The American business model and the American capitalist ideal has infiltrated every aspect of Indonesian society, transforming the way people live and work. Not all of the changes taking place are negative. Before American culture influenced that of Indonesia, local elite controlled a vast amount of wealth and power and created what can correctly be called a caste system like the one in India or more accurately, feudalism. Without any possibility for a middle class to emerge, many individuals remained impoverished and beholden to the landowning class. The influence of American culture has allowed a middle class to emerge. Large corporations hire local managers and community liaisons.

The Dynamics of Capitalism

Discussion 1

Ultimately capitalism caused the Great Depression, even though capitalism also enabled social mobility on a scale never before practiced in human history. Rampant speculation was the main culprit: buying on credit and borrowing prematurely. Moreover, unchecked capitalism caused the unbridled growth of monopolistic and predatory corporations that have since been curbed by legislation. Interestingly, the capitalist economy and world market system is still based on speculation and credit. Communism, socialism, and other alternative economic/social systems failed to compete with capitalism because of the self-propelling power of the fee...

The United States has failed to recognize the value in tempering capitalism with some of the wise tenets of Marxism. Unfortunately, Marxism and ancillary socialist doctrines have been given a bad reputation in the United States due to the authoritarian regimes operating under their names. Yet with the U.S. economy in a slouch and the devalued American dollar, a new view of capitalism is due.
Discussion 2

Churchill's quote succinctly and superbly encapsulates the strengths and weakness of both the capitalist and communist systems. When communism is taken to the extreme it has been in nations like China and the former Soviet Union, authoritarian regimes emerge. Control of national resources means also strict control of information: one of the main miseries of the communist governments. Only in places like Northern Europe where freedom of expression accompanies a free market can socialism attain the ideals originally set forth by political philosophers like Karl Marx. Otherwise, the capitalist system espoused by the United States remains the only viable way to permit social mobility, social justice, and social freedoms.