Survival of the Fittest

If the “First World country” was a utopia filled with children running around happily, then the “Third World country” would be a no man’s land loaded with hunger, poverty, and degradation. All these problems are rooted at the same point – economy. Everything in this world, including human’s basic needs, is obtainable by the cause of money nowadays. To solve the problems, “Third World countries” need to be richer, which referring to the economic system that is adopted. And if I were a king to my people, I would join the capitalism to deal with these Third World challenges.

Capitalism, is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. The factor of productions are completely owned and ran by private company for the matter of production. Economic activities are mainly controlled by the dynamic fluctuation of the market — supply and demand constantly change the price of the goods. Government has a limited intervention in how the people engage with the market.

As we take a deeper look at the reality, the so-called “First World countries” are mainly dominated by capitalist countries – USA, Germany, Japan, you name it. It’s indicating that capitalism is ensuring a high rate of economy growth. By the manner of free market and free trade, profits are high, which the price of the goods is determined by the competing companies for the sake of their own. You could sell a plain white t-shirt with some mundane words on it for hefty sum of 150 dollars because the market demands it.

As people have their own rights to deal with the means of production, people will seek for the best way to control the flow of production and ensure the profit is theirs. It would require a creative mind, and, creativity bears innovation, which the world would constantly need for change. As the time goes by, people’s satisfaction rate is degrading by the law of diminishing marginal utility, thus encouraging company to steadily innovate. People would love to see if there’s a new product on the shelf when they visit a store a couple blocks away from home.

Innovation, on the other hand, will solve many problems arise all around the world, and problems will not stop multiplying. Drive-thru counter is one of the example of how innovation solves problem or simply increase the quality of life. People who is at hurry and racing the time for upcoming presentation or submitting the overdue papers are provided to fulfill their neccesity of calories while on the go.

Despite of sweet words that capitalism has promised us, it is not flawless. The economy growth will not distribute evenly as the individual capability of one will not be the same as the others. As one withered, the others should bloom. It is a sheer definition of law of the jungle – eat or be eaten. Therefore, for the sake of the survival of one, there must be other to be sacrificed. As in the market competition, one should dominate the market – the heart of the consumers – while the others are preparing themselves for bankruptcy. We can not expect every man has a wad of bills in his wallet, that is not how capitalism works.

The way which means of production is fully owned by private company creates an opening to exploitation. The excess taking of natural resource is an example of it. It will cause the economy gap to be bigger. Also, exploitation would create another problem like environmental issues, which a bit contradict with the sole of capitalism to solve problems.

To deal with these lurking problems, the government’s intervention is necessary to ensure that every person has an equal chance to success, a bit of fair adjustment despite the difference of individual competence. It is also important that vital resources like water and electricity are managed by state companies to prevent such an exploitation from happening. As the ruler of the country, you do not want to see poor people wandering around while you are trying to cope with the problem of poverty, do you?

What I would left as legacy to the next generation is a colosseum which each person is competing against the others to reign. It is a brute, cruel reality that we all must face for the sake of survival. Yet, we are human, thus we have humanity, which means we have a tendency to care about each other. I hope that people in the upcoming generation would not have lost their sanity yet or this ideal concept would make no sense at all.

David Imanuel

XII MIA 4/13