this assignment, I would like you to find one academic/scholarly article from the MSU library databases. The article needs to be related to the reading we have have been doing in class. Acceptable search topics could be "capitalism, labor conditions, colonization, standards of living in the Phillipines," or something along one of those lines. Please read the article and post a two paragraph response on the blog, reporting your findings. Please list the name and author of the article in case one of your classmates is interested in reading it. Also, include the name of the journal the article was published in. As a reminder, to get to the library resources you need to go to the MSU Homepage>Library>Articles or Databases>(enter your search)>Click on Full Text> and read. Make sure it is a legitimate scholarly article, and not an entry from Wikipedia, Google, or a mass media, corporate owned source. You will not receive credit for the assignment if you do this. Posts are due by 9:00 am Friday the 13th. Late responses will not be accepted.

Micaela