Capitalism And The Great Depression - 1725 Words

In 2008, following the housing bubble crash, mortgages foreclosed across the country and the New York Stock Exchange saw catastrophic losses; several economists began to question the strength of an unregulated capitalist system. The debate sparked the question: Is crisis an inevitable aspect of capitalism? With nearly 80 years past since the beginning of the Great Depression, memories of high unemployment rates and sluggish economic growth during the Depression-era had mostly been erased by a long period of relative prosperity. The recession of the late 2000s served as a reminder of the danger that capitalism can pose to society. The Marxian critique of capitalism provides a framework for analyzing the pitfalls and conditions of existence of capitalism that led to the Great Depression of the 20th century and the recession of the 21st century. Additionally, discussion of Marx’s crisis theories has been reinvigorated by the increasing amount of income inequality in the USA, whic h many people blame on the greed inherent in a profit-driven capitalist society. When evaluating the dilemmas surrounding capitalism, it is essential to draw comparisons between the Great Depression and the recession of 2008. The similarities between these economic crises demonstrate the tendency of the capitalist system to send us down a similar path towards economic turmoil and declines in overall living standards. The relevance of Marxian theory is amplified by the similarities between the economicShow MoreRelatedCapitalism : The Great Depression848 Words   |  4 PagesCapitalism is when the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer. Capitalism has mercy on no one. Each individual lives in a society where the mass crowd complain about how the big business are buying the smaller ones but just doesn’t grasp the idea that all this is happening because of the consumers themselves. Within a system just as there is pros there are also cons, cons that are costly in the end. One of the biggest cons that capitalism promote is wealth inequality. Wealth can be inherited,Read MoreCapitalism and the Great Depression Essay example1173 Words   |  5 PagesSome people take capitalism for granted and don’t even know what it is exactly. Capitalism is an economic system in which industry is privately owned; where the private owner has a surplus of goods that they sell to a third party, thus cre ating a market. This system has unerringly been around for centuries, and is used by multiple countries throughout the world, including the United States. 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