We’ve discussed for a long while the Social Contract that societies have to negotiate and adapt to suit their needs and wants as a group. It is the give and take relationship between government and the people, determining what each is responsible for in working together.

A society’s Social Contract will also relate to their Economic choices – determining how much or little government is involved in the main economic issues of What to Produce, Who to Produce it for, and How (best) to Produce it.

The following are resources to help support your learning/understanding of the main approaches to economics for countries.

1. Planned Economy: also known as a Command Economy, since the government takes full command of the decision-making and planning for meeting the wants and needs of its society
   • • The Balance Website: explanations, pros/cons, and examples of countries using a Planned Economy method
     • Top 10 Facts About Living Conditions in Belarus (state-run economy with Europe’s “last dictator”)

    

   • • • Pandemic May be the Push to Open Cuba’s State-Controlled Economy – NPR Article
2. Mixed Economy: includes a range of involvement of government and individual ownership
   • 
3. Market Economy: focuses more on individual producers and sellers making decisions about the market without government involvement or interference.

Canada has the good fortune to exist from “sea-t0-sea-to-sea”, so we benefit as a whole from the various types of geography, resources, settlements across a wide scale. Consider what it’s like, though, for a small country whose borders are surrounded by other countries. Geographically and resource-wise, they may be very similar, but because of differences in style of government, corruption, equality of the people, and other reasons, the living conditions in the two countries can be very different. One citizen of country A can live in comfortable wealth, while the citizen of country B only 20 kms away may live in extreme poverty.

Why can there be such differences between the living standards of citizens? That’s your question to find an answer to in today’s inquiry study. 

I’d like you to organize yourselves into two groups, Group A and Group B. 

• You can join a Breakout Room and plan together how to break up the study information. 
  OR
• You can join a group (A or B) and decide to study individually and then later share together what you each discovered.

In either group, discover the following: 

• Take notes and keep track of the websites or sources you were able to use information from. (They can be added to a Google Doc or written down)
• Group A: Study the difference between Botswana (a wealthy country) and Zimbabwe (a poor country)]
• Group B: Study the difference between Haiti (a poor country) and the Dominican Republic (a wealthy country)

  
  

  • Search to understand the following for each country in your group:
    1. their government style and method of decision-making for the citizens
    2. where the government leaders in power sit on the political spectrum (L        Center       R)
    3. what resources in the country do they have to produce and sell/trade?
    4. what is the state of Rule of Law in their country – is society orderly, is it chaotic, is there great corruption?
    5. has each country’s wealth been much the same for a long time or has it changed within recent decades? Is there a cause of that change, if so?
    6. what is it like for citizens to live in each country – do they have homes to go to? some wealth? do they rely on social programs to provide for them? is there great poverty?

Send a note through Teams if you are stuck and need support!