Prompt: Choose an issue of importance to you - the issue could be personal, school related, local, political, or international in scope - and write an essay in which you explain the significance of that issue to yourself, your family, your community, or your generation.
I was thinking of writing about the negative impacts of capitalism on the world. I want to briefly touch on work standards (or lack thereof), child labor, environmental devastation, and the phenomenon of mcdonaldization. Is this topic appropriate?
This is my opening paragraph
Last summer, the United Nations formally acknowledged that the detrimental impacts of capitalism have outweighed its aggregate benefits and stated that actions must be taken to harness its destruction. Fueled by consumerism, capitalism has deprived us of culture, natural resources, and to an extent, life. The consequences of capitalism are felt by the vast majority of the world's population. According to the World Health Organization, roughly 18 million people die from poverty-related causes each year. Rocketing prices for basic foods such as rice and wheat have led to violent riots in places like Haiti, Bangladesh, and Egypt. Although many Americans believe that their greatest encounter with starvation will be the midnight infomercial begging for donations, the grim reality is that the predicament of poverty for most is closer than they realize. Approximately fifty percent of those living in America are expected to live at least one year in poverty, some of which never ascend from their unfortunate circumstance. These numbers can only climb when considering that the impacts of the current economic depression have not fully developed.
Haha your topic reminds me of a debate tag that my friend came across while researching. "In capitalism, even the rich live in poverty. They have poverty in the mind." or something like that. Anyway.
This is not a term paper. This is personal.
Your introduction is just an average argument against cap. I don't see how you are going to continue this essay.
I was on the debate team in hs, I guess it stuck with me :/ My original plan was to talk about the impacts of capitalism and then talk about the alternatives. Is this topic too general? I want my issue to be in the international scope
Your introduction isn't very promising, inasmuch of most of what you say is either wrong, or worse, nonsensical. Capitalism, at least as it has been practiced in the first world, has resulted in massive increases in life expectancy, so your claim about capitalism depriving people of life is demonstrably and obviously false. Haiti does indeed suffer from dire poverty, but it is hardly a hotbed of capitalism. Most of its main businesses are state run, and moves towards a more modernized, Western style of democratic capitalism have occurred only haltingly, and only after decades of governance by corrupt dictatorships. Bangladesh likewise implemented a static economic policy centered around nationalization of key industries, and this after a civil war had destroyed most of their infrastructure. Likewise, Egypt has only begun moving towards a capitalist market economy in the past twenty years, and reforms, as in the other countries you mentioned, have been slowed by political corruption. The problem with all three places you mentioned is that they have not embraced capitalism, which makes them poor examples of the failures of the system. Finally, poverty in America and poverty in developing nations or in the third world is very, very different, and to lump them together as if they were the same phenomenon is naive to the point of being ridiculous. There are arguments that can be made against capitalism, but from your introduction, you aren't going to be making any of them. I'd suggest you do some more research before continuing with this essay.
Sean's response gives you a good idea of the hostile reading you will get if you send this essay to a mainstream school. I happen to agree with your conclusions about capitalism. What I would advise you do will depend upon where you are sending the essay. If to a mainstream school in the United States, you may want to change topics altogether, as even the most well-argued critique of capitalism will receive a very hostile reading. If to a progressive program or school, then you can salvage the topic but will have to be much more careful in making your arguments. For example, your first statement is simply untrue, and this undercuts the credibility of everything you say thereafter. Your second line can serve as a thesis statement, provided that you are prepared to marshal the facts to demonstrate that this is true (which, of course, it is, no matter how you defind "we"). I'll be happy to help you do that if you decide to stay with the topic. Just tell us what you plan to do.
I'd stay with the topic, regardless of where you are applying -- if this is what you feel passionate about writing about, you should be true to yourself. Certainly, in researching your topic more thoroughly, you will likely learn a lot and be able to better articulate your economic and political beliefs. Why not start with the basics (for your own edification, and to get a sense of where to start when writing your essay -- you don't necessarily need to include all of this in your final draft)? So, first, write out a fairly comprehensive definition of capitalism. Then, make a list of all of the major nations of the world, and decide which ones can be reasonably described as capitalist (Hint: no country, not even America, practices unfettered capitalism, so what you will likely be doing is seeing which nations have capitalistic elements, drawn from your basic definition of the term.) Then, look at various measures of economic and social success -- levels of life expectancy, GDP, levels of education, literacy, technological progress, social equality etc. What trends do you notice? Are the more capitalistic countries on average more or less wealthy than non-capitalistic ones? Do their citizens live longer or shorter lives? Are they more or less educated? Do they have more or less political freedom? And so on. At the very least, this would prevent you from citing the dire poverty of non-capitalist countries as proof of the failures of capitalism, and give you a solid statistical basis upon which you can start making claims of the sort you want to make.
Better yet, this approach would allow you to carry out a more nuanced analysis of capitalism as an economic system instead of "capitalism bad" or "capitalism good." Just possibly, any complex economic system may consist of multiple elements, each with its own set of advantages and drawbacks, and should be considered more critically than an outright dismissal or acceptance of it would imply.
As an aside, you might base some of your brainstorming on your reaction to some famous quotations about capitalism: thinkexist.com/quotations/capitalism/.
Ask yourself, what different premises do the speakers have to be working from to have said each quote and meant it?
Oh, and a quote that isn't on the website I linked to above, but should be, from Churchill: "The problem with capitalism is capitalists. The problem with socialism is socialism."
Thank you Simone and Sean for your input, I will certainly do more research. I am a bit weary of writing about such a controversial topic...yet I feel that if any institution would appreciate it, it would be UT austin. I also haven't been able to dabble very much in interesting concepts such as economic structures so I am really enjoying being able to research and learn a thing or two. The first sentence of my paragraph is bold to say the least, and I will reword it to accurately depict what I was trying to get across. Again, thank you for your criticism, I just recently discovered essayforum.com and am so appreciative of a website that is dedicated to helping others in the literary process.
I look forward to reading your next draft. If you want statistics about various countries, such as life expectancy, education rates, etc., you might find this site useful: wolframalpha.com
You can probably learn about the economic systems of various countries just by looking up those countries in wikipedia, at least to get a quick overview.