There has been a long standing debate between the socio-economic theories of capitalism and socialism. The current socio-economic system is capitalism but many feel it is not ideal due to the fact that it is based on making a profit. On the other hand, socialism is based on equality of all, which is enacted by paying all workers the same amount of money regardless of occupation. Miriam J. Wells is against capitalism and holds a socialist view point. According to Wells, politics shape the advantages and disadvantages that certain groups of people hold. The government plays an immense role on how things are structured in the fields in order to make a profit based on capitalism. Wells’ argument of capitalism being an unjust system due to politics affecting the class structure and workforce through the Bracero program, enactment of the Alien Land Law, and the return to sharecropping is quite strong even though there is a weakness in her argument due to her straying from the topic at hand and not offering an argument for the capitalist side.
Wells establishes her ethos in the beginning of the book in order to make her findings more reliable and trustworthy. Wells is an Anthropology professor at the University of California Davis. As a professor and a researcher she wants to be able to find out as much as she can and convey her findings without editing facts out or sugar coating anything. Wells states, “I spent well over a decade studying class relations in California’s central coast strawberry industry.” (Wells 1) This shows that Wells put her time into studying the strawberry fields and studying the people who worked in these fields. Also, Wells was not forced to spend many years studying the field, she chose to which enhances her cre...
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...he Bracero program affected many immigrants and also how the Alien Land Laws restricted other immigrants from succeeding and starting their own career. Wells also mentions how sharecropping was a system that both growers and workers preferred as it brought along with it better class relations and a sense of community. Even though Wells does have a flaw, it does not take away from her argument. I agree with Wells that capitalism is a system that’s goal is to make a profit and it ends up creating class tension. The upper class is continuously trying to find ways to make a profit and exploit the lower class if they have to. There should be a change in the system so that not one group is always at the top with all the advantages.
Works Cited
Wells, Miriam J. Strawberry Fields: Politics, Class, and Work in California Agriculture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1996. Print.
My Side of the Mountain is a remarkable novel written by Jean Craighead George (1991). It addresses issues such as nature, independence and adventure. In the book, Sam Gribley, a boy from New York, runs away from home to live in the woods. Throughout this essay, I am going to talk about the things and the character traits that a person such as Sam needs in order to accomplish his or her goals. In the book, Sam’s goals were to reach indepence and to survive using the resources in the woods. For example, when Miss Turner, a close friend of Sam, tried to change Sam’s mind about living in the woods, Sam said to her, “That’s just what I want. I am going to trap animals and eat nuts and bulbs and berries and make myself a house.” (George, 1991, p. 22). Another example is that Sam expressed that he wanted to dress a piece of clothes made by him using the hide of a deer (George, 1991, p. 60). At the end of the book, Sam accomplished his goals, he thought, “I was self-sufficient, I could travel the world over, never needing a penny, never asking anything of anyone.” (George, 1991, p. 173). From my point of view, all human beings have goals. The only difference is the nature of those goals. Goals can be represented in terms of money, love, health, etc. I also think that goals are a necessity for us. They impulse our lives and give it a sense of direction. It is very important knowing your objectives in life because you can focus all your energy on reaching those objectives. In this way, the path towards reaching your goals will be easier to travel as you will see the goal itself and not the pain you have to stand in order to reach it.
The fundamental characteristic of magical realism is its duality, which enables the reader to experience both the character’s past and the present. In the novel, Monkey Beach, Eden Robinson uses this literary device to address the the trauma and mistreatment of the Haisla community in Canada by unveiling the intimate memories of the protagonist, Lisamarie, and the resulting consequences of this oppression. Monkey Beach illustrates how abuse in the past leads to another form of self-medication in the future - a neverending, vicious cycle for the members of the Haisla community. Many characters in Monkey Beach are scarred from childhood sexual abuse and family neglect, and resort to drug and alcohol abuse as a coping mechanism. These appalling memories are an account of the impact of colonization on the Haisla territory which continues to haunt the Aboriginal community throughout generations.
Strange fruit is an amazing dark poem that was sung by Billie Holiday as a very powerful deep meaning song. Strange Fruit is a terrifying protest against the inhumane acts of racism. Strange Fruit was about the murders and lynching going on in the south at the time from public hangings to burnings. The south has a cruel and terrifying past that still haunts people who live down there, reminding them that it was only a short time ago. Very rarely did any one person get prosecuted for killing a person of dark skin. It was difficult to bring suspected parties to trial when often times the whole town had some involvement.
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes is a classic science fiction set in southeastern New York, New York City. The fictitious prose traces a man's inner psychological journey within from a world of retardation to a world of great intelligence. Narrated through a series of empirical "Progress Reports", Flowers for Algernon follows the intellectual and emotional rise and fall of Charlie Gordon, a young man born with an unusually low Intelligence Quotient (IQ), as he becomes the first human pilot-study for an ambitious brain experiment. Charlie Gordon lives a life of comical, despondent and derisive experiences as he surfaces from mental darkness, through various phases of perceiving and understanding levels of knowledge into the light of complex perception of himself, the people around him and the world.
