GED Social Studies: -isms
Hey, GED people! How’s the studying going? I’ve got a good GED social studies topic for you this time… -isms. You’re sure to run into a question about socialism, capitalism, communism, fascism… one of the big -isms. So, let’s try to sort them out.
Socialism: Socialism is an economic system where the government controls major portions of the economy, for example health care. Notice how lately, people have been saying that pumping money into the banks means “socializing” or “nationalizing” them? Well, it’s because the government is buying parts of the banks. And if the government owns the banks, a socialist banking system… but that’s not really what’s going on. The government is not buying controlling shares, so it doesn’t really own the banks… just a piece of them. And they’re hoping to get out soon!
Capitalism: Capitalism is an economic idea, that businesses should be privately owned, and through competition and supply and demand, the best businesses will survive and the economy will thrive. That’s the basic idea for the U.S. Unfortunately, we’ve been seeing that you can’t have capitalism without any regulations… unless you’re willing to live through the big failures! That’s the question… should we just let big banks fail, because it’s all part of the capitalist system?
Communism: Communism is a tough one. Karl Marx first had the idea of communism, a society where all the economic systems would be controlled by the people. But “people” translates into “government” in real life. So, communism and socialism tend to get mixed up. In communist countries, the government is controlled by one political party, and the economy is controlled by the government. Think of it as extreme socialism… more government control. The idea is to make a society that’s more equal and better for everyone, but it doesn’t seem to work out that way, to me!
Fascism: Fascism is a political leader or party who tightly controls a government, without any checks and balances. Fascism and communism start to sound a bit alike, right? But fascism is more political and less economic. The government has control of everything, and often there’s oppression and denying people rights. A fascist government is totalitarian, often relying on a dictator. The government gets absolute power, and usually uses a strong military to enforce it! Not a good idea, if you ask me.
So, those are some important -isms to keep in mind on the GED social studies test…
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