Capitalism Essay, Research Paper

Capitalism has greatly developed over the course of the twentieth century. It has been broken down into two basic models: Non-Marxist, and Marxist. These models are the Industrial society model, and the Capitalist society model. These ideals were created in the 1930 s and ran through about the 1960 s, however to keep up with the changing society these models were revised and renamed the Post industrial Society and, the Post Capitalist society which are dated from the 1960 s and 70 s.

Karl Marx expected capitalism would bring about its own death. He believed in the social revolution, which was the working class would overthrow their employers due to poor conditions. Only significant changes could bring about a success in capitalism. Those changes are in the Industrial Society Model, which is a non-Marxist view of capitalism.

Some of the major changes in the ISM were the change of ownership and control of corporations. Which is called the Managerial revolution. This was brought about because as companies grew larger, owners had to rely on managers to run or control part of the company. Another key factor was Increase affluence. Instead of workers revolting and overthrowing to get power, they called upon reformism, which is a change within the system. Workers used this tact against changing into a Socialist power. An increase of State intervention into the economy also benefited the ISM. The great depression brought out the most government involvement ever in the economy. Roosevelt was able to regulate banking, purchasing, welfare, unemployment, and the division of unionization. These changes also transferred over to the workforce. Blue-collar positions evolved into white-collar jobs. This made blue-collar class to shrink and the white-collar increase. This is very significant because Marx predicted that the blue-collar class would revolt, but since the depletion in size, there were not enough members to revolutionize. The last big change of the ISM time period was the extension of democracy and citizenship to population. For the most part, the United States does not become a democracy until 1965 when everyone was allowed to vote, this enabled capitalism to continue with little struggle.

By the late 60 s and early 70 s, due to changes in technology and the occupational structure, a number of non-Marxist social analysts began to speak of a transition into a post industrial society which some saw as a revolutionary change bringing about a new kind of society, a post industrial society. The ISM mainly dealt with manufacturing, however the postindustrial Society started the development of technology. These non-Marxists believed in and put faith in technology, and started a new class, the technocrats. Technocrats are scientific experts that rule the technocracy, which is a society based on technology. The whole ideology behind technocracy was service work equaled white-collar work, which equaled middle class which resulted in more equality. This is what people were looking for, more equality. In the PISM property owners are still key and set goals, but with assistance from the technocrats.

The Marxist view of capitalism is the Capitalist Society Model. This responds to the limitations of the ISM. The ISM discusses changes in capitalism, significant changes have modified capitalism, and these changes caused no revolution, however these changes are not permanent, they have only contained or controlled the contradictions of the system temporarily, and eventually these contradictions will manifest themselves. The class struggle will be re-engaged, and indeed the owners of capital along with the state have employed new technology, and go global. Globalization weakened the US workforce by having other countries manufacture products for a cheaper price. This increases the labor pool even more and causes greater inequality among the society.

The postindustrial Capitalist Society criticizes the technocratic ideology and says that most service work is not white-collar. This leads to the polarization of income. The middle class is squeezed out. The decline of the middle income will either go higher or lower resulting in high paying jobs, or lower dead end jobs. Rather then technology bringing about more equality, more poverty is present.

Capitalism to this day still exists, whether our society benefits this, the subject is very debatable. Capitalism is a living-breathing organism, which exists in every economy, and our fate lies within the future.