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons is the tale of nineteen-year-old Flora Poste and the changes she has to go through after the death of her parents. Flora begins her new life living with her friend Mrs. Smiling in the wealthy, upper-class side of London. Flora decides that she would prefer to live in the “real” world so she can gain material for a novel she plans on writing. In order to accomplish this, she chooses to live with her relatives, the Starkadders, at Cold Comfort Farm. Flora’s main reason for living there is to reform the Starkadders’ manners and fix their problems.. Her actions cause the reader to believe she is a malicious person, but Gibbons portrays her as a force of good through confidence, meddling, and sincerity.
To understand the ways in which political systems are important to this novel, it is necessary to define both capitalism and socialism as they are relevant to The Jungle. Capitalism, and more specifically, laissez-faire capitalism, is the economic system in America. It basically means that producers and consumers have the right to accumulate and spend their money through any legal means they choose. It is the economic system most fitting with the idea of the American Dream. The American Dream portr...
"Life isn't like that The seasons return every year each with its own flowers." As seen in this quote from "Flowers in Season" a short story by Andre Maurois, changing seasons and changes in one's life are the key ideas. The title alone gives some indication of the subject of this story; the different seasons produce different flowers, implying a changing of seasons in this story. In this story, the stages of a person's life are compared to the changing seasons, two people and their losses and the tragedy that has overcome their lives. Etienne and Gabrielle who were both tragically widowed at a young age, have been living in their pasts began to discover a hope for a new future within each other.
The novel, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011) written by Sherry Turkle, presents many controversial views, and demonstrating numerous examples of how technology is replacing complex pieces and relationships in our life. The book is slightly divided into two parts with the first focused on social robots and their relationships with people. The second half is much different, focusing on the online world and it’s presence in society. Overall, Turkle makes many personally agreeable and disagreeable points in the book that bring it together as a whole.
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear” (C.S. Lewis). Dealing with the overwhelming feeling of loss is something that impacts the main character, Violet, in All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. 9 months before the book takes place Violet and her sister, Eleanor, get into a car accident on their way home when their car slips off a bridge in the snow. Violet is alive and recovers from the car accident when her sister’s outcome is death. Violet feels responsible for her sister’s death because it was Violet who gave Eleanor the directions to go onto the bridge on their way home from a party.Violet uses her sister’s death as an excuse to not accept her new life.
... to exist in our days, needs to be changed more if we ever want to achieve a true progression in our economy and society where not only the rich get the biggest piece of the pie. After researching a little and analyzing numbers and statistics from the past and present, fifty-one years have done two basic things to the harvesters of shame, their wages have improved a little bit and the ethnicity of the workers has changed from poor whites and blacks to poor Hispanics, bringing new factors into play such as the pros and cons that hiring immigrant workers bring to companies. Even though, these potential improvements appear to be substantial and beneficial shifting the views many workers and farmers had in the past, not all people receive the same treatments and benefits some companies share, thousands of immigrant workers have become the new mute slaves of America.
Capitalism is a social system that is based mainly on the principle of individual rights. It has the political aspect, which is a “laissez-faire” system meaning freedom. There is also the economical aspect of it that shows that when such freedom is applied to production, it results in the “free market”. Legally also, capitalism is a system of the rule of the law as opposed to the rule of man. This essay will seek to look into the origins of capitalism and agrarian capitalism, the social property relations necessary to the development of capitalism and look at the general transition, mainly according to Ellen Wood.
Like Life by Lorrie Moore thematically presents stories revolving around romance and how heartache and how irony can arise in a relationship. Two stories within her book present characters that are unable to cope with the "real world" and end up being lonely. “Vissi d’Arte” and “Starving Again” focuses more with male protagonists who both fail at creating a long lasting relationship and affection for something by being narrow minded and blind by their actions.
Strange fruit is and amazing dark poem told by Billie Holiday as very powerful song. Strange Fruit is a terrifying protest against the inhumane acts of racism. Strange Fruit was about the murders and lynching going on in the south at the time from public hangings to burnings. The south has a cruel and terrifying past that haunts the very people who still live down there and remind them that only a short time ago was no one prosecuted for killing someone of dark skin since whole towns were involved in it.
The Flowers By Alice Walker Written in the 1970's The Flowers is set in the deep south of America and is about Myop, a small 10-year old African American girl who explores the grounds in which she lives. Walker explores how Myop reacts in different situations. She writes from a third person perspective of Myop's exploration. In the first two paragraph Walker clearly emphasises Myop's purity and young innocence.
If one looks at liberty and individual freedom, it is evident that command economies tend to oppress their citizens. Therefore, socialism, which allows for basic needs to be met and personal freedoms to be upheld, is the best economic system for all of a country’s citizens. Market economies, as a whole, inherently and inevitably lead to poverty and a large class disparity. In a capitalist society, the ones who supply labor, the ones who work the hardest, are the ones who are paid the least. The owners, who are already rich, receive most of the profit and accumulate large masses of wealth.