Capitalism refers to goods and services being produced by private individuals and businesses. We are in the era of technology and everyone seeks for convenience in their daily life which is giving roots for capitalism to grow. Governments are not able to provide good quality products and services due to low profit margins and their primary objectives which is to serve for public. This is why people prefer using private goods and services as they are assured of quality and convenient experience.
If we look in perspective of political economy, capitalism is pitted against socialism. There is a fundamental difference between these two. In capitalism, property and businesses are owned by individuals or private businesses. In socialism, the property and businesses are owned by the state or central government. The issue arises in the equity, efficiency and employment of both scenarios. In government owned products and services, the primary concern is wealth redistribution from rich to poor in order to ensure equality in opportunity and outcome, in terms of efficiency, it can be seen that the primary motive is to provide facilities to the public even with low or no profit margins which leads to inefficiency as no motivation to make profit, management and workers are less likely to work extensively to push new ideas or products. On the other hand, in capitalist organizations, economy is not concerned about equitable arrangements arguing that inequality is the driving force which encourages innovation causing economic development. In terms of efficiency, the primary motive of capitalist economy is profit maximisation which encourages innovating new products desired by the customers (The Investopedia, 2022).
References:
The Investopedia. (2022, March 22). Capitalism. Retrieved from Investopedia: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/capitalism.asp#toc-capitalism-vs-socialism
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