Capitalism and Socialism

Student’s Name

Institution

Capitalism and Socialism

Socialism is an economic and political model of social organization which dictates that the factors of production, exchange, and distribution are equally owned and regulated by the community. On the other side, capitalism is a political and economic structure where the private entities own the factors of production and control the nation’s trade for individual beneficiaries. These factors of production include capital goods, natural resources, labor, and entrepreneurship. With socialism, democracy prevails where the owner can be acquired either through the democratic election of a government or through public corporation where everyone inclusively owns the shares. The case is different with capitalism where labor is individually owned apart from slavery incidences where one’s labor is owned by someone else. Socialism and capitalism are discussed to a profound extent in consideration of their pros and cons as well as their benefits to the society.

To begin with is socialism where its advantages and disadvantages to the nation are precisely elaborated. First, let us look at the pros. With socialism, there is no labor exploitation as the workers themselves own the production means. The profit is distributed evenly to the workers according to their contribution, and the system also recognizes those people in the society that cannot work by providing them with their basic needs. Socialism is a valuable tool to eradicate poverty in the nation as there is no discrimination and people have equal rights to access education and health services (Lockley, 2017). Everyone has the freedom to work at what he or she is best at and enjoys. For instance, there can be higher compensation for the tedious jobs that people are not willing to do to make them worthwhile. Also, the preservation of natural resources is for the betterment of the whole society.

The disadvantages of socialism as a political and economic system of an organization are as follows. The most degrading demerit of this system is the dependency on the cooperative nature of people to work. This can work well in a community portraying competitiveness buy not a cooperative one as the competitive people will find ways of disturbing and conquering the society for individual gains. Socialism does not encourage innovativeness as it does not give rewards to the competitive and entrepreneurial individuals. Another criticism of socialism is that the delegated power or the government who have the authority to represent the civilians can abuse its mandate by claiming power for its benefits.

On the other side, let us look at the merits and demerits of capitalism as an economic and political system of governance. To start with the advantages, capitalism provides the best prices for the best products because consumers’ willingness to pay willingness to pay will be high on the things they most want. The law of demands plays an active role in determining commodity prices companies improve product qualities as an effective way of maximizing profit. Capitalism significantly boosts economic growth as there is an inherent recompense for innovation. Therefore, it encourages the invention of different products as well as more competent production techniques.

The demerits of the capitalism control system are as follows. It is not responsible for those people who do not have competitive skills which include the children, the physically disabled and the elderly. Therefore, the government has put in place policies that greatly value the family entity. Capitalism does not enhance equality. Thus, the marginalized will not have opportunities to access facilities such as medication and education. The valuable skills will only be of benefit to the individual owners but not the society (Therborn, 2016). The externalities such as climate change and pollution are not considered in capitalism where the adverse impacts are felt bt the public as a whole but not the individuals who exploit natural resources.

Regardless of the merits and demerits of socialism and capitalism discussed above, both ideologies have social benefits to the society. Socialism is a beneficial tool to a nation as it encourages equality in the community as a useful measure of eradicating poverty. Even though socialism has vast social benefits to the society than capitalism, capitalism plays a vital role in enhancing giving back and unity among the private owners and the community where their premises are allocated as a way of providing conducive production environment and market to some extent.

References

Lockley, P. (2017). Capitalism and Socialism. The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Christian Thought, 264.

Therborn, G. (2016). What does the ruling class do when it rules?: state apparatuses and state power under feudalism, capitalism and socialism. Verso Books.