Jump to content
OneHallyu Will Be Closing End Of 2023 ×
OneHallyu

How the capitalist system influences in your life?


munyuna

Recommended Posts

Hi guys

 

I have this project for my English class and I have to talk about how the capitalism influences in my life - I can talk about anything, the littlest things, as long as I show that these things are influenced by the system. Daily life, work, relationships etc. I thought it would be pretty interesting to talk about it with all of you since the majority of us live in capitalist countries, maybe I can make a better project if we have a decent discussion.

 

So, what's the influence of capitalism in your life?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is how capitalism affects my life:

Every time someone mentions college my mother goes on a 30 minute rant about how terrible and ridiculous and soul-sucking capitalism is and how much better the Soviet Union was with its free universities and ample jobs and cheap food and how much she regrets ever moving to America.

 

I wish I was joking but I'm not.  :._.:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is how capitalism affects my life:

Every time someone mentions college my mother goes on a 30 minute rant about how terrible and ridiculous and soul-sucking capitalism is and how much better the Soviet Union was with its free universities and ample jobs and cheap food and how much she regrets ever moving to America.

 

I wish I was joking but I'm not.  :._.:

 

I see her point ):

Thanks

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is how capitalism affects my life:

Every time someone mentions college my mother goes on a 30 minute rant about how terrible and ridiculous and soul-sucking capitalism is and how much better the Soviet Union was with its free universities and ample jobs and cheap food and how much she regrets ever moving to America.

 

I wish I was joking but I'm not.  :._.:

Soviet Union was a heaven :datass:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Soviet Union was a heaven :datass:

 

 

tbh it seemed to be pretty great (until it fell apart of course) from what I've heard from my parents and other  former citizens...

 

I've learned that there was a lot of admnistration issues... in my point of view, socialism would work only if the great potencies adopt it too, which is unlikely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My parents came to the United States for economic (and religious) freedom they could never have back under the socialist state in their old country that crushed their family businesses with abusive "taxation." Capitalism serves as a check on the government's ability to intrude into a person's financial liberty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've learned that there was a lot of admnistration issues... in my point of view, socialism would work only if the great potencies adopt it too, which is unlikely.

My mother was a lawyer in the Soviet Union and she does admit there were a lot of faults in the system but she still preferred that to America today. Of course that could be just nostalgia speaking, I dunno. I don't have a very strong opinion on this because I have lived in America most of my life and don't know what it was like to actually live in a socialist country. But I do think it's fairly valid to recognize that at least a large percentage of former Soviet Union citizens say that they preferred the Soviet Union to whatever country they live in now. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My mother was a lawyer in the Soviet Union and she does admit there were a lot of faults in the system but she still preferred that to America today. Of course that could be just nostalgia speaking, I dunno. I don't have a very strong opinion on this because I have lived in America most of my life and don't know what it was like to actually live in a socialist country. But I do think it's fairly valid to recognize that at least a large percentage of former Soviet Union citizens say that they preferred the Soviet Union to whatever country they live in now. 

 

That's quite new to me, capitalism also has some severe faults but somehow they're not strong enough to make the system fails like socialism. I have no idea on how it would be to live under a different system too

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The things that you do that don't involve making money, reducing cost or contributing to the economy are seen as having little value.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The things that you do that don't involve making money, reducing cost or contributing to the economy are seen as having little value.

 

Oh god YES, I think that's the biggest issue. I'm going to college soon and my mom keeps telling me that I should go for something that will give me a good, well-paid job...how fucked up is that

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's quite new to me, capitalism also has some severe faults but somehow they're not strong enough to make the system fails like socialism. I have no idea on how it would be to live under a different system too

I just went and asked my father about this. Of course he's just one random person so I don't know how valid his opinion really is. I asked him what country he preferred, and said that "of course" he preferred the Soviet Union. He says it was much more peaceful because practically no one was ever fired unless there were extreme circumstances, people actually worked only 7-8 hour days, they got about a month off every year. University was completely free and students that did well were actually paid a large stipend that was not much lower than actual workers' wages. He admits there was a problem with housing but you could get a free apartment from the government after waiting about 20 years. He says there was a noticeable increase in the quality of life from the 70's to the mid 80's, and had there not had been issues with certain politicians, he thinks that the system could have continued perfectly fine and it might have even gotten better. I asked him why he thought it failed and he said it was because there wasn't enough democracy (although there was some) which allowed a small quantity of people to essentially destroy an entire country. 

 

Might be an interesting perspective for some people idk. ^^

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Christmas shopping is the perfect Capitalist Enterprise.

Christmas is supposed to be a celebration, right?

Well, it was such in the Pagan days and early Christianity, but now its just about giving and receiving XBOX One consoles.

 

I think most people don't have know the true meaning of Christmas nowadays

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh god YES, I think that's the biggest issue. I'm going to college soon and my mom keeps telling me that I should go for something that will give me a good, well-paid job...how fucked up is that

 

It's true though. It's a system where your wage is more important than the work you do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

nos·tal·gia

[no-stal-juh, -jee-uh, nuh-] 

noun

 

A wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home orhomeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former placeor time: a nostalgia for his college days.

 

SovietLines.jpg

Taken from Life in the Soviet Union

 

Sample comment:

I remember in the early 1970's waiting in a queue forever to finally get the chance to purchase a few half rotted potatoes, practically thrown in our face by a rude sales clerk.  The only plentiful things were shortages and rudeness. People could spend an entire day criss-crossing Moscow and leaning on connections just to obtain a portion of the basic necessities of life.

