In a capitalistic globalized society that we live in today, there is a large gap between those who have and those who have not. This can pertain to resources, political stability and wealth. The capitalistic or neo-liberalistic system that our society practices allows our society to have a free trade market; where competition is supposed to produce equal opportunity for both the rich and the poor (which is obviously not the case), letting corporations pursue whatever economic advantage they seek to gain without government interference, and the emphasis on individual responsibility rather than the concept of public goods and community. Once these elements are incorporated into the society, the gap continues to widen.
Therefore, the current economic system has failed because there is an unequal distribution of wealth that causes a portion of the global society to become underdeveloped and poor. As a result, these underdeveloped societies struggles and continues to struggle in the depths of poverty, while the societies that are considered “developed,” enjoy the excessive luxuries of wealth that is not necessarily needed. This unequal distribution leaves these underdeveloped societies at the mercy of wealthier societies to exploit their resources and their people, for the sake of profit.
These exploitations include: human trafficking; causing child as well as forced labor in impoverished countries to benefit companies in their production in exchange for cheap labor, harming the environment through the exploitation of natural resources such as crude and natural gasses for the sake of producing material goods, and the formation of monopolies and oligopolies that uses cheap labor abroad and no longer uses domestic labor leaving the na...
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In the Humanistic Tradition the author, Gloria Fiero introduces Adam smith as a Scottish moral philosopher, pioneer of political economy, and a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith also known as the Father of Political economy, is best known for one of his two classic works An Inquiry into the nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations. Fiero looks at Smith’s work because the division of labor is important. One thing Smith thinks is even more important for creating a wealthy nation, is to interact and have open trade with different countries. Fiero states,“It is necessary, though very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter,
The three philosophers that will be examined are Adam Ferguson, David Hume, and Adam Smith. By assessing their thoughts on the subject of wealth, conclusions can be developed for the questions presented. Each thinker has an answer to these questions, yet there may be some overlap within the thoughts of these men since they were peers writing during the same period. The first philosopher to be discussed is Adam Ferguson along with his work An Essay on the History of Civil Liberty. Ferguson provides his understanding of wealth and its effects in the section of his work titled “Of Population and Wealth.” He does not explicitly define wealth such as in the form of a dictionary entry, rather must be deduced. Ferguson’s central claim in this section is that there is a connection between a growing population and the growing wealth and prosperity of a nation.
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Although globalization induces worldwide inequality in many aspects such as educational inequality and income inequality, the most serious one is income inequality since it exacerbates the wealth gap and consequently causes severe social problems. The world GDP has risen from 36 percent to 55 percent since 1980 as a result of the expanding world trade caused by globalization (Lall, Jaumotte, Papageorgiou & Topalova, 2007). Global Domestic income has increased, but the income distribution across the continents appears to be unequal. For instance, in the United States (U.S.), among the income distribution, the bottom 20 percent have an income boost of only 3.7 percent while the top 5 percent enjoy an income boost of 57 percent (Kearney, 2014). Furthermore, this widened wealth gap makes the people in poverty become poorer and has resulted in many serious social problems. According to Thorbecke and Charumilind (2002), the crime rate may become higher since “legal wages represent the opportunity cost to crime”. Also, because the level of income has a positive and explicit correlation with the health condition, the poor’s average life expectancy may become shorter. Therefore, the income inequality is severe since it increases the wealth gap and gen...
Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. 4th Edition. Edited by R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner. 1776. Reprint, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.
The unequal distribution of wealth is seen as a negative and ongoing problem and debate within American politics and society. There is a great deal of evidence to back up why wealth distribution is damaging the American ideals of life. It also carries inevitable and undetermined consequences for our nation. How resources are distributed within a country depends on where the resources were found. For example, numerous people will move to an area that is rich with resources in order in ensure job security. Just because a country is fruitful in a resource does not mean that that particular country is wealthy. In fact, the laborers are paid very minimal...
Although this view has undergone considerable modification by economists in the light of historical developments since Smith’s time, many sections of The Wealth of Nations notably those relating to the sources of income and the nature of capital, have continued to form the basis of theoretical study of the field of political economy. The Wealth of Nations has also served as a guide to the formulation of governmental economic policies.
Income inequality continues to increase in today’s world, especially in the United States. Income inequality means the unequal distribution between individuals’ assets, wealth, or income. In the Twilight of the Elites, Christopher Hayes, a liberal journalist, states the inequality gap between the rich and the poor are increasing widening, and there need to have things done - tax the rich, provide better education - in order to shortening the inequality gap. America is a meritocratic country, which means that everybody has equal opportunity to be successful regardless of their class privileges or wealth. However, equality of opportunity does not equal equality of outcomes. People are having more opportunities to find a better job, but their incomes are a lot less compared to the top ten percent rich people. In this way, the poor people will never climb up the ladder to high status and become millionaires. Therefore, the government needs to increase all the tax rates on rich people in order to reduce income inequality.
Why nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, is a captivating read for all college economic courses. Coauthored by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, they optimistically attempt to answer the tough question of why some nations are rich and others are poor through political economic theories. They lay it all out in the preface and first chapter. According to Acemoglu and Robinson, the everyday United States citizen obtains more wealth than the every day Mexican, sub-Saharan African, Ethiopian, Mali, Sierra Leonne and Peruvian citizen as well as some Asian countries. The authors strategically arranged each chapter in a way that the reader, whomever he or she is, could easily grasp the following concept. Extractive nations that have political leadership and financial inconsistencies within their institutions are the largest contributor to poverty and despair within most countries. It also states that countries with socioeconomic institutions that work ‘for the people and by the people’, or in other words, focus on the internal agenda of that