Commodification In Bruce Springsteen's Song 'The River'

Capitalism, in its ideal form, is an economic system meant to give consumers the opportunity to become producers of a product and sell goods to consumers without much government involvement. In practice, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim can attest to this economic system’s ability to benefit an opportunistic minority, while it disadvantages the majority, especially the working and lower class. These three classical theorists have varying views in what way capitalism ensnares the poor and how to break the recurring cycle, but all three theorists believe that capitalism benefits few and subjects the majority to a dependence on consumerism and the endless cycle of materialism and a lack of money. In “Fight Club”, the Narrator finds that his identity

Production is decided on a supply and demand basis- resulting in a capitalist society. This happens due to the dispersion of wealth throughout an economy, the richest dictating which products should be produced due to their own demands, and the poorest having little

The role that individuals play in the capitalist system is that you yourself must do what ever you can to be as rich as possible and if you dont then there will be consequences such as health, and living check by check. Also in an individuals working class everyone earns different wages such as one man who is doing the same job as another but is getting paid higher only because of certain circumstances, while in Cuba, every docotor gets paid the same and no individual sleeps as hungry or without a

The rise of Capitalism assisted in increasing the chasm which already existed between the wealthy and the poor. The newly created middle class also rapidly becoming wealthy as a result of the new commerce, and were able to spend more time perusing the leisure activities before only enjoyed by the rich. Capitalism naturally had it opposition from all sides, the wealthy, the middle class, and the increasingly poor. This opposition was able to take root within the poor and

The five major revolutionary changes that the bourgeoisie brings about through capitalism are market economy, private property, wages, imperialism, and financial institutions. Marx and Engles say these changes are bad because they widen the gap according to income making mobility between classes inaccessible and ultimately making equality unattainable. Marx believed that the market economy worked in a capitalist society to direct repression of movements to keep the elite as elites and the lower class in the lower class. The fluidity of money in capitalism is okay, for the first few years there is no change, and people are almost equally spread. But, as time moves forward the distance between the first class and the middle class widens The same goes for the middle class to the poor and an even larger gap between the poor and the elite as I am sure you can imagine.

Every society is structured or designed with the intention to form social classes; classes that will determine the social mobility of each individual living within it. Within the social hierarchy, there is inevitably one class that essentially oppresses the others. The Communist Manifesto features The Bourgeoisie and The Proletarians, and explains that the relationship between the two classes is a common frictional relationship that has occurred countless times throughout history. It explains that the modern Bourgeoisie will eventually fall, due to their inability to maintain a lifestyle for the proletarians; which is ultimately caused by the instability of capitalism.

Karl Marx developed his theory on class division by suggesting that all societies have two major classes, a ruling class and a subject class. The ruling class owned a means of production such as land or capital, whereas the subject class did not. Marx argued that this leads to the ruling class exploiting the subject class. The ruling class use a superstructure of the legal and political systems to justify its position and prevent protests by the subject class. In capitalist societies the main classes are the bourgeoisie (capitalist) and the proletariat (working class). In these societies the bourgeoisie exploits the working class through wage labour. The capitalists pay wages to the workers, but make a profit because they pay the workers less than the value of what they produce. Capitalism is the newest type of class society but it will also be the last. Eventually it will be replaced by a communist society in which the means of production

Another concept that brought about inequality among the bourgeoisie and proletariat is the labour theory of value. As stated in the textbook Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory, “One of the basic truths of capitalism is that it takes money to make money, and the more money a business owner has at his or her disposal, the more ability the business owner has to generate profit-making schemes” (Appelrouth and Edles: 25). In this case, the bourgeoisies are at a benefit as they own the means of production, while the proletariat are at a disadvantage as they don’t have capital to make money. Marx’s ‘general formula for capital’ explains the class and power relations that predominate in modern capitalist society through the formula M-C-M. Marx describes this law of value to be beneficial to the bourgeoisies as they increase profits and capital. Bourgeoisies are able to do this because they have the money (M) to buy capital, which converts their money into commonality (C), which they then use to produce other commodities that are sold for money (M). Bourgeoisies predominate the proletariats through power relations as the formula is inversed for the working class, C-M-C. The working class sells their labour through commodity (C), which then is exchanged for money (M) and used to buy commodities (C) necessary for survival. The C-M-C

As long as it has been in existence, society has always been fractured into social classes, the very rich and the very poor. I see within our society the chasm growing by the year. The proletariat, boxed into cramped houses, while the bourgeoisie reside in mansions that jut up towards the sky touching the clouds. The rich, who control mostly everything in todays age, capitalize on those less fortunate than themselves and bask in the ignorance of the lower class. It is painful for myself to see the common worker, the average person, being taken advantage of and not even knowing his rights against such things.

