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Capitalism In America - School Essays

Capitalism In America

"Work hard, save your money, and you can become wealthy - or, at least, "independent!" This is the motto of old-fashioned, "free enterprise." It expresses the idea that everybody in a capitalist society can participate and compete on the same terms with similar chances of success. It implies that the working class is just a collection of individuals who have not yet established their independence (worked their way up) through "individual initiative," rather than a being permanent class.
In the early 19th Century, most Americans (including Abraham Lincoln, for instance) believed this. They thought opportunities under capitalism would keep expanding forever. But what is the reality behind ...

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2) your country was "free"; and, 3) there was no slave labor to take your livelihood, you could "make something of yourself," and become a capitalist or, at least, an independent producer, professional or artist. Americans in the North 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 "lazy;" it was the slave system (lacking science and industry) that caused many of the economic problems there. The 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 ...

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Capitalism In America. (2007, January 22). Retrieved October 2, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Capitalism-In-America/59151

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 1/22/2007 10:56:30 PM
Category: Economics
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 786
Pages: 3

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