Philosophy and Socrates Essay

SOCRATES THE PHILOSOPHER Socrates is a noteworthy and important historical figure as a philosopher, because of his and his pupils’ influence on the development of the philosophical world. His teachings, famous arguments, and ideas began the outgrowth of all later western philosophies. Born in 469 BC just outside of Athens, Socrates was brought up properly, and thoroughly educated. He was raised as most Athenians; developing both physical and mental strengths. Socrates then went on to learn from Archelaus the philosopher. Here he studied astronomy, mathematics, and was introduced to philosophy, which was a new concept at the time. Archelaus taught of explanations for the world with a scientific approach. Socrates, however, turned away from this idea and created his own. He decided that instead of trying to understand the universe, a person should try to understand himself. To express his philosophy, Socrates spent his days in the marketplace of Athens, telling people of his ideas. His voice was heard, and he was soon declared to be the wisest of all men. Socrates’ was skilled in the art of arguing. He developed a method by which he would win every debate. His favorite hobby was going to the marketplace and debating philosophical issues with other men in front of an audience. The result of these debates was that Socrates embarrassed the wise men in front of the crowd. This caused many to dislike him. After being named the wisest man, Socrates attempted to prove that this was not true. He debated with many men in the streets. These debates are some of his most famous argument methods. He started the discussion by stating that he knew nothing. As a result of the debate, he was able to prove that although his opponents claimed that they were wise, they knew nothing either. Socrates concluded that he really was the wisest man because unlike the others, he knew that he knew nothing. Socrates had many ideas and philosophies concerning issues other than the knowledge of oneself. These included explanations of the universe, the belief in god, and life’s goals. Other, earlier philosophers, had many different interpretation for the makeup of the world. Some believed that it was made out of numbers, others thought that it was made of a single substance, or many different substances, while still conflicting philosophers theorized that everything was formed out of atoms, and even illusions. Socrates had his own, different ideas. He believed that the world was made of forms that are not within the reach of our senses, but only of our thoughts. This means, for example, that when we think of characteristics such as roundness, we only picture ideas of it like a ball or a wheel. Therefore, he assumed that we only understand specific things that participate in our lives. In his search for the inner truth of oneself, Socrates theorized the explanation to the question of what the goals of life are. He concluded that everyone tries to find the meaning of happiness and goodness in their existence. This is the purpose of life. However, true happiness comes in many forms and is disguised in a way that people spend their lives looking for goodness, but finding only the evil in which it is concealed. The only way to discover true happiness, goodness, and the right way, is to fully understand oneself. Socrates did not believe in the Greek gods or religion. He had his personal view of god. Socrates felt that there must be some form of divine power because everyone seemed to believe in some kind of god and religion. He also believed in a sort of immortality. He hypothesized that there was an afterlife. His explanation for it was that people who had achieved goodness in their lives knew where they were going afterwards, and that evil people tried to ignore the fact that immortality existed. He preached that the soul was a person’s true being, and that our goodness in life reflected on the goodness of our souls. According to Socrates, each individual should try to make his soul as moral as possible so that it can be like god, which will allow the achievement of an afterlife. Debating in the marketplace of Athens was not Socrates’ only daily activity. He also taught his philosophies to a group of students in a small classroom. These students were much like disciples. They respected and followed in the philosophies of their teacher. Socrates’ most famous pupil, Plato, went on to become a great philosopher like his mentor. Socrates lived through and fought in the Peloponnesian War. After Athens’ defeat, the democracy was replaced by a tyranny. This did not bother Socrates much because his belief in government was a rather simple and apathetic one. He thought that no matter what kind of government subsists; it should be followed solely because a form of law and order must exist in a society to control it. One of the tyranny’s leaders was a former pupil of Socrates and hated his teacher. He tried to make life harder for Socrates by banning the t eaching of philosophy in the streets. Socrates ignored him. In response to this, the tyrant tried to kill Socrates; but the tyranny was overthrown right on time to prevent this. A new democratic government came into power, the leader of which, Anytus, also hated Socrates because his son, who was the philosopher’s pupil, turned away from the family’s business to become a philosopher. Anytus had Socrates arrested on charges of corrupting Athens’ young and turning them away from Paganism, the Greek religion involving a belief in many gods. Anytus announced the death penalty as a punishment for this crime. It was obviously an outrageous sentence for a crime that was not even committed. Socrates was brought before a jury and instead of using his debating skills to defend himself, he did nothing in his own defense because he was convinced that the entire trial was a joke. The jury voted on the death penalty. Now Socrates had a chance to appeal to the court. He was entitled to suggest