The dictionary says the definition of capitalism means, “an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth”. I would agree with this definition but it’s a very nice and sweet way of saying the rich people have the power and the poor people have no power. Capitalism is a machine that is build up of many parts including children, teenagers, adults and the elderly. Each of these four stages in a person’s life work together with one another to fuel the capitalist machine. One person might be at the child stage of there life but the child’s parents are working hard at his and her job making enough money to feed there son. While in another situation a teenager’s first job is flipping burgers for a company who is taking advantage of labor laws and working the death out of him for minimum wage. Either situation you come up with we as a whole are fueling this capitalist machine, at it is not working for us it is working against us.
Being a child growing up in a capitalist society has many effects on your future life. Most families in America have children that they can not raise themselves. The mother has the kid and then spends every waking moment working to get enough money to give the kid food. The father is doing the same thing and never sees his wife. They never see there kid nor have enough time to spend with him. So they hire a nanny to watch the kid and be his real mother. But that’s only if you get lucky most families send there little youngsters to a day care center with a bunch or other kids that there families can not watch there own children while there parents are sucked into the capitalist world we live in today.
Another aspect were children are involved is the mistakes there parents have made in there life’s get put on to the children from day one. Because there parents didn’t go to school so they could make money in the capitalist society the children don’t have proper cloths to wear and the right food to eat. And they have to be subjected to this awful way of living because of there parents. And most children might not even have parents and those kids have to go to an orphanage and live there lives from this false sense of happiness always thinking the people that get close to you are going to up and leave you.
On the flip side of this you have the child born with a silver spoon in his or her mouth and they get everything they could ever imagine. The few examples is the one little girl from the movie 7 up where she completely copied everything that mommy and daddy said. The interviewers were asking a 7 year old what college she was going to go to and she had an answer because that’s what her mom said she was going to go to. In the same movie the interviewers, interview three young men and ask them what there favorite newspapers were and the three 7 year olds say that the read the London times and so on. 7 year olds reading the newspaper? It was simply funny when they answered to the interviewers, its like when someone copies there friends math homework and the home work they copied was for science and they look foolish. It was the same kind of feeling. Children get affected by capitalism just as much as everyone else. The three boys they were competing on who read the better newspaper because they wanted to be looked at as a smarter person because of what newspaper they read. Capitalism affects every life stage of a person from a child, to a teenager, to an adult, and lastly the elderly.
During your teenage years teenagers are made to wake up early and go to school for eight hours a day. To learn things that will help you become a better robot to work better in the capitalist society. The peak of your life and the possibilities are endless and you have to sit inside take tests work on papers and be stuck in a lifeless abyss. Not only do you have to do this to do anything else in the capitalist society you get graded and chosen on what you allowed to do based on what you are capable.
Me being a teenager I can speak a lot on this situation. I live my life working through the bullshit in high school, and the bullshit in my house. Either it’s the drama at school where you need to wear this kind of cloths to be in the cool crowd or its lying and fake people you have to feel out to find your real friends. The only way you can get these cool cloths is having money and the only way to get money is from your parents or to get a job. Getting money from your parents comes with a price though. You might have to do chores around the house to earn there money or you might be rolling in the dough where they will just fork the money over because they love you and they want to see you happy. Either way it comes down to you doing work, with your parents or your own job.
Some teenagers cannot pay to go to college and after high school they get a job a McDonalds and live with there parents until they are 30. Some of these teenagers don’t even finish high school and they just drop out. Because college is so expensive it’s hard for poor kids to get into the schools they want. Even the community colleges are expensive and not a lot of kids can pay for it. and then there are the rich kids that not even know what they want to do with there lives but be lazy and go to McDonalds and eat for a living can pay for college and just take up space for the rest of there lives.
Teenagers are the most effected by social norms. Out of the four stages teenagers are the stage most affected by social norms. Teenagers care what people think about them, even the ones who say they don’t care in essence really do care. Teenagers are being judged by either their peers and how they view them or the surrounding adults in there lives. People are always making judgment about teenagers. About how they dress, what music they listen too, all the way to how you wear your pants. Some teenagers can cope with this torment by buying into the judgments and using it for there own benefits, where if you know your parents don’t like you listening to you rap music very loud in your room you only listen to rap music very low while they are home. You can use this technique to by pass conflict and you don’t have to listen to them yell at you, you can just know they don’t like loud rap music so you listen to them take account there feelings, judgments and coexist in a happy environment, instead of the teenager fighting back against the parent because they truly do not want to be judged and want to be them self. This opens up a whole new argument about why do the parents not want you to listen to loud rap music? You might have a younger sibling and your sibling might learn a few new curse words because of the loud music. And because of the new words your siblings brings these new words to school and tells them to his or her friends. Once the whole class knows the new words the teacher asks who told you these new words and they all point to your sibling. Now your parent has to be called in after work while he could be home relaxing watching the baseball game. He has to come to school and be in an uncomfortable situation where he doesn’t know to be angry or disappointed. He has to be nice to the teacher who he is not to fond of. And there you have it your parent didn’t want you playing loud rap music because you baby sibling is going to go to school saying fuck, shit, ass, and bitch. Those new words are curse words and are not allowed in school and frowned upon. At school when something cannot be solved in class the parent is called and asked to solve it at home, pretty much where the situation started. But if we were to break down the already corrupt system of grade school and actually teach the students why these words are bad and shouldn’t use them they would understand the reason we should use them other then, my mom said so.
