final essay

There are many different ways that people can lead their lives in our world. Many types of personalities, social classes, and jobs. Are we free to choose how we come out in the end? Or do the forces around us such as capitalism, Social norms, and government policy mold us into people that they want us to become. As we grow older we enter new and exiting life stages. First is toddler stage, then teen stage, the adulthood stage, and then is the elderly hood stage. All four stages are completely different in the fields of how capitalism runs our life, how government policy keeps us in order, and how social norms creates whom we are. These 3 aspects are here to keep us in order to run how the government wants us to run. Capitalism, government policy, and social norms all have big impacts on our lives because it is all around us, molding us everyday to the buyers and sellers the government wants us to become. In many ways we’re like pinball’s being smacked around by social forces with rarely any awareness of how we’re being funneled and played during the different life stages. This paper will show the different ways that capitalism, government policy, and social norms affect the different age groups such as early children, teens, adults, and elderly people and will find out how strong of an affect they have on our lives.
There are many ways to define Capitalism. The dictionary defines it as an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market. Others would define it as the social system of the US. It is the social system in which the produce and company’s are privately owned, they operate for profit, and in which investments, distribution, income, production and pricing of goods and services are determined through the operation of a market economy. It is usually considered to involve the right of individuals and corporations to trade, using money, in goods, services (including finance), labor and land.
Capitalist economic practices became institutionalized in England between the 16th and 19th centuries, although some features of capitalist organization existed in the ancient world, and early forms of merchant capitalism flourished during the Middle Ages. Capitalism has been dominant in the Western world since the end of feudalism. From England it gradually spread throughout Europe, across political and cultural frontiers. In the 19th and 20th centuries, capitalism provided the main, but not exclusive, means of industrialization throughout much of the world. The concept of capitalism has limited analytic value, given the great variety of historical cases over which it is applied, varying in time, geography, politics and culture, and some feel that the term "mixed economies" more precisely describes most contemporary economies. Some economists have specified a variety of different types of capitalism, depending on specifics of concentration of economic power and wealth, and methods of capital accumulation. During the last century capitalism has been contrasted with centrally planned economies, such as Marxist economies. (Capitalism – Wikipedia)
Capitalism affects all types of people, even the most innocent, young children. Young children make up a big part of our population. Young children are very easily distracted and they’re for a great target for capitalist companies. Young children are great moneymakers for capitalist companies because toys, cartoons, easily distract them good tasting (not healthy) fatty foods, and music, which can produce and sell at a very high rate. This is both bad a good. It is bad because these companies are turning the ages 5-12 into a big profit, and creating fast food consuming, fat distracted kids. On the other hand it boosts the economy and helps our country.
As Americans grow older the capitalists follow and attack the older kids, teens. Teens are greatly influenced by capitlilism. All topics such as teen labor laws, teen’s wages, “cool” items that teens “need” to have such as sneakers, ipod, and video games. Most things that teens do involve capitlilism, weather it’s working for the capitlilists for little wages, or buying the capitlisists over priced clothes and items. Overall capitalists control teen’s lifestyles.
Capitlilism also reaches kids in school. The main point of school is to get good grades to get into a good college to finally get a good job. Getting good grades in school has become a competition for schools. Some schools have resorted to paying their students for bringing in good grades. It is because of things like this I believe that we’re like pinball’s being smacked around by social forces with rarely any awareness of how we’re being funneled and played during the different life stages.
After teens grow older they become adults, harboring new responsibilities that are both harder and more important then from there teen years. Also when adulthood hits you, capitalism hits you even harder. Credit card companies, jobs, income, taxes, student loans and many more cash consuming capitalist responsibilities.
Adults go day in and day out sitting through there 9 to 5 just to make there wages to live out there life giving there money right back to the capitalists, sometimes unaware to there actions. Most Americans complain about their job that slowly kills you, another aspect that comes out of capitalism. Capitalism molds the average American into buyers that work only to support their own capitalists.
Even after you have retired from your job, maybe even your career, capitalism is still all around you. Capitalism affects elderly people just as much as it affects the rest of us. Capitalist companies control the very medicine that they take to keep them healthy. Medicine is a big industry in America bringing in millions of dollars a year, Capitalist medicine companies overprice there drugs forcing some elders to either buy generic brands or not purchase any drugs. Once again elders are being knocked around like a pinball by capitalism forcing elders to become a small part of our capitalist country.
Capitalism isn’t the only aspect of our country that molds us. Another huge aspect that molds us into the Americans we are, social norms. Social norms are all around us, the food we eat, the clothes we ware, and the TV shows we watch. All of these things are controlled by social norms. Social norms are the guidelines provided by every culture for judging acceptable and unacceptable behavior, this includes everything to clothes, who gets to ware makeup, what TV shows to watch and which ones not to, also social norms defines what is “cool” and what is un-cool.
Social norms affect everyone including young children. Starting from a very young age it is the social norm to have your new born baby in a stroller, if some parent decided to make his baby walk around others would look and whisper to each other how he is not being a good parent, but all there really doing is saying “wow he is breaking the social norm”. Children also pick up on other social norms such as dressing appropriately according to gender, and what is “cool”. Children are very good at picking up what being “cool” is. When my brother was younger he had a group of friends, one stood out the most, he was the best dressed and had a very loud personality. Allot of people liked this one kid. As soon as my brother and the rest of his friends saw this they mimicked him to become “cool”. My brother and his friends realized that he was “cool” and wanted to become more like him. Unconsciously sticking to the social norm of being “cool”. Social norms also knock people around like a pinball machine to act according to social norms.
As you get older and reach the teen years social norms probably hit you the hardest. With teens social norms are as strong as can be in the categories of clothes, sex, drugs, food, weight, school, grades, and many more. I took a survey of 10 random teens in the sty town area on a number of things. The first survey was asking 10 teens if they would rather be under weight or over weight. Both under and over weight are unhealthy, but still all 10 teens would rather be under weight. I asked one female teen why she would rather be under weight, she responded “because overweight is ugly and draws allot of negative attention”. But if being under or over weight were both unhealthy, why would people rather be fat? It is because the social norm, being fat is ugly, has knocked us around to believe that being fat is ugly.
Once again I took a survey of 10 random teens asking when they started smoking and why they started smoking. 6 out of 10 said they started at 14, 2 said 15 and 2 said they don’t smoke. After finding this out I asked the 8 teens why they started. 6 out of 8 said it was because they thought it was cool so they tried it. The social norm of being cool has driven these 6 teens to an unhealthy habit that might lead to serious problems. This also connects to capitalism because one of the biggest capitalist industries is tobacco. Tobacco companies target these underage teens because they are the most likely to try and be “cool” and buy their obviously harmful products.

