Understanding Capitalism

According to Merriam Webster, the definition of capitalism is a way of organizing an economy so that the things that are used to make and transport products (such as land, oil, factories, ships, etc.) are owned by individual people and companies rather than by the government. It clearly shows us that capitalism is the opposite of marxism a.k.a communism. In the capitalism system, individual role is really important. The government doesn’t control every aspect of the state's affair, they're observing the interests of each classes and how they work, they create a stable system of law that applies to all capitalists, a national currency and customs system. 

Capitalism nowadays is the social system that is used by almost all countries in the world. There are classes in capitalism in which the majority of them have to work to earn the wage, we called it working class. They have to produce stuff and the capitalist class is going to sell them to make profit. Capitalist class is living off profit the working class made.  We can say that those two classes are exists and mutual, it’s a reflection of the society we live in nowadays.

The main interest of capitalist class is to make profit. They intend to make themselves as rich as they could, because it’s all about individual wealth. But we couldn’t mistake it as slavery because the working class is getting a proper wage and after all, capitalism makes man become virtuous, appreciates their rights as a man, and it could bring many people out of poverty.

Irena Natasya-1701299185

Credit: http://www.worldsocialism.org/articles/what_is_capitalism.php

           : http://capitalismis.com/

        

Capitalism and Crisis

Capitalism created to help companies promote the company. In addition, this system also provides the opportunity for the public to take part in the company, joined the company, and take profit from it. That opportunity can be accomplished by purchasing shares of company. Capitalism is a system of production and distribution of goods and services in return for what is paid by the consumer.

Initially, this system is running smoothly. But over time, the capitalism is the way for the rich to add his wealth. Since then the country could be used as a business instrument.

Capitalism can eventually lead to a global crisis, the existence of unstable financial and monetary. Economic development sustained by the growth of the real sector. Worse than that, this can affect a deeper crisis, which is the fall in wages and more unemployment. So in the end, lead to chaos as banks collapse, the government uses public funds to bailout banks, people lose jobs, social services budget get cut, the rising prices of food and groceries. Because of this, the capitalist system does not make the world economy safe and puts the world in a dangerous position and guard against crises that may occur anytime. 

Susi Wansaga - 1701315251

Are we really "FREE" ?

In 1945, Bung Karno said that we have our independent. But, is that a real independence now? I don’t think so. As a peripheral state like Immanuel Wallerstein stated in his Modern World System Theory, we are dominated by the core states. They buy our raw material as cheap as possible and then process it into commodities that we need and sell to us in an expensive price.(Balaam & Dillman, 2014) Do you realize that, that is the actual colonization.

But maybe, we couldn’t run away from the reality that we need them because we don’t have any sufficient technology to process all that raw material. Why we as the peripheral states feel being exploited by them while we still need help from the superpower states? Yes, we still need them but I think, there are many people out there who enrich themselves so we are exploited not just by the core states but also buy our people too.

There is also another reason, why we couldn’t avoid them. We live in liberalism world now which we need to depend in others because we can’t fulfill our needs by ourselves. Besides, core states are fewer than the peripheral. So, we don’t have any flexibility in choosing because when we don’t want to give our resources, they could choose other states.

Besides our raw material, do you realize that our culture also being exploited now? Tell me, how many of your friends know the name of traditional house or clothes? All we know is LV, Guess, Esprit and others branded things. Do you know that Nike’s shoes are made in Indonesian with cheap budget and how much do you spend your money just to buy those shoes. Many of Indonesian products also have high quality why don’t we try to buy that? Do you still wanna be a prisoner ?  

Source : Balaam, D. N., & Dillman, B. (2014). Wealth and Power: The Mercantilist Perspective. In Introduction to International Political Economy (pp. 120-122). Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.

Gisela Bianca - 1701306070