Capitalism

Mayday

Capitalism is the system under which we all live, which is failing so miserably to meet the needs of the vast majority of the world's population. Under capitalism, a small minority of people are in control of the money and resources of the planet.
They accumulate wealth and power and move their money and factories around at will to keep their profits high and wages low. Profit comes before people and the environment.

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We are forced to compete with each other to work for low wages in order to buy necessities, and as a result the bosses and shareholders of the companies we work for and buy from make profits for themselves.
We work long hours with little say over our pay and conditions, no security, no control over what we are producing and why, or what happens to the profits. We have to try and accumulate money, because there is no security in our communities for when we are ill or old or out of work.
Most work is useless and tedious, making unnecessary new products and services which waste resources and generate pollution. They are usually products which are unaffordable to most of the world's population, which means we have to work harder to afford them.

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Bosses, owners and share holders have control over industry, factories, machinery and profits. Last year the directors of Britain's top 1000 companies earned on average over 20 times the average salary of their employees, and the gap is increasing every year. Meanwhile, according to UN figures, one in five children in Britain live in families below the official poverty line.
The established unions have played a role in protecting and promoting workers' rights in some circumstances, but they do not challenge the true injustice, the idea that it is OK for the few to make the decisions, own the factory, and keep the profits.
By acting as intermediaries between the workforce and the bosses, the big established unions simply make the whole system run more smoothly.
If we try and survive outside this system, we end up poor, homeless, in prison. Under capitalism, money, background, education, and class determine how much freedom and control people have in their lives.

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If you are poor, working class, black, female, foreign you are likely to have worse education and job opportunities, worse housing conditions, poorer health care provision, you are more likely to go to prison, and for longer terms, and you will die earlier, than those who come from wealthier, more privileged backgrounds.
All over the world people are being forced from their lands so oil, timber and mining companies can move in. Robbed of their land, cultures and communities, they have no choice but to labour for the profit of the global corporations just to survive, and to buy necessities which they would once have.been able to grow or make for themselves.
The wealth of many industrialised countries has often come from exploiting the resources, labour and people of the 'third world', from historical slavery to the Nike sweat shops of today.
What resources many of these countries possess they must use to pay interest on their debts to the World Bank and Western countries, while their health and education systems collapse.

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Is this a just way to run society, where a small number of people live in luxury while most of us have little control over our lives and more and more live in poverty and hunger?
Some people say that capitalism is..based on human nature, and is therefore the best way to run things. But this isn't true. Human nature varies from human to human, and we are all capable of love and hate, compassion and coldness, generosity and selfishness, co-operation and competitiveness.
For most of human history societies have been based on people co-operating to survive and flourish. Capitalism suppresses most of our best qualities by forcing us to compete for necessities.
The thing about human beings is that we have choices. We can choose how to run things. Capitalism creates a minority who are free to suppress the freedom of choice of everyone else. This is not human nature. This is a system imposed upon us.

QUESTIONS 14-18

Look at the following list of items 14-18. Match each of them with the items A-G.
Write the correct Letter: A, B, C, D, E, F or G in boxes 14-18 on your answer sheet.

1. a small number of people
2. vast majority of workers
3. workers unions
4. oil, timber and mining companies
5. industrialised countries

1. work against each other for employment and income
2. unfairly use people and resources in third-world countries
3. pay interest on debts to the World Bank
4. own and control wealth, power and resources
5. care for people and the environment
6. displace landowners
7. protect and promote the rights of employees

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QUESTIONS 19-24

Complete the summary below.
Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 19-26 on your answer sheet.

The reading passage describes capitalism as a system under which 19 though it empowers only a 20 people to live a life of luxury and privileges. These people have the freedom to keep their 21 and workers 22

Instead of challenging the unfairness of the system, workers· unions help the system to 23 · Outside the system, one is worse off than those from a 24

Historically, societies have been based on people co-operating to 25 ; but capitalism forces people to 26