A People’s History of the United States: Reflection Chapter 5 A Kind of Revolution To summarize, this chapter serves to explain about how the common people were wooed into serving in the Revolutionary War. While the rich could control and influence (and even get out of) the drafting, the poor had no such power. However, seeing as slaves and Indians would not want to participate, the white colonists had to be persuaded. This brings to light the immense distinction between the poor and the rich, and as Zinn states, “It seemed that the majority of white colonists, who had a bit of land, or no property at all, were still better off than slaves or indentured servants or Indians, and could be wooed into the coalition of the Revolution,” (Zinn 80). He also says that 10% of the white population owned nearly half of the wealth of the country and held slaves as 1/7th of the country’s people.
Margaret Thatcher’s version of liberal conservatism, known as the ‘new right’, swept away the power and influence of the one nation conservatives in the party. She believed that people were naturally competitive, that private enterprise should be encouraged because it rewarded effort. There was a belief that high taxation meant that those who created wealth were penalised so that the less gifted could be subsidised. Her supporters were strong believers in the individual, yet just as the liberals of the Victorian era they believed in a strong state. The new right was radical departure from traditional conservatism because the policies on society are completely different.
It is often considered that the Democratic party is more for the people and the Republican party is for the wealthy and those able to provide for themselves through free enterprise. Based upon economics, the Republican party feels as though the United States has established its dominance and greatness through free enterprise. They believe that innovation and economic growth has come from it. The Democratic party views the economy as too complicated for the everyday person hence why they feel the government should aid in all business decisions through the establishment of labor unions. The main contrast here is that
Marxists especially claim that liberal democratic governments favour disproportionately the interests of well funded, well organised pro-capitalist pressure groups because governments depend for their very survival on the profitability and efficiency of private capitalism on which in turn levels of employment, living standards and economic growth depend. Governments are therefore unlikely to introduce policies which are not supported by private enterprise. Furthermore pro-capitalist pressure groups are likely to be granted insider status which means that their negotiations with government are often secret which undermines both their own and the government’s accountability to the general public. Furthermore most pressure groups, apart from trade unions, are joined mainly by relatively affluent middle class people and most pressure group leaders [who may not be chosen by especially democratic methods] are even more likely to be middle class although we cannot automatically assume that pressure groups’ middle class members and leaders will not attempt to represent the interests of other social groups. However these points taken together do suggest that the poor and otherwise disadvantaged groups such as many disabled people and members of some ethnic minority groups are themselves relatively unlikely to be involved directly in pressure group activity and relatively more likely to be represented by under-funded outsider pressure groups which despite their best efforts may be unable to greatly influence government.
This lead people to become suspicious of foreigners and the government placed many restrictions on the security of people from other countries. The political arguments are that increased immigration leads to a better representation of the country to other countries. Greater mobility will increase the bargaining power of individuals in their negotiations with different faces of sovereign power. Exit can spur political development, by making states work harder to keep their people from leaving. A truly competitive global market for labor would lead to greater competition among countries and likely improve
Disharmony might arise when people felt the system was not fair, for example, when large bonuses are paid to bankers during a recession. Parsons and inequality Parsons developed Durkheim’s ideas and said that: In industrialised societies stratification, and therefore inequality, exists on the basis of which roles are agreed by the most important, and therefore the most functional for society. The agreement occurs because people are socialised into the shared norms and values for society, initially by the family, and subsequently by education and the other agents. The value consensus that results is what holds society together and it gives it social order.
That’s greed. The incentive to do these things is to be as successful as possible. That is the “American Dream.” That is why the US is the way it is today. Capitalism does have its strengths and weaknesses but the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. For example, greed causes businessmen to compete with other businessmen, thus, keeping prices reasonable and forces them to keep up with consumer demands.
However, if the U.S. was ever to compete, the companies they selected should have already been capable of raising the funds. The Strategic Sourcing policy states, “In cases where there may be important first mover advantages, governments can help firms from their countries attain these advantages”. I think that the U.S. was trying to utilize this strategy by investing in small companies (they didn’t do their research) and wanted to move quickly in order to gain an advantage. The most unclear part of the session was about how much money was actually lost in the investments that the U.S. government made in the
* Having control of the past allows the government to have control of the future. * The future is a direct consequence of the past. * The party will feed them lies about the past, to gain more support for their political agenda by portraying the past in a negative light. * Limiting memory, to limit knowledge of the past. * Makes control of people easier, as they will be more like to support the Party if they think the party has brought positive changes.
My initial response is that the Marxists are correct as the ruling class do have the choice to raise the workers’ wages but they still chose not to. Marxists suggest that males are the most dominant in the family. Engels believed that the farther needed to know who their offspring were in order to pass property down to their children through inheritance. He argues that the need for family came about when society started to value their private property and wealth. As a result of this he believed the nuclear family was crucial and that any other type of family was a threat to society.