Money and the Corruption of American Society :: Argumentative Persuasive Argument Essays

Money and the Corruption of American Society The American dream Sweet as a new millionaire The American dream Pre-packed, ready-to-wear The American dream Fat, like a chocolate eclair As you suck out the cream Luck by the tail How can you fail? And best of all, it's for sale The American dream - The Engineer (Miss Saigon) Money is very important in American society today.   Your status in America is greatly influenced by how much money you make.   We see the effects of money while reading the paper, wathshing the evening news, and in Micheal Moore’s movies.     As we see in all three of Micheal Moore’s films Roger & Me, Pets or Meat, and The Big One, money can affect a society in horrible ways.   The major corporations such as GM closed the doors in their plants and left 30,000 American’s without a job.   Only to move their plant to a far off country and pay people a fraction of the hourly wages to produce more profit than the billions they were originally making (Moore 1989). Even as Micheal goes to the CEO of Nike, Phil Knight, and talks about the conditions of his factories in Indonesia, nothing is done.   Phil is well aware of what happens in these factories and chooses to do nothing about it.   He is also well aware that Americans are without jobs but continues to build factories in other countries because his overall profit will increase (Moore 1997).   We also see a how money affects people in Katherine Newman’s â€Å"American Nightmares†.   In this reading we hear about a group of people called he downwardly mobile.   They are people who were once secure in their jobs and then for some reason they lose them. They begin to fall down the social ladder.   Because money is such an important factor in their lives,   once they begin to lose their money they begin to lose much more.   They start to lose friends and more importantly their self-dignity.   They are like the people we see in Moore's movies.   They lose everything and don’t have anywhere to turn.   In Peter Marin’s piece â€Å"Helping and Hating the Homeless†, he tells us that the homeless   â€Å"were people more or less like ourselves: members of the working or middle class†.   This is very ironic because we think of ourselves as much better than the homeless.   But money is truly the only difference between us.