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.But, as with everything, there were problems that were associated with socialism and communism 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. That's what we will be investigating this week.
BUT - here's some fun facts! Did you know that the game of Monopoly was actually created as a criticism of capitalism? Click on the little picture below if you're interested in learning a little more about the history of the game that one could actually consider to be a little socialist. 😱
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| Click to see the history behind the development of the board game monopoly |
What are we doing this week?
Tuesday:- History of Communism - Link to history of how communism developed
- The drawbacks of communism - Notes and examples
- 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?
Wednesday:
- Re-cap the case studies and finish going through the notes
- 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
Thursday:
- Rant by Colby
- Practice Writing
- 30-1 - Arguments and evidence paragraph of Assignment 2
- 30-2 - Defense of position paragraph of Assignment 3
- Since this is the last formative you will be doing, in the next week or two you will be completing your first essays for marks
Friday:
We have looked at both the pros and cons of capitalism and communism. But, like I said in class, there is no country that has used either one of these ideologies exactly the way in which the theory said it should be used and the circumstances that it should be used in. Because of that, most economic systems and ideologies are actually a mixture (hence the term mixed economies) of aspects of capitalism and communism. A more right-wing economic system will have more aspects of capitalism - lower taxes, less government services, mostly if not all private property and a greater focus on self-reliance while following a free market. A more left-wing economic system will have more aspects that lead towards communism - higher taxes that are used to provide greater government services to give people a social safety net, public ownership of major industries and corporations, a focus on cooperation to ensure economic equality. As significant events happen in the economy affecting production of goods and service, as well as job security, governments make decisions on what is the course of action to take to solve the problem. Often, the decisions will be a departure from the current economic philosophy to something different only to find the shift back to the original view years later. The point is, as the economy changes, so do economic philosophies; this is why we call it the evolution of modern economic thought :)
We have looked at both the pros and cons of capitalism and communism. But, like I said in class, there is no country that has used either one of these ideologies exactly the way in which the theory said it should be used and the circumstances that it should be used in. Because of that, most economic systems and ideologies are actually a mixture (hence the term mixed economies) of aspects of capitalism and communism. A more right-wing economic system will have more aspects of capitalism - lower taxes, less government services, mostly if not all private property and a greater focus on self-reliance while following a free market. A more left-wing economic system will have more aspects that lead towards communism - higher taxes that are used to provide greater government services to give people a social safety net, public ownership of major industries and corporations, a focus on cooperation to ensure economic equality. As significant events happen in the economy affecting production of goods and service, as well as job security, governments make decisions on what is the course of action to take to solve the problem. Often, the decisions will be a departure from the current economic philosophy to something different only to find the shift back to the original view years later. The point is, as the economy changes, so do economic philosophies; this is why we call it the evolution of modern economic thought :)
One of the first steps in this evolution was the implementation of Welfare Capitalism and the Square Deal. This week, we will look at several other huge economic events and how they helped our economic theories evolve in North America.
- Notes - Shift to Modern Liberalism - The Welfare State
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