Money Blown America: Capitalism and Its Unsociable Discontents

Bling, 20-inch rims, label-whores, fat cribs, fast cars, and faster women- it seems that all these things are associated with wealth in America's consumer culture. It's the high life, the capitalist road that takes you all the way up to first class, laden with luxury. What isn't abundant in our culture are the images of children scuffling at Prada shoes for nickels, and citizens coerced into working a nine to five under poor and harmful conditions. And nowhere on MTV can you find clips of the hundreds of humans living with major health problems because of toxins released in the air by large power plants. The disparity between those who suffer and those who produce the suffering is a direct result of a free-market system erected alongside industrialism and monopoly capitalism. Therefore, a heated debate develops around the free market and the duty of government to regulate the disparities and the injustices that it yields. Essentially, free-market defenders advocate a limited or virtually nonexistent government role in the U.S. capitalist economy, calling for freedom for individuals to seek their self-interests; which in turn, according to free-marketers, will accumulate wealth for the entire nation. Critics of the unregulated, free-market highlight its failures and this in turn justifies their call for government's need to intervene to help stimulate the capitalist economy and revive it back to a functioning market. But the debate over government intervention is an intricate one, for even the father of the free-market system, Adam Smith himself, condones some government action on part of society's organization. It is the different forms of government intervention that is of significance and becomes hot plates for the political economic discussion.