High school student prefers socialism*
By Dinae Anderson
New York City high school student
Jan 23, 2011
My teacher assigned my class to write an essay on whether we are for capitalism or socialism. I chose socialism.
Here is my essay. I got 100 on it.
The system of socialism is far better to me than capitalism. Socialism, in which the people own public property and have equal distribution among the people, was an idea brought up because people were sick of capitalism. Capitalists show self-interest by the tactics to make profit for themselves; some means can be by corruption for these profits. In a system of socialism, a community of comrades work together to form profit and it’s fair when it would be done.
I could also agree with socialism on different standpoints. Socially, everyone is united and helps each other through socialism. Through capitalism, people care about themselves and not the welfare of their community. It’s financial, which leads to people’s ideas that socialism couldn’t work.
Well, the question I have in mind is, “If we are living is a system now in which no one cares, then are we made to believe that this mindset is human?” It couldn’t be, but some say it is. Economically, economists and business owners make profits through competition, which causes them to charge prices as high or as low as they could get by demand. This affects how people are able to afford products, but since they’re priced that way, we have to buy them.
Through socialism, a system would be made to make things affordable for the people and their interests. Politically, reforms that are usually made always seem to fail. A socialist government would make actual change that would give better effect on the country. As people under capitalism, we are eager to compete and be materialistic through name brands, etc., compared to a socialist society where we would not be materialistic and the people would actually give a helping hand to their communities.
Though I do not know how it would be like to live in a socialist country, the values I’ve learned make me believe the capitalist system I live in is unfair. Through capitalism, all I’ve seen is people caring about money, being better than everyone else (from materialism to racism), and being disconnected to our communities. If people learn how to come together, realize workers are being taken advantage of and want equal rights, things could work out with socialism.
