Socialism: Three Pros And Cons Of The Economic System

Economy can be defined as, the activities by which a geographic area will support itself through the production, and consumption of its goods and services. Goods are products that can be seen or touched, such as a house or a taco. Services are intangible processes that someone or something can do to create products, such as a carpenter building a house or a chef cooking food. Three of the economic systems are capitalism, socialism, and mixed economies. There are no “pure” capitalism or “pure” socialism economies; they overlap with the result being a mixed economy. When examining these three economies, it becomes clear there are pros and cons to each of them.
Capitalism is an economic system that privately owns and controls its capital …show more content…
Karl Marx saw that the ideal outcome of socialism would be a classless society, this vision never came to be. Socialism as an economic system that can be described as being owned publicly or by a collective who uses their capital and production of goods and services to the benefit of everyone. Socialism is based on the pursuit of collective goals, the needs of society are more important than the individual. It was predicted that the capitalistic economy would implode after the workers would revolt because of being oppressed. After the revolt things would differ from the capitalism way of life. Ideal socialism has three components; first public ownership of the means of production, second is the pursuit of collective goals, and centralized decision making is third (Kendall, …show more content…
The playing field for many things would be leveled. Everyone would have access to the same healthcare, education, and wages. Equal distribution of national wealth would reduce poverty. There would be a great sense of community because everyone would work toward the pursuit of collective goals. Instead of a mentality that every man is for himself, a sense of community support would be felt. Due to access to healthy food, healthcare, and a healthy lifestyle people would achieve an improved health status.
The cons for socialism are many and include no real economic growth, no real growth in the standard of living, and no real incentive to work harder. Economic growth would be stunted because entrepreneurs would not be motivated to start new business because their wealth and success would be shared with society. There would not be any real increase in the standard of living for the rich. Living standard for the rich would be lowered to the poor for their improvement. Due to everything being equal and shared, there would be no drive to work hard and succeed or to act upon innovative