Socialism vs Capitalism

Introduction

In this paper I am going to analyze the individual level of development, and how the transition from traditional to modern societies occurred. Also, I'm going to discuss how the transition from modern to traditional societies, and industrialization affected individualism, but also I'm going to compare and contrast socialism and capitalism with reference to Japan and U.S.A.

From Traditional to Modern Societies

Before I start analyzing my paper, I would like to define what is the individual level of analysis, and how was created. Between all the definitions that I founded, I accepted some of them that seemed most important. Robert Bellah (1985) in his book defined individualism as “viewing one's primary task as 'finding oneself' in autonomous self reliance, separating oneself not only from one’s parent's but also from those larger communities and traditions that constitute one's past, leads to the notion that it is in oneself, perhaps in relation to a few intimate others, that fulfillment is to be found.” (Robert Bellah, Habits of the Heart, 1985, pg.163).

In general, the individual level of analysis focuses on people, their values, or characteristics and with the use of this level it is possible to explain the social development. However there are three more levels of analysis in the study of socioeconomic development: the international, organizational, and societal level. Max Weber (1864-1920) believed that Protestantism contains beliefs that promote and support the rise of capitalism.

Protestantism was built on the belief that a man's work was associated with Godly virtue, so that resulted in high production, and the money he earned, he should save it and spend no more than he earns; which gave birth to capitalism, an ideology primarily based on Protestantism. When the traditional societies (which were non participant, poorly developed, its people lacked interdependence, had limited horizons, and their decisions included only...