The Capitalist Road 

Capitalism or communism, which one do you find better? Capitalism is an economic system where regular people, instead of the government, own businesses, property, and the things used to make goods. In a capitalist country, individuals can start their own companies, choose what they want to sell, and keep the money they earn from their hard work. In communist countries it’s more about their government being able to rule over the people and support them rather than them supporting themselves. In our class we all read the book Chain Gang All Stars  by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, we created an annotated bibliography to document our research, and developed a capstone short story OR essay to illustrate what we learned about our theme. Capitalism is used throughout the book in various different places on certain pages. We see how the companies are used to support the CAPE program and their wrongdoings by putting these people in fight and fight till one of them dies. In order to continue the U.S domination in the military and county environmental data and performance, the U.S. is wanting to stay as a Capitalist country. Capitalism makes it so companies don't have to pay their workers if they don't want to because they have power over themselves, which causes people to go mad and crazy because if they are not paid then people go into a panic mode.

The book uses capitalism to show how companies are able to support other companies by donating money or sponsoring them. “Corrections Corporation of North America (CCNA) is the largest private prison corporation in the world. Cofounded by Tomas Wesplat, Berto Rants, and T. Ron Kutto, with multiple facilities across the country, CCNA consistently generates billions in annual revenue” (Adjei- Brenyah 44). CCNA is a Company that supports the CAPE program which supports it and pays them to be a sponsor and do certain things for them such as supporting them with their own money. The money that they receive is supporting there cost and how many of there workers make money “Her thighs were compressed in elastic that stretched against her muscles, the tights also marked with the WholeMarketTM fruit basket, emblazoned near her hip, conspicuously not centered on her genitalia, as many other major brands might have opted for. WholeMarketTM was a family brand” (Adjei- Brenyah 21). The program forced people to wear clothes that were supported by the company supporting the program so then they would be able to pull in more money and help the programs gain more money. “I hope you’ll welcome another incredible woman to the Sports Central team.” “Thank you, Elton,” Tracy said. She had two sentences of intro before jumping into a recap of the latest deathmatches” (Adjei- Brenyah 109).  Sport Central is a news station that covers all the fights and supports the program by interviewing the fighters and the people who run it. If you worked for 3 years and didn’t receive pay this whole time how would you feel? 

Companies and programs are able to not pay people if they're not supposed to be paid and they're allowed to do what they want with their own money without other people trying to tell them what to do. “We work for nothing. We work and work for no money. We did wrong so now we slaves. Work for nothing on the inside for people on the outside. Yes. Slaves in a mean box. That’s all” (Adjei- Brenyah 56-57). The fighters are describing how they don't get paid to do anything in that they are used basically as slaves for the program to do absolutely nothing and to just do what they're told and if they don't cooperate then they have to die. They fight for so long for such little return  “I used one of my murder points to have a brand I never heard of clean my clothes for me each week. Death becomes laundry. Death becomes food. Death is the currency of everything if you let it. And they let it” (Adjei- Brenyah 119). Certain companies support certain Fighters and do certain things for that fight or like support them with weapons, clothing and Etc. “Now the killing games the new football” (Adjei- Brenyah 154). The new station is basically calling the fights a new type of football and saying how people fight to the death instead of actually playing a sport. Would you support programs that allow people to fight to the death? Some people don't want you to support certain things because they think that it's bad when you don't think it is. If it’s your own money you should be allowed to be able to support what you think is right without others telling you that you shouldn’t support certain things. “They give you a choice between a cage and a arena, and they call that freedom. But as long as they own the land beneath your feet, you are never free”(Adjei- Brenyah 150). The state forces marginalized people into economic desperation or prison, framing survival as a personal choice. This echoes the communist critique that true freedom is impossible under a system where a tiny corporate class owns the means of production and the land, forcing everyone else to sell their labor or lives just to exist. “The only way to end the game is to break the arena itself. You cannot reform a system that is built on your bones” (Adjei- Brenyah 347).  The capitalist ruling class cannot simply be voted out or reformed; the system must be completely dismantled. “legal ownership of private investors but de facto controlled by the government and the anti-capitalist social activists it empowers, such as tort lawyers and labor unions” (Bruce Gilley). Private investors are able to have legal Ownership on certain companies and over certain companies if they're not eligible to be able to pay.  “Spirit Airlines went bankrupt because the United States is no longer a truly capitalist country” (Bruce Gilley).  The capitalist ruling class cannot simply be voted out or reformed; the system must be completely dismantled.  Don’t let others tell you what you should and shouldn’t believe in. Don’t let others boss you around into supporting something you don’t want to. 

 The CAPE Programming many people go and seeing and crazy and I didn't know what to do so they ended up coming next suicide because they were so tired and sick of fighting everyone and trying to kill him so I decided to just stop and their own life. Staxxx looked at Thurwar and then the HMC, which was Link code for Don’t let them see you like this—or, in this case, Don’t let them make you something you’re not. “Don’t make it a huge deal. We’re just trying something. We’re reminding everyone they’re something important, diamonds, better than diamonds” (Adjei- Brenyah 123). They made sure that the fighters were having fun and that they were okay and nothing happened to them because they didn't want a bad reputation for the program. “Again, we already have the preliminary confirmation, but I need Mr. Young to be able to speak for himself. It is the precedent moving forward, Officer Rottermith, that incoming CAPE participants must show compliance via signatory and verbal confirmation unless physically incapable. And if you’d like to have a standing opportunity to have your population opt into the program, as other facilities do, this will be the standard” (Adjei- Brenyah 82). People like playoffs so then they are being able to pull in more money and have more people die so then the people who are supporting find it fun and they always try to do what they want to do. “Suicide was a part of the CAPE culture, though it wasn’t publicly called that.[*] It was almost never on the March, out in the open with at least the potential for a sunny day and a bit of peace, or in the adrenalized mayhem of the deathmatches that Links killed themselves” (Adjei- Brenyah 274). The program made many people go insane and caused many people to come so it's because I didn't want to do it anymore which caused the program to gain money because people were dying. When you are in a certain situation that you might not want to be in it could cause you to go mentally insane so you should always be prepared. 

People should care about what I argued because it might be able to change their standing habits if they spend their money because they might want to support the company that is supporting the programs? Sounds like people could watch the news online to learn more about capitalism and communism and how it all works and listen to politics speak and have meetings. Overall if you had to choose what state to live in and support Capitalism or Communism? 

If I had to choose which one I would want to live in I would pick Capitalism because I would like to have more freedom over my money and think it’s a better living environment if you're able to afford everything. People should care about what I argued with because It’s a big topic spread around the world and countries have fought over these two big topics which could decide the way people live inside that county