forms of punishment other than death to satisfy his crime. Instead of proposing a reasonable penalty, Socrates suggested ridiculous ones which angered the jury; causing them to vote on the death penalty once again. Socrates did not seem to mind at all. He was sent to prison and lived their surrounded by his friends and disciples for his last few days. His life ended by drinking hemlock as his friends cried at his bedside. Only after this scandalous death, did all of Greece realize what they had done; that they had killed one of the greatest philosophers of all time. Socrates’ life achievements were vast. He introduced new ideas and theories into the philosophical world. His pupil, Plato, went on to influence all of the western world’s philosophical development. Socrates began the evolution of philosophy throughout the world. He took the first step toward advancing modern philosophy, as we know it. His theories and ideas were a whole new concept that helped progress the western philosophy through all of later history. In conclusion, Socrates’ historical importance is great, due to his extreme influence on the evolution of the world’s ideas of philosophy. Even though Socrates never made written records of his work, his finest and most successful pupil, Plato, recorded much of his teacher’s accomplishments and deeds. From these history has learned so much as to be able to advance and heighten its entire philosophical viewpoints; and until this day, learn from the ancient philosopher, Socrates. INTERVEIW WITH A PHILOSOPHER: Mark ? Socrates, you were raised and educated in many different fields, why did you decide to spend your life as a philosopher? Socrates ? It is true that I have been educated in the arts, literature, and gymnastics as a youth; but in my continuing education as you may already know, I was taught by Anaxagoras, the famous early philosopher. His theories were not ones with which I would agree; such as those stating that all things were made of tiny substances which contained a little of everything, that the sun was a hot rock, and that the moon was made of earth. For these teachings, he was banished from Athens. Nevertheless, he was a good teacher and allowed me to realize that my philosophies were going to be antiscientific and quite different from his. My following philosophical teacher was Archelaus, with whom I studied mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy. I knew that my opinions and theories were strong, I had performing and arguing skills, and my ideas would consist of principles rather than sciences. The simple lifestyle of the philosopher appeals to me. I enjoyed the unusual behaviors that I associated myself with. All that really interested me was the great mysteries of philosophy, and the questions of knowing oneself, which I devoted my life to learning and teaching. Mark ? Your teaching was remarkable and much can be learned from studying it even after your death; why is that you never bothered to record your works for later generations? Socrates ? Many have asked this before and for quite obvious reasons. Most other noteworthy historical figures did keep a record of their works ever since the invention of written language, yet not one of mine exists in writing. I do not exactly know the reason for this. Whether there are records of my work or not, does not matter. I will forever be remembered by my loyal pupils, the Athenian population, and the world. Furthermore, nothing I ever said was of too great importance. And to tell you the truth, I never really wanted to take the time to keep useless records. That nonsense did not concern me nearly as much as most of my other problems as a philosopher. I had to make money somehow, to support my wife and three sons. As you might have guessed, being a philosopher does not exactly bring you riches. One of the reasons I began teaching was to make money. Also, I had to deal with many people’s constant hatred of me, mainly due to my victories in debates against them. Some, with high political positions, even wanted me dead at points of my life. And one even succeeded. So, you see, no matter how simple and easy going my life may seem, there are quite a few difficulties attached to it. Mark ? Your trial and death are quite interesting and famous historical events. They have been interpreted by many and confused some; what caused you to make such drastic and unusual decisions, the consequence of which you knew forehand? Socrates ? This I am aware of. As a matter of fact, some even claim that I was mentally ill, and blame that as the cause for my actions. This of course I deny. The truth includes a mixture between my philosophical beliefs and the thoughts that have occurred to me during my last days. I always believed that there is an after-life. And that must have somehow influenced my decisions. Even though the religious part of this came to me only afterwards. At first many others and I thought that this ridiculous trial was an obvious hoax. Who would have thought that such a crime, which I was evidently not guilty of, be punished by the death penalty. I fooled with the court. They on the other hand were quite serious about it. In the last days, I realized that there was no way out. True I could have argued with the court and won. I could have escaped using the plan devised by my dear friends. But since there was a high-ranking leader who wanted me dead, it was going to happen no matter what. Furthermore, my governmental beliefs stand true in all situations; the law should be followed and that is all. There was not much I was willing to do. After some thinking, I decided to go along with the law, after all, I had lived a happy life. One that I was proud of living, no matter how unusual it may appear to others. I was an old man of seventy. I found and understood myself, and had achieved happiness and goodness. There was nothing more that I desired. I knew what was waiting for me after death and was ready for it. Word Count: 2066.