Even if you wanted to work and get a job and not go to school to help your family you couldn’t. It is government policy that all teenagers have to go school. If you are a student and you are outside during school hour’s truancy officer will come a look for you and if they find you they will bring you to central bookings and call your parents. If this becomes a reoccurrence then your parents are charged with neglect and you are told to live with foster parents. But for some families they need there son or daughter to work and help support the family and going to school is prime hours they can make money and help feed there family. It is unfair that some students go to school and goof of and bring everyone down around them, the rich spoiled kids who could care less about school because there going make it no matter what, either because of the color of there skin or there parents bank rolls. The system is unfair on so many levels, where the rich stay rich and there are unwritten rules to keep the rich, rich and the poor, poor. And everyone knows it but don’t do a dam thing to change it
Once you have been on the planet long enough for the social norm to call you an adult you have to jump into the “real” life. You need to get a job make a family and make money to be called successful. Nothing anybody does is good or worth it unless you are making money and fueling the capitalist machine. And the worst part is everyone wants to make money and continue fueling the machine. And people really get into it and they spend there whole lives in the matrix thinking that there lives are based on the money in there pocket and the clothing they wear, but really what is money? It is paper that says you have some sort of wealth to trade for things you really need like food and shelter. So if that’s the case why should anyone have more money than they really need? Why do people make money and profit buy selling food cloths and shelter? Nothing makes any sense but everyone looks past it like its second nature and no one questions it, because your no suppose to question it, your just suppose to go with it. But going with it continues to fuel the machine and not help you with your life.
Working in a capitalist society is renting your body for the corporation. All the work you do is nothing for you but the help for the direction of that corporation. For all that work the corporation gives you a salary and on this salary you can live your robotic life buying things you don’t need, buying your kids things they don’t need. With out the mindless adult none of these high powered corporations could exist. Isn’t that a eye opener? These huge companies that make millions and millions of dollars are supported by these mindless humans that are in there own world living there own way to get to there own happiness. Adults are the main component in the system of capitalism, without adults there would be nobody to run the corporations, nobody to exploit money from, and there would be no one to continue to believe the life that if you work hard enough you will reach the things you want and you can to be as happy as you want.
Once you are too old to contribute to the capitalist society you become some one who is just a waste of space in the eyes of the government. The only thing we give the elderly is a seat on the bus or train. And that’s about it. You get your social security money every month and you sit in your home watching television wasting away. There is no place that elderly fit in the money making equation. They are to slow to keep up with the daily 9-5 grind that most middle class robots do every day. And in our society we look at elderly like they have problems and they can succeed in our society. Most of them really have disease and are dying and can not function. But a lot of elderly people can fit in and help with certain things. Going back to the children elderly people like grand parents can help watching the youngsters as the parents sell there souls to the capitalist world to make a buck.
The American elderly person works in the system for 50 sum odd years until they have saved enough money to retire. And when they retire they move to Florida or Arizona. They move into the old folks villages and live until they die. They play golf, tennis, and shuffle board. Once you have reached a certain age the capitalist system doesn’t need your services any more at that point you are determinative to the system. So we send you off to these villages so you can have the most fun you can have before you kick the bucket. A lot of these old timers are regular people who become old, all the old rich people stay in the position they are in. it’s strange the richer you are and the older you are the better off you are in the capitalist society. It seems if your rich, old, fat, and white you seem like you know a lot and you have a lot to offer. This can not be farther from the truth but it’s a tradition in out society and it continues to be like that till this day.
In the movie Shawshank Redemption there is a main character that goes to jail, but being falsely accused of murdering his own wife. While in jail he meets a few close friends that he spends most of his time with. At first he works in the laundry room, but the warden finds out that he is good with numbers and has him do taxes for the warden and the guards. He also does some more laundry but not of the clothing variety but money laundering. The warden is making money on the side, under the table and all kinds of angles. But do all this work, Andy the main character is reassigned to the library to work with this old man, Brooks. Brooks is this old man that has been incarcerated for over 50 years. He is a nice old man that has been in jail for so long that, the only thing he really knows is Shashank, he has no idea what’s going on in the outside world and how he can contribute to the on going society. Later on in the movie Brooks finds out that he got parole and he can leave prison. But when he finds this out Brooks attacks a friend of his so he can kill him and they can keep him here in jail forever. He is scared that when he leaves jail he will have nothing to fall back on and nothing he can do is good enough to help the capitalist society. Once he leaves prison he is directed to a half way house that he lives in, the prison also sets him up with a job at a grocery store where he can bag groceries
Capitalism profanes all that is holy.
