What Kind Of Capitalism Do We Want in America

"What Kind of Capitalism do ‘We' want?"

Introduction

First of all, I will provide a quick overview of the evolution of capitalism since the Great Depression, which I believe is necessary in order to understand the capitalism of today and some of the problems to it. Then I will analyze four different problematic areas of free-market capitalism in the US compared with the Scandinavian government-managed capitalism. I will then discuss what kind of capitalism we want: We being different interest groups, such as the shareholders, the C.E.O.'s, the average worker and the poor. Finally I will discuss what values might be at stake in capitalism.

The evolution of capitalism

In the U.S., the 1930s Great Depression threatened to destroy the capitalism that had been evolving for the past 400 years and this led to abandoning the laissez-faire capitalism and instead embracing the New Deal concept of government-managed capitalism in order to control money supply and government expenditure, and in order to limit the increasing gap of inequality of income. The 1950s and 1960s were decades of equality, but the energy crises of the 1970s forced the government to kick start the economy imposing new taxation benefiting the rich and once again causing widening inequality. Today, capitalism is the predominant economic system of the Western world, in its' however various forms: In the U.S. a more free-market capitalism exists and in Western European countries (esp. Scandinavia) capitalism is a more government-managed kind.

The government's role

America has the largest real GDP per capita in the world. However, this is only a measure of the economy, not a measure of the well-being of the average American. The GDP isn't being redistributed in favour of the poor as it is in the Scandinavian government-managed capitalist economies leaving a huge gap between rich and poor. The taxes paid in Scandinavia are considerably higher than taxes in the U.S. because the capitalist America of today has very limited government interference.

Plutocratic conditions

Meanwhile, the very rich are getting even richer which shows signs of plutocratic conditions ruling the U.S. The C.E.O.'s are paid huge salaries; in fact today's average real annual compensation of the top 100 C.E.O.'s is 1,000 times the pay of ordinary workers. In a government-managed capitalist country like Denmark, plutocratic conditions to such an extent would not be feasible.

Political influence

The biggest corporations have become the key influence on political organs. For example, the oil industry in the U.