Mobile Device Software In Diabetes Health And Social Care Essay

To analyze the salient characteristics and measure grounds scientifically for the effectivity of mHealth engineering and results in diabetes patients self-management around the universe. Methods: A comprehensive electronic reappraisal was done through literature hunts related to diabetes nomadic applications, indexed in digital library, ProQuest, PubMed, Google Scholar, web of scientific discipline, published since 2007. Strategy used in seeking literature will include terms/synonyms: nomadic phone ; SmartPhone ; Apps ; Cellular phone ; and diabetes direction. We surveyed the undermentioned features:1. Behavioral alterations, 2. Management: 2.1 Blood glucose, 2.2 Weight, 2.3 Diet, 2.4 Insulin and medicine, 2.5 Blood force per unit area, 2.6 Physical activity, 3. Education. A Meta-analysis was conducted for surveies with HbA1c steps. Consequences: Around 40 articles identified and screened for retrieval from ISI publication, of which 18 met the choice standards. Sample sizes for this survey ranged from 11 to 37695 patients aged 7 to 70 old ages old. Intervention continuance ranges from 1 to 12months. Significant betterments found in HbA1c and their life style.Decision:We find spreads between the functionality used in survey intercessions and evidence-based recommendations. Monitoring, Health reminders and instruction utilizing nomadic engineering significantly better the diabetes wellness.KeywordsSmartPhone, mHealth, Diabetes Care, Mobile engineering, Blood glucose.IntroductionMobile engineering has been dramatically adopted around the world1,2. Report estimates that â€Å" planetary Mobile informations traffic will increase 18 times between 2011 and 2016 † . By the terminal of that clip period, it is projected that there will be 10billion nomadic devices in usage around the world3. Mobile engineering is t he fastest turning sector of communications industry in low income countries4,5. Electronic medical and personal wellness records grow as nomadic phone engineering continues to spread out ; for chronic disease direction nomadic phones become important1. Although several methods of patient attention have been good established to better clinical profile and complications associated with DM, effectivity of fresh intercessions remains to be evaluated6. The intent of this survey is to place the salient characteristics and measure grounds scientifically for the effectivity of mHealth engineering and results in diabetes patient ‘s self-management around the universe. Diabetess mellitus is a common, chronic upset of insulin metamorphosis, characterized by persistently elevated blood glucose degrees. The microvascular harm that consequences affects neurological map, the kidneys and bosom and via medias peripheral blood supply. Sick persons are at increased hazard of eyesight harm, nephritic failure, shot and bosom onslaught. Two major signifiers of the status are recognized. Type 1 diabetes is caused by autoimmune mediated pancreatic harm and attendant loss of insulin production. In the Type 2 status, insulin production may be unaffected but the endocrine is unable to suitably excite cells to use go arounding glucose, a phenomenon termed insulin opposition. Key intervention ends in diabetes are to normalise blood glucose degrees and cut down modifiable hazard factors for cardiovascular disease. Where insulin production continues ( Type 2 diabetes ) initial therapy may concentrate on behavioural intercessions to modulate diet and promote weight loss. Drug therapy consists of auxiliary insulin ( the pillar for Type 1 diabetes ) and agents that cut down peripheral insulin opposition.MethodsDatas Beginnings Computerized hunts were conducted to place systematic experimental and place randomized controlled clinical tests ( RCTs ) . Searched was done through literature hunts related to diabetes nomadic applications, indexed in digital library, ProQuest, PubMed, Google Scholar, web of scientific discipline, published since 2007. Strategy used in seeking literature will include terms/synonyms: nomadic phone ; SmartPhone ; Apps ; Cellular phone ; and diabetes direction. Study standards We surveyed the undermentioned features:1. Behavioral alterations, 2. Management: 2.1 Blood glucose, 2.2 Weight, 2.3 Diet, 2.4 Insulin and medicine, 2.5 Blood force per unit area, 2.6 Physical activity, 3. Education. A Meta-analysis was conducted for surveies with HbA1c steps. Data extraction To pull out findings require informations extraction in a consistent mode. It enables subsequently data synthesis and interpretation7. Created spreadsheet format to come in relevant informations which was extracted from published paper such as Writers, twelvemonth of publication, survey scene, sample size, survey design, age group, race, and continuance of intercession, outcomes, method of