Capitalism and Culture

The idea of capitalism has spread throughout the wold. It is the foundation of America's economy and is growing into other economies. Countries that had communist economies shifted into a capitalist one. The rise of capitalism came from World War II. Because it brought such havoc on the countries, America compensated by using capitalism to recover economically. The more people that work, the more money they make, the more money they can spend, and the more they can be taxed. America leads the charge of capitalist economy because they believe in the economic benefits and the social ones as one. Feminism rose too from capitalism. A capitalist economy needs people to work and put money into it. With this in mind, women are considered a necessity in the work force because that means more money can be made and more can be spent. Fundamentalism came about as well during the capitalist push. A capitalist society brought progression which gave freedom for other areas of society to progress as well specifically in religion. Most fundamentalist people believe in the literal form of their religion but with such a progression, people were able to progress from fundamentalist religion to being open to interpreting with cultural context. As the societies advance, people start to think more long term. The environment now came into consideration and the impact we as a people have placed upon it. Now we have new ethics and standards in place to protect the environment from the pollution we have contributed. People now think the long term impact of what they do affecting the environment that was not present in history. The visual sources depicted the good and bad of capitalism. One shows how globalization, the push for working to make money to spend, has turned people into becoming shells of humans. This picture is a bunch of women working in a row in a sweat shop in China (Figure 24.1). The second picture glamorizes globalization and consumerist economy with a man and woman on a motorcycle driving along the spring trail (Figure 23.2). This is meant to show how it's good to spend money and how life can be great if one works hard for it, the American Dream. The third picture shows a person with a skeleton mask and a sign saying how a free economy actually is just code for free to exploit people (Figure 23.3). A free economy, a capitalist society, where people can make as much money as they want with no limit or care as long as they work for it has holes. People can take advantage of the system and exploit others to get to a wealthy position. The last picture is just a map of globalization, a map with the countries that are the most lit (Figure 23.4). This is meant to show how the world is always moving, always busy working doing something never resting. Globalization through capitalism and progressive movements have changed the world for the better but we can not forget our dark past.