 

 

Also, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255693/Last-pictures-life-iron-curtain-collapse-USSR.html

 

Sample comment:

 

 

Not a fan of communism at all but ironically it was probably most relaxed time in my life. It may sounds weird but people in Soviet Union had quite lot of money in their hands but nothing to spend that money on in the state-run stores with its low state prices. The very same time you could buy almost everything from a private seller, or just from small free markets with prices 3-4 time higher and a line no longer than in modern supermarket ( except for a very few last months of 1991 after the cope when Gorbachev was ousted from power) Grim: It's what began AFTER 1991. No more state-run stores with low prices, no queues for amazing pictures. No more salaries to buy anything. No former middle income class. Every engineering and production company goes bankrupt. All the property goes into the hands of former comy parteigennoses. The whole country now has only choice to suck out oil as quick as possible.

 

Mind you, I'm not suggesting that the Daily Mail is a reliable source for unbiased information gathering.  But the photos are striking, and presents an alternative view to the rose-tinted accounts of the 'glories' of the former USSR (unless, of course, you were part of the elite).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

SovietLines.jpg

Taken from Life in the Soviet Union

 

Sample comment:

 

 

Also, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255693/Last-pictures-life-iron-curtain-collapse-USSR.html

 

Mind you, I'm not suggesting that the Daily Mail is a reliable source for unbiased information gathering.  But the photos are striking, and presents an alternative view to the rose-tinted accounts of the 'glories' of the former USSR (unless, of course, you were part of the elite).

Hey I never claimed my parents' opinions were unbiased, I just felt like sharing what I've been told most of my life. I've asked my parents about this before and they said they didn't have any trouble with basic necessities like food. My father grew up in Moscow and my mother grew up in a small village, so they did face different circumstances. My mother says the worst things was that they didn't have gas in her village. She's told me many stories about rude clerks so I assume that's probably true. The line in that photo isn't even that long tbh, I wait in longer lines to buy lunch at school. Also that photo was taken in the summer/fall of 1990 when things were obviously falling apart and getting worse. In the end I can't be sure of what it was really like but I certainly don't think it was nearly as bad as most Americans portray it to be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey I never claimed my parents' opinions were unbiased, I just felt like sharing what I've been told most of my life. I've asked my parents about this before and they said they didn't have any trouble with basic necessities like food. My father grew up in Moscow and my mother grew up in a small village, so they did face different circumstances. My mother says the worst things was that they didn't have gas in her village. She's told me many stories about rude clerks so I assume that's probably true. The line in that photo isn't even that long tbh, I wait in longer lines to buy lunch at school. Also that photo was taken in the summer/fall of 1990 when things were obviously falling apart and getting worse. In the end I can't be sure of what it was really like but I certainly don't think it was nearly as bad as most Americans portray it to be.

 

Thanks for sharing your parents' POV of how life in the former USSR was like.  I'm not in any way suggesting by my post that your parents' accounts were anything but true, fair and accurate from their perspective.

 

It's just that before the collapse of communism, the Western mass media had painted a rather grim portrait about how bad life was behind the Iron Curtain (as encapsulated by the first part of that second quote in my post).  When the Berlin Wall tumbled in 1989, the sense of optimism pervailing the entire world was palpable; everyone believed that the end of the Cold War heralds the beginning of a new era where everything would be hunky dory.  The reality is of course that while communism had been proven to be a idealistic-but-ultimately-failed concept, capitalism is not that much better.  The net result is a move towards hankering over the nostalgic past (forgetting that the past was not that wonderful either).

 

Edit:  This image accurately reflects what I feel:

25362d1284333189t-funny-pic-thread-socia

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey I never claimed my parents' opinions were unbiased, I just felt like sharing what I've been told most of my life. I've asked my parents about this before and they said they didn't have any trouble with basic necessities like food. My father grew up in Moscow and my mother grew up in a small village, so they did face different circumstances. My mother says the worst things was that they didn't have gas in her village. She's told me many stories about rude clerks so I assume that's probably true. The line in that photo isn't even that long tbh, I wait in longer lines to buy lunch at school. Also that photo was taken in the summer/fall of 1990 when things were obviously falling apart and getting worse. In the end I can't be sure of what it was really like but I certainly don't think it was nearly as bad as most Americans portray it to be.

 

 

Thanks for sharing your parents' POV of how life in the former USSR was like.  I'm not in any way suggesting by my post that your parents' accounts were anything but true, fair and accurate from their perspective.

 

It's just that before the collapse of communism, the Western mass media had painted a rather grim portrait about how bad life was behind the Iron Curtain (as encapsulated by the first part of that second quote in my post).  When the Berlin Wall tumbled in 1989, the sense of optimism pervailing the entire world was palpable; everyone believed that the end of the Cold War heralds the beginning of a new era where everything would be hunky dory.  The reality is of course that while communism had been proven to be a idealistic-but-ultimately-failed concept, capitalism is not that much better.  The net result is a move towards hankering over the nostalgic past (forgetting that the past was not that wonderful either).

 

Edit:  This image accurately reflects what I feel:

25362d1284333189t-funny-pic-thread-socia

 

 

My parents came to the United States for economic (and religious) freedom they could never have back under the socialist state in their old country that crushed their family businesses with abusive "taxation." Capitalism serves as a check on the government's ability to intrude into a person's financial liberty.

 

I'm just quoting y'all to let you know that I presented my project today and your posts helped me a lot (:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.

Back to Top