self-management, intercession inside informations, and reported consequences were reviewed. Meta-analysisStandards for executing a meta-analysisA subgroup/meta-analysis will be performed if three or more surveies are identified that satisfy the standards and statistical trials for homogeneousness. Homogeneity of intercession class type and result will be a necessary standard for representing a subgroup. Further division by demographic features and diabetes type will be merely considered if the grouping is of clinical/practical relevancy and if there are equal Numberss of surveies to make so. Subgroups will be constituted at a participant-level by including all relevant surveies. If farther informations is required, for illustration, to be able to divide out a peculiar patient group from informations that are reported in pooled signifier within a survey so we will reach the survey writers for elucidation. If this information can non be obtained so the survey will be excluded. The core measure of the systematic literature reappraisal is Data analysis. It involves roll uping a nd sum uping informations extracted from primary studies7.ConsequencesFeatures of included surveies In the initial reappraisal, around 40 articles were screened. After excepting surveies that did non run into the eligibility standards, 18 surveies were reviewed intensively. Of them, surveies took topographic point in several states including UK8,9,14, Italy9,14, Spain9,12,14, Australia10,14, New Zealand10, Korea11,14, multi centre ( Germany, India, Canada ) 11, US11,14, Norway13,15,17, multi centre ( Iran, Finland ) 14, Indiana16. Patients were recruited from primary clinics, third infirmaries and community scenes. Figure 1 shows the choice of surveies.Figure 1 – Documents chosen for the survey of diabetes attention and direction utilizing nomadic phone engineeringsOf the 18 surveies, 6 were excluded due non-availability of clinical informations, 12 were randomized controlled tests. The minimal continuance of intercession in these surveies was 1 month and upper limit of 12 months. Sample size ranged from 11 to 37695 patients at the terminal of the follow-up period and all su rveies included both males and females. Gender was distributed about every bit in all the surveies. Participants were aged 7-70 old ages old. Approach of nomadic phone intercession Mobile phone intercession in this survey showed assorted technological inventions. Six of the surveies developed package or an application plan for diabetes care management8,9,10,12,15,19. The others used bing nomadic phone engineering to supply support for self-monitoring blood glucose, instruction, diet, exercising, and medicine adjustment18 Among the 18 surveies, 2 used a nomadic phone Short Message Service ( SMS ) to present blood glucose trial consequences and self-management information8,10. These surveies adopted a short message service entirely, or SMS combined with other intercession schemes, which included conveying self-monitored blood glucose to mobile phone via a Bluetooth radio nexus. Apps emerged as a distinguishable package class in 2008 when Apple, Inc. launched its iPhone App Store, an on-line depository from which apps may be downloaded for free or purchased. While the class is new, customized package for consumer Mobile devices – pre-smartphone nomadic phones and personal digital helpers – already existed. However, the iPhone was the first of a new coevals of ‘convergence ‘ devices integrating characteristics of a nomadic phone with that of a personal computing machine, the apogee of a tendency of increasing edification in both traditional Mobiles and electronic personal digital helpers ( PDA ) . Since the 2007 launch of the iPhone there has been rapid development of smartphones and apps. All major nomadic device makers now offer their ain App Store-equivalents. In add-on, apps are now being made available on other portable computing machines and tablets and are likely to distribute to traditional desktop computers23. On one of degree of description, a wellness app is merely one of several possible bringing methods for the behavioural constituents of a self-care intercession and so defines ( portion of ) the context of those constituents ( Figure 1.3 ) . However, multifunction package may be capable of back uping several elements of intercession content that would usually hold defined distinct constituents. Our scoping reappraisal suggests that app-based constituents be given to be a dominant characteristic for which other constituents play back uping functions ( for illustration by supplying accomplishments to utilize the app ) . We therefore experience it besides correct to acknowledge a class of ‘app-based intercessions ‘ where an app is the chief agencies of content bringing. Why it is of import to make this reappraisal Apps may offer a possible low-priced solution