Theorists began to recognize capitalism as pre-industrial society developed economically and major social changes began to occur. Modernization resulted in industrialization, urbanization and bureaucratization as the workplace shifted from the home to the factory, people moved from farms into cities where jobs were more readily available and large-scale formal organizations emerged. Classical theorists’ observations addressed numerous facets of social organization and interaction that came about as a result of modernization; however this essay will focus on their ideas regarding capitalism and the capitalistic society. Over

Capitalism started up as a system of investing and sharing money in order to increase the value of resources in the future. Capitalism was just an economic system, but then soon turned into a complex system of ethical practices. Harari defines capitalism as, “a set of teachings about how people should behave, educate their children and even think” (Harari 314). This economic system evolved along with the people that were endorsing it. Capitalism enables the rich to get richer, while the poor continue to get poorer. There are many benefits to capitalism, but there are downfalls as well, and these downfalls tend to be masked because of the rapid speed capitalists grow at. Harari first presents a definition for capitalism, and soon goes into great detail on why capitalism, while fast paced and unforgiving, is able to stand unwavered while other productions fail.

Capitalism is an economic system in which industry, trade and factor and means of production are controlled by private investors or owners with an aim of making profit in a market economy. It affects the rate of capital accumulation, labor wage and the control of competitive market. This usually affects the economy of different societies since the government has no control over the economy. The forces of capitalism greatly affect the societies in that the poor continues to be poorer while the reach society continues to accumulate wealthy and become richer. It widens the income disparity gap. It influences both the economic aspect and social aspect of the societies largely. This mainly is influenced by the forces that

Karl Marx describes “Society as a whole [as being] more and more [split] up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other-bourgeoisie and proletariat” (Marx 124).  As Marx made his distinction between upper class, bourgeoisie, and lower class, proletariats, it is important to keep in mind the societal structure at the time.  To understand how classes were created and the disparity between the rich and poor, or, bourgeoisie and proletariat, it is necessary to examine how people came to be rich and poor.  Exploring a time before money existed will help us to process and understand reasons why the binary between rich and poor exists and how it is reflective of low and high art distinctions.

Human societies have been class based in some way and the class factor has been the most basic dividing or differentiating factor between broad social groups. In the economic sphere that Marx’s theory focuses on, there is a class that own and control means of economic production which could be referred to as the upper class, and there is the class that maybe own nothing, but their ability to sell their labor power in return for wages which could be referred to as the middle or low class. From that understanding, and based on the conflict theory, one might argue that unequal distribution of resources and access

Capitalism is when the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer. Capitalism has mercy on no one. Each individual lives in a society where the mass crowd complain about how the big business are buying the smaller ones but just doesn’t grasp the idea that all this is happening because of the consumers themselves. Within a system just as there is pros there are also cons, cons that are costly in the end. One of the biggest cons that capitalism promote is wealth inequality. Wealth can be inherited, so some people can be rich just due to luck of their ancestors. The others that are not so lucky has to work hard for their earnings. So this becomes a problem because not only does it promotes wealth inequality, it also promotes inequality of opportunity. Capitalist societies are failing to create both equality of outcomes and equality of opportunities. Example of this is the Great depression which lasted from 1929 to the beginning of World War II, profoundly shook the world’s confidence in the capitalist system. The crisis began with the crash of the New York stock market and resulted in widespread economic damage throughout the world, including bank failures, massive unemployment, and bankruptcies. According to the article Capitalism it states, “In addition, the suffering that resulted from the Great Depression highlighted the vulnerability of the labor force. In the United States, 25 percent of workers lost their jobs, and bank failures wiped out many people’s life savings.”