'Anti-capitalism today is a meaningless concept.' Do you agree - Essay Example

Capitalistic ideology organises an economic system so that production systems and mechanisms utilised to transport products are owned by private citizens or private businesses rather than by government actors. In opposite accord, anti-capitalism consists of a variety of different ideologies and movements that radically oppose capitalistic principles and philosophies. Those who adhere to the anti-capitalist movement desire to replace capitalism with another, more relevant and socially responsible system.

The anti-capitalist dogma essentially iterates that state governments are significantly wasteful with resources and inefficient economically (Beinhocker 2006). As a result, the anti-capitalist creed suggests that the means of production should be controlled by labourer cooperatives and the economy organised more efficiently instead of concentrating power and wealth among only a small segment within society which tends to be an outcome of utilising capitalistic mechanisms. Anti-capitalism desires to remove labour exploitation from the economic system, giving them greater autonomy and liberation from the systems in a corporate context that serve to discipline workers for non-compliance to elite corporate regimes that control power resources meant to benefit broader society.

It has been suggested that in today’s globalised environment, anti-capitalism is a meaningless concept. However, there is ample support that the anti-capitalism doctrine offers solid arguments about the inefficiency, financial waste and inequality that occurs as a result of capitalism. Anti-capitalism, therefore, is not a meaningless concept. It provides rational and ethically-based objections about the lack of justice and equality that occurs through the utilisation of capitalistic systems.

Anti-capitalism philosophy is quite relevant even today which will be illustrated through consultation with a variety of literature and theorist perspectives that essentially serve to condemn capitalism as being a viable and relevant economic model. Characteristics of capitalist ideology Adam Smith, a moral philosopher and founder of political economy, would have been a proponent for the relevance of capitalistic ideology. In his 1776 book, The Wealth of Nations, Smith stated: "The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities - that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.

" (Smith 1977, p.84). Smith believed in the exploitation of labourers for the pursuit of ensuring corporate stability and profitability and providing guarantees that government would be supported through the payment of private citizen taxes which is based on their wages and profits earned through labour. Smith proposed that corporations should maintain a primary objective of earning revenues so long as there is some dimension of corporate responsibility which provides a benefit back to the communities in which businesses thrive.

Hence, this ideology served as the foundation for modern capitalism in which businesses or private citizens are allowed to accumulate wealth and control factors of production and product distribution without maintaining concern for those that are