Essay

Capitalism is acknowledged but only at a surface level

Nowadays, we live in a world full of capitalism. Suppose we search for a definition of capitalism. In that case, we will find that capitalism is a form of economics in which individuals or corporations hold the means of production and distribution—profits fund operations, which a state government does not regulate. Individuals, small enterprises, organizations, and corporations make their own judgments about prices, production, and distribution of goods, resulting in an automated market in theory. (White, n.d.) If we stop to think about this statement, we would think that it’s crazy if the world would be running in this way, where each person could decide the price for things. However, our group statement declares that “Capitalism is acknowledged but only at a surface level.” why? Because capitalism exists, and it’s becoming more extensive than ever! The small things are full of capitalism, but the world is so used to it that they don’t even notice anymore. We consider capitalism a topic that needs to be spoken about. For that reason, each of us started searching about different ways of capitalism that may exist around us, and we found very interesting themes that should be spoken about.

Talking about capitalism, we could say that there are three main categories: capitalists who profit from the work of others, exploiters whose activities bring profit, and the excluded who are not included in the equation. However, these categories do not have strict boundaries, and some people might take a couple of roles simultaneously. The way capitalism affects a person’s life depends on if he is a worker or a boss. As the base of capitalism is profit and consumption, the more profit the company gains, the wealthier the owner becomes. Money makes money (Crimethinc, 2011). However, capitalism brings some problems and critiques. One of them is that capitalist bosses do not always intend to share their wealth with others, such as their employees. It becomes more important to be wealthy themselves than to give a possibility for others to earn an appropriate amount of money. That leads to the issue that some people earn very little money and work in unhealthy conditions even though the companies make a considerable profit. The reality is that these bosses have the power over that because the more capital they control, the more power they gain. Nevertheless, even though many people are aware of capitalism and how it works, not everyone acknowledges that.

As society is surrounded by capitalism from companies to the government, we don’t tend to think about the effect that it has caused to other communities and our own. Due to people being so used to this system built around capitalism there are companies, cities and people that benefit hugely from the exploitation and wealth that capitalism brings into the major ‘first world’ countries. These countries that are built on fast fashion industries and other production industries that demonstrate that capitalism is very much in our everyday existence. Due to this ‘Capitalism is certainly based on self-interest’ (Butler, pg13, 2018) and this is something that we have tried to capture within each of the photos that demonstrate that these everyday items and places that are so different to one another but are connected heavily to the idea of capitalist ideologies but are not acknowledged on a surface level within our lives. Within these photos we capture companies, places and brands that have profited or been affected due to capitalism; some participating in the chain of fast fashion, of people being exploited so these companies can gain billions, to others that have used the situation of the pandemic in which they profited of the situation or others suffering. 

Although capitalism has some pros such as individual performance being valued and a higher quality in products marketed to consumers, the cons heavily outweigh the pros as only a small percentage of the population actually benefit greatly from the capitalistic systems in place. Cons range from mass exploitation and homelessness to wealth gaps and individuals not getting equal opportunities in life based upon their wealth.

 To sum up, our visual essay and artistic statement have proved that ‘capitalism is acknowledged, but only on the surface level.’ In other words, we recognise that capitalism operates in our daily lives, i.e., the cost of living rises while salaries remain unchanged, but we simply accept it and live with it. This could be due to the fact that we have no option but to live by it because we as citizens lack the power or influence to change it, or it could simply be due to the fact that it has become so normalized that we don’t care enough to do anything about it. As previously stated, capitalism pervades society, from companies to government, and we rarely consider the impact it has had on other communities and our own. This means we don’t consider the profit margins of huge corporations like Amazon, where we purchase, in comparison to how the workers who generate those large profits are exploited. This can also be known as ‘amazon capitalism’. In simpler terms, ‘All corporations share one fundamental goal, to maximize profits.’  (Alimahomed-Wilson & Reese, 2020).  Moreover,  Our Photo Essay explores various aspects of capitalism that are acknowledged but only at a surface level, with some being more evident than others, such as luxury goods like Burberry products vs the less obvious, such as educational institutions, going into debt for university paying fees such as tuition and SFE.

Bibliography: 

Butler, E. (2018). Capitalism. The Institute of Economic Affairs. https://iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Butler-Capitalism-Interactive.pdf

Crimethinc. (2011). Work : Capitalism. Economics. Resistance. Crimethinc. Workers’ Collective.

Alimahomed-Wilson, J., & Reese, E. (2020). The Cost of Free Shipping.

‌ 

Link to the essay: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wa_F0Oten4xDvh4OFrJc_ConwzJCtogW87k6Ra6UYb0/edit

Photo Gallery

Link to the gallery: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19KvWPWQwm7hdUJJ2z5x5OD0BkvOselNeOWeR5x2yH1E/edit?usp=sharing

Reflection

My group’s statement for this project is ‘Capitalism is acknowledged only at surface level’. The idea to talk about capitalism came to my mind because of the session about capitalism and the movie ‘The true cost’. So after watching the movie, I started thinking more about the capitalism surrounding us and how we do not see it. It is shocking how people seek to look or be rich, no matter what. When we, as a group, decided on the statement, many ideas came to my mind. This statement made me look even deeper into the term capitalism and its approach. I chose to do pictures related to Starbucks, COVID-19 vaccinations, celebrities, social media and cigarettes. They all indicate that people do not always think about the capital side while thinking about these topics. For example, people have celebrities they like and support. However, not everyone thinks that by being their fans, people make celebrities wealthy. Even though people know that it is a way celebrities earn money yet, not everyone might think that the more fans celebrities have, the wealthier they become. Talking about Starbucks, from the lecture and the movie ‘Balck gold’, I found out that the difference between the cup of coffee sold in Ethiopia and Starbucks is vast. So, I wanted to present that coffee has become much more expensive because of the desire for money. The photo showing Covid-19 vaccinations represents that pharmacy companies earn much money even in this horrible time of lockdown and numerous deaths. By this example, I want to say that during that time, when vaccinations looked like the only solution, people did not think about the fact that pharmaceutical companies that invented vaccines became rich. Talking about social media and capitalism, I want to indicate that many people use social media platforms and enjoy them being free. However, the capital there is different. Users pay for their time spent there so that other companies can earn money. The last photo displays that the tobacco industry is one of the biggest industries. However, the way they earn money is not the healthiest for others, as smoking causes many diseases. So, I want to show that people usually critique cigarettes as an addiction or that it causes health issues. However, not many people talk about the capital side of the tobacco industry as they earn much money by harming people’s health. So, my ideas for this group project states how people do not always acknowledge capitalism in some things, such as thinking about Starbucks coffee, being fans of celebrities, using social media platforms, getting vaccinated for Covid -19, and just talking about the harm of cigarettes. Also, my contribution to the essay was writing the first body paragraph that talks about capitalism overall and how it is seen. I talked about the main categories while looking at capitalism and how it leads to the issues we wanted to show in our statement. So, this group project allowed me to delve deeper into capitalism, what is it, and how it is everywhere around people.