for back uping self-care intercessions. For policy shapers and clinicians there is a demand to understand whether this is an intercession class that can be considered for real-world usage. No reappraisal has focussed specifically on issues of cost and efficaciousness utilizing wellness apps for cMEDs. Possible quality and safety impacts have been suggested but there has been no systematic consideration of these. Although smartphone app class is new, our recent scoping reappraisal shows that package intercessions utilizing MEDs are non. Bibliometric analysis of app-related publications ( Figure 1.4 ) identified in the scoping reappraisal suggests that there is now a ample accumulated principal of literature. Figure 1.4 Accumulative figure of health-app related commendations, 1992-2010 Based on 2186 surveies identified utilizing the hunt and inclusion standards for wellness apps and cMEDs defined in this protocol for which publications day of the month was available. Diabetes-specific and self-care standards, nevertheless, were non applied to this dataset and the graph therefore reflects publications for all conditions. Each information point represents the cumulative sum of all commendations published up to the terminal of that twelvemonth. The figure of new commendations generated in each twelvemonth is shown as an note above the informations pointDiscussionKeeping wellness life style in patients with DM is cardinal to their wellness position and public assistance. Mobile phone engineering may be indispensable in intercessions that target behavioural and lifestyle alterations, peculiarly, those associated with chronic diseases direction. Our survey reviewed 15 surveies that assessed the consequence of nomadic phone intercessions on the ego monitoring and direction of DM provides grounds that there is a important consequence on DM direction utilizing nomadic technique. This consequence is consistent with bing literature18. The chief part of the present reappraisal provides the most recent grounds of mHealth surveies, and the findings are based on surveies from different states. Among the reviewed surveies, most applied randomized controlled designs, which enhanced the comparison of the results. Besides, most surveies applied quantitative steps of cardinal results, including HbA1c, weight loss and serum glucose concentration measuring. Despite the strengths of nomadic phone engineering usage, several possible restrictions should be kept in head when construing these consequences. First, although findings from the reviewed surveies showed promise in nomadic phone usage and betterment of DM direction, some of these surveies had little sample sizes. Therefore, future surveies that utilize big sample size are needed to find whether the increased patient-providers ‘ communicating via mHealth have important impacts on clinical results and public wellness. Second, it is unknown what sort of modes of nomadic engineering ( SMS, nomadic phone calls, application, etc ) play a better function in bettering results in patients with DM. Third, since most surveies had a short period of intercession, the long-run effects of mHealth are still ill-defined. Fourthly, the current reappraisal paper is done by the writers in seeking for the relevant literatures. We may hold missed some documents during the hunt. If any, it will do possible choice prejudice. Further surveies should be continued to corroborate the findings. Last, as with all systematic reappraisals, the present survey is capable to publication bias14. It should be noted that our present survey purposes to reexamine the surveies in the last decennary and to measure the feasibleness of utilizing nomadic phone engineering to advance patients ‘ DM direction and better healthy life style. It is clear that although mHealth techniques may offer new chances in disease control, we still face several challenges. First, the application of mHealth is a new attack in existent universe pattern. Most surveies are still in the explorative phases. Therefore, it is indispensable to happen the nexus between pattern and scientific cognition, which come from surveies with vigorous survey designs and a large-scale sample size. Second, uninterrupted attachment and conformity to mobile phone engineering in DM direction is important to the results. The nomadic phone usage intercession relies to a great extent on behavioural alteration theory. In other words, the invention is based on a patient ‘s willingness to to the full take part in every f acet of the intercession. Therefore, the intercession may non be suited for all patients with DM, such as those who may hold troubles operate smart phone. Several surveies observed that some patients withdrew from an intercession survey due to the incommodiousness of utilizing the assigned nomadic phones on a regular daily footing. Therefore, findings