Free Enterprise in United States

Work hard, save your money, and you can become wealthy or, at least, case-by-case This is the motto of old-fashioned, free enterprise. It expresses the idea that everybody in a capitalist society can participate and make do on the same terms with similar jeopardizes of success. It implies that the working class is just a collection of individuals who deplete not yet established their independence (worked their way up) through individual initiative, rather than a universe permanent class. In the early 19th Century, closely Americans (including Abraham Lincoln, for instance) believed this.They mentation opportunities under capitalism would keep expanding forever. besides what is the reality behind this capitalist thinking? In the past, working people in America submit had to a greater extent opportunity to go into business or to get land for farming than anywhere else in the developed world. At the time the U. S. Constitution was written, it was generally assumed that on ly property owners should have the discipline to vote and participate in government. The Free Labor thinking of the Republican Party before the courteous War was basically a form of the capitalist work ethic.It meant that if 1) you were free yourself 2) your country was free and, 3) in that respect was no slave labor to take your livelihood, you could make something of yourself, and become a capitalist or, at least, an free producer, professional or artist. Americans in the nitrogen at that time were influenced by this capitalist work-ethic to under-estimate the energy of the South. They thought (as the capitalist work-ethic would lead them to believe) that the poverty and economic decline of the South were probably due to laziness and that this indicated that the North should be able to easily defeat the South.But the Civil War proved that Southerners were not ineffectual it was the slave system (lacking science and industry) that caused many of the economic problems there. T he capitalist work-ethic also caused Northerners to overlook the only chance for real progress in the South during the Reconstruction taking of the lands of former slave-owners, and their distribution to Blacks and poor Whites. They assumed, as did Abraham Lincoln, that anyone with ambition would plain work his way up.They could not understand that capitalism naturally limited opportunities, because the majority would have to be workers, not capitalists. With no land or other economic basis to undertake from, most workers in the South would have no way of lifting themselves from poverty. Strong competition with other capitalists, who atomic number 18 constantly trying to gain a larger market by offering a cheaper product, forces the founding father to keep putting everything back into his business. He must invest in more modern equipment in baffle to be able to produce more cheaply with higher quality, and on a larger scale.He must do this in order to improve his product or services, and also scram a larger share of the market, until he has reached a level where there is no immediate terror of being put out of business by his competition. This means having the most modern machinery and getting the most productivity out of his workers. This huge need for capital also forces the capitalist to rely more and more on third parties. Making the capitalist borrow from banks to keep his capitol at a safe sum total.They simply hire employees to make all the management decisions, design and develop the product, etc. Free enterprise thinking forgets that a worker has only his labor-power to care in order to earn his living. He competes with other workers to sell his labor-power at the cheapest price. The average price of labor-power (the workers wages) is the amount that it takes to make ends meet under the given social settings in a country. The laws of economics determine that if the worker works faster, he creates a cheaper product. But this eventually chea pens the amount which the capitalist must pay him in wages because there are always unemployed workers somewhere willing to work for the bare necessities.Working faster increases competition without increasing their earnings. Because of these realities, workers learn to work clean according to their own understanding. Working smart for the worker means withholding his labor power, working more slowly and learning the tricks of the trade, better known as bargaining. These things raise the price of his labor-power. This in turn forces the capitalist to concentrate more on improving productivity through better machinery and production processes in order to increase his profits.