What's wrong with the Left?

Last week, we looked at the downfalls of capitalism and also started to look at the opposite of capitalism: Communism. To start with, we looked at the less extreme version of that, which was democratic socialism. The case study that we looked at to show these values were of Robert Owen and New Lanark in Scotland, which was generally seen as a successful social experiment.

Some of the main ideas incorporate that people are looking out for one another and, in general, are helping the group achieve success and prosperity, as opposed to being individually responsible for that. We will finish up with our discussion of the pros of communism but also look to criticize the idea as well. As with any ideology, there are both good and bad parts of the idea, and like we discussed last week, a large part of that comes with how people interpret those different ideas and how much they actually stick to it.

So what will we cover this week?

Monday: 

• Finish the notes on the pros of communism

Click to see the history behind the development of the board game monopoly

• Practice interpreting sources

Tuesday: 

• Start with the cons of communism
• Case Study: the first communist nation - the USSR
• To go through the cons, we will be doing a quick history of how and why communism was implemented in Russia (which then became the USSR) and how the system actually was run
• History of Communism - Link to history of how communism developed

Wednesday:

• The Cons of Communism - Life in the USSR
• Jigsaw with the case studies
• Discussion: Why were there so many inefficiencies?
• Generalizations - what happens when capitalism is not so great? What happens when communism is not so great?

Thursday: 

• Rants by Tiffany and Danny
• Practice Writing Paragraphs
• 30-1 - adding evidence to last week's paragraphs
• 30-2 - writing your opinion in Assignment 3

Friday: 

• Maybe another pop quiz??
• How the theories of capitalism and communism/socialism were implemented in history
• Stage 1: Fixing the problems of the Industrial Revolution
• Classical Conservatism

• Societal Changes - the government gets involved

Capitalism vs Communism - The Age Old Debate for What's Better

Last week, we started analyzing capitalism and were looking at the benefits of it, mostly through looking at the positive outcomes of the Industrial Revolution. Click on the factory to see a generalized description of the Industrial Revolution and its positive and negative impacts.







Here is a quick re-cap of those positives:

This week, we will be analyzing the negatives of capitalism. There is no way that any idea will not have the good and bad parts to it. Remember, ideologies are the ideal society and it is humans that interpret how to use these ideologies. It is through this interpretation and implementation by individuals that you see the good and bad of an ideology emerge. So, while the Industrial Revolution had some really good things come about because of it, there were also some major downfalls as well.

Here is what our week will look like - the first FULL week of the semester 

Monday

• Finish the notes from last week about the downfalls of capitalism

• Pick case studies for research: Capitalists - Good or Bad??
• You will need to have a device, tablet or laptop today AND tomorrow

Tuesday

• Finish case studies and post them - Half the class
• Start on the positives of Communism - yes, there are positives to the IDEA of communism

The Positives of Communism

• Notes and case studies

Wednesday

• Assignment for first half the class: Case Studies of Capitalism worksheet. Due on FRIDAY
• Finish with the positives of communism notes and case studies

Thursday

• Rants by Ryan Shapka and Tiffany
• Practice Writing Paragraphs due on Saturday:
• Social 30-1: The Arguments for Assignment 2
• Social 30-2: Assignment 3 - analyzing the issue and the individuals

Friday

• The drawbacks of communism - Notes and examples
• Case Study: inefficiencies of the Soviet Union