Paul Le Blanc's The Absence Of Socialism In America

While the United States currently faces a diminishing middle class, many of it’s citizens seem to be attracted to changing the capitalist economic system in place today. While the rich exhaust their privileges, the lower class finds itself in a cycle of poverty. Although fear of any socialist reforms crippled the country in the twentieth century, the popularity of current European socialist countries have those suffering in the United States beginning to consider a socialist economy. While capitalism emphasizes money and individuals owning enterprises and production, socialism puts the majority of its emphasis on its people, cumulatively owning production and distribution (Archer). However, the majority of the country stays true to the economy in …show more content…
Arguments for the economic policy change include that an economy that is severely money-oriented neglects their citizen’s needs, and mandates that in order to be respected, loved, worthy, and in order to keep yourself and your family alive in general, you must possess a piece of green paper, only worthy of anything because we told you so. Paul le Blanc addressed the socialist views in his essay “The Absence of Socialism in America”, by calling the “class antagonism” a contradiction to the capitalist system. Instead of giving everyone opportunity, as it’s pure theories would do, American capitalism is giving opportunity to a select few, and neglecting the majority of its nation. Currently, Europe has many successful socialist countries who focus on the needs of their citizens, proving itself to be better for the individual than capitalism. The majority of these countries have ranked drastically higher than the United States in their science, math and reading scores. Interestingly, while unemployment typically trends lower in the United States, poverty rates are significantly higher than countries that instill socialism in their