The last survey I took I asked 10 teens weather or not its embarrassing to dress like the opposite sex, all 10 said yes. Then I asked why was it embarrassing, all of them replied with the same answer phrased differently which was because it’s abnormal. But its only abnormal because its looked down upon by our culture, the social norms of our country has deemed it “weird” to dress in opposite sex clothing. In this way social norms knock us around to conform to the “normal” way of dressing.
As you move on to your adulthood social norms follow you. Just as it is with teens, social norms have a big effect on your life. For adults social norms include jobs, money, sex, clothes etc.
A huge social norm for adults is to have a job, go to work and make money. For adults having and maintaining a job is key to life. Being unemployed is looked down upon in our society because it symbolizes slacking, un-wealthy ness, and instability. There are many social norms that have to do with jobs/carriers. Even though it is a really good idea to have a job, social norms persuade adults to conform and get a job.
The only real reason people get jobs and work is to make money. Making money is a big social norm in this country. Most of the time, the amount of money you have regulates the friends you have the experiences you go through and the amount of fun you have. If the average lower to middle class man tries to get into the high class golf club, they will deny him because he would not be able to afford it, loosing out on friends and good times. Another social norm the deals with money are that no one tells the wages to each other. For some reason it is a huge social norm to keep wages secret. In this way social norms make some of us embarrassed to share wages.
Even as you reach your elderly years social norms follow. When you are in your elderly hood social norms follow. The social norms that effect elders consist of wearing diapers, eating baby food, jobs, money etc. Elders social norms are allot like young children social norms. As you get older the social norms get allot lighter. You can poop in your pants and people wont get offended, you can eat baby food and you wont be look upon as weird. Also you don’t have to work and people wont think you’re a slacker, and you get money for free.
As like government policy and capitalism, government policy is here to kock us around to conform to what the government wants us to be. Government policy affects teens and elderly people in varius ways.
Teens arnt allowed to do most things that a adult is allowed to do such as go to a R rated movie, drink, smoke ciggetets, go into a xxx store to buy warming lotion, or even drive. Government policy greatly effects teens in the US.
One of the biggest things teens in suburban America are held back from is driving. In most of suburban America all kids need to drive to get someware, the leagal age to drive is 18 which is also the age of being considered an adult. In this way government policy affects teens.
When you reach elderly hoos government policy startes working in your favor. Elderly people are helped by government policy by there programs like social security. Social security is a big player in elderly peoples lives. Social Security in the United States is a social insurance program funded through dedicated payroll taxes called Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA). Tax deposits are formally entrusted to[3] Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund, or Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund, Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund or the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund. The main part of the program is sometimes abbreviated OASDI (Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance) or RSDI (Retirement, Survivors, and Disability Insurance). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States). In this way government policy greatly helps elders and kocks them around like a pinball machine in a good way.
In these ways government policy, social norms, and capitilism effect our lives. These 3 aspects are here to keep us in order to run how the government wants us to run. Capitalism, government policy, and social norms all have big impacts on our lives because it is all around us, molding us everyday to the buyers and sellers the government wants us to become.

work habbits over break

i feel like my work habbits could have been better over break but i did complete the first essay and have one page on the seccond essay wich i will finish tonight

Over the first week of the semester I have learned about a couple of ideas that have stuck with me. The elements of government such as legitimacy, control, and violence. A government needs all of these aspects to control a place of a piece of land. Without these aspects the government would have little control over its people, and a revolution would be in order.
Each government has to have its own policies to control its people and keep them “safe”. Government polices include such ideas as forceful prohibitions; such as laws, forceful demands and funded programs; such as schools police force and armies.
Also we have learned where some countries fall on the spectrum. On the far left we have libertarian government and the far right would be the socialist government. The US falls just to the left of the middle as with Canada. Close to the right would be Cuba and Sweden.