<p>Here’s an essay I’ve written in an English class. It could somehow fit in with the common app topic of an important modern issue. However, using it would probably be unwise - I just wanted some feedback on my writing. Good? Bad? Average? Could I follow this “organized argumentative essay” model on my app essay?</p>
<p>Mixed economy</p>
<pre><code>Nowadays everywhere in the media and public life, we hear accusations of people being either radical socialists or ultra-conservative capitalists. This became especially clear during the 2008 presidential campaign, during which Obama was time and again branded a socialist. Mike Huckabee even stated that Lenin and Stalin would love the presidents policies. There seems to be no middle ground everyone is a radical and opposed to everyone else. There is no doubt that this has many negative impacts on politics and even daily life. However, is this mud-slinging necessary, and if not, how can we avoid it? I think its important to remember the concept of the mixed economy, one which many (if not most) of us overlook in the effort to tarnish the opposition.
A mixed economy is conventionally a term used to describe a system somewhere between a free market and command economy (or capitalist and socialist). However, mixed economy is extremely vague and can apply to both largely oligarchic, capitalist economies like Russias as well as to very command-oriented economies like those of China and Cuba. So though the term itself may be of little practical use in categorizing world economies, its existence and application is crucial. The real problem is that people around the world misperceive world economic systems. The United States, despite having the largest capital markets in the world, is not a free market economy, but a mixed one, with many government restrictions and regulations. Similarly, China, known as the last major communist country (with a command economy, supposedly), actually also has a mixed economy, which has allowed it to grow 70 times since economic reforms were instituted there three decades ago. In fact, current politico-economic debates are centered on the extent of the influence of socialism versus capitalism on an economy, not really on the absolutes. Thats because history has proven the ineffectiveness of the extremes real command economies are inefficient and tend to fail, and total deregulation in an economy is fatal. For example, the USSR, though a huge world power during most of its 80-year existence, could not sustain its dominance and collapsed largely due to the failures of strict socialism. In addition, its presence as a world power masked the miserable living conditions of millions of Russians, whose comfort was sacrificed for the state. Similarly, pure capitalism is impractical and in fact has never been tried on a large scale at any time in history. However, we can get a taste of the dangers of deregulation simply by looking at the present global economic crisis and the significant impact it has had on the world. Thus, in the end the capitalism versus socialism debate thats ever so popular nowadays is so irrelevant that it misses the point, and can even be dangerous.
The impact of this misunderstanding is significant on both the political and individual levels. In politics, throwing around socialist and other radical terms as insults only confuses the public and tarnishes the democratic process, which depends upon a knowledgeable electorate. Instead of being about significant issues such as saving lives through health care reform or diplomatic relations to end wars, debates consider two absolute theories that are non-issues. Additionally, these artificial debates create an us versus them mentality, both domestically and internationally. On the national stage, the antagonistic arguments create a deep rift between Democrats and Republicans. This is happening at a crucial moment, when union among like-minded people is important to achieve anything. In terms of political parties, many politicians are abusing the terms to tarnish their opponents. As mentioned, a major attack on Obama both during his campaign and now is that he is a socialist. This image strikes fear and anger into the population, evoking images of the Soviet Union and communism. This attack was possible because the term socialist is extremely broad, potentially encompassing almost every economy. But the ambiguity is dangerous people believe much of what they hear, and are quickly roused. Finding similarities between camps is also important internationally, in order to prevent wars and build prosperous states around the world. However, the standoff between supposed capitalist nations and command economies (like the US versus Cuba) just sours relations when cooperation is most necessary. Maybe if we all agreed that both countries are mixed economies, the US embargo would be lifted and good relations would follow. The negative impact of ignoring the mixed economy concept is also evident in daily life. The general population is often influenced by political propaganda, so people rapidly become discontent with the government, agitating and causing unrest where there is no real underlying problem. This demagoguery works on both sides, either with people angry about a giant government or those who say it is not large enough. Sure, democracies are based on freedom of speech and opinion, but that doesnt mean that people should destabilize society based on a political façade.
Thus, the mere existence of the term mixed economy is important to society in general. If political organizations and the media would only adopt a more moderate tone and incorporate conciliatory (and realistic) terms like this, we could make more headway on truly important issues, such as poverty and international conflict.
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<p>Thanks</p>
).</p>