observed in most surveies are based on participants who may be extremely motivated20. Third, nomadic phone engineering raises of import inquiries about how to protect patients with DM while at the same time advancing its development and implementation20. This includes challenges associated with privateness and confidentiality of information collected and stored by nomadic devices and/or transmitted to cyber substructure databases. For presentment and intercession intents, extra privateness and confidentiality concerns originate when directing health-related informations to mobile devices22. For illustration, intercessions can be interr upted and privateness may be breached if the nomadic phone is lost or stolen. However, similar restrictions are present with other communicating manners ( e.g. , postal mail or electronic mails may be delivered to the incorrect reference ) 21. It is of import to guarantee that information gathered and transmitted via nomadic devices remains secure20. Fourthly, although nomadic phone engineering promises unprecedented chances to make DM patients anytime and anyplace, mHealth intercessions may ensue in the marginalisation of certain populations, such as nonreaders or those without entree to a nomadic phone21. These drawbacks may greatly impact the impact of such intercessions in such population. In the United States, nomadic French telephone ownership differs among different cultural groups and entree is lower among those with lower socioeconomic position ( defined as those with less than a high school alumnus ) . Similarly, grounds points to disparity between younger and older patients20. Possible accounts for this disparity might be related to age, urban and r ural, and economic system ; although neither of these grounds has been definitively determined.DecisionThe consequences indicate important betterments in gylcaemic control and self-management with nomadic phone intercession methods for DM attention. Uses of nomadic phone engineering in mHealth significantly cut down HbA1c as most reviewed surveies demonstrated. Further research with a longer continuance and larger sample size is needed to analyze several cardinal issues including the benefits of mHealth intercessions for patients and healthcare supplier ‘s perceptual experiences, and the cost effectivity in bettering self-management in diabetic patients. mHealth engineering as a tool in diabetes direction maintaining shoulder to shoulder of new tendencies, medical device seller design better tools for disease direction. mHealth engineering offer important betterment in the diabetes attention and eventful intervention consequence.

Corporate Law Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Corporate Law - Assignment Example The rights include voting during the election of the directors, amending corporate bylaws as well as articles of incorporation and participating in annual meetings associated with the stockholders. Besides, the other fundamental rights of the minority shareholders include voting on a few selected corporate events which include liquidation of the business entity, mergers or sale of assets, calling special meetings of the stockholders and scrutinizing the books, records as well as the lists of the shareholders. It is in this context that with the majority shareholders holding a strong position in a company, in frequent instances, disagreements between the majority and the minority shareholders have been identified in the modern business context. The disagreements have been mostly regarding the exclusion of the minority shareholders from management participation, disproportionate allocation of shares and withholding of dividends with profits among others (1). In this discussion, a detai led analysis of the problems concerned with the rights held by minority shareholders, playing vital role causing potential disagreements amid the members of both majority as well as minority shareholders, will be taken into concern. Moreover, the different statutory remedies which are available to the minority shareholders in order to deal with situations where the majority shareholders misuse their power or breach their duties will also be portrayed in the discussion. A Brief Analysis of the Scenario The minority shareholders are often acknowledged as institutional investors among different business entities who play a limited function in influencing the background of corporate governance construction. This is majorly due to the fact that the presence of the majority shareholders within a business firm owing the rights to partially control its decision making process often facilitates significant sources of conflicts affecting the interests of the minority shareholders (2). However , it is worth mentioning in this regard that the minority shareholders posses certain rights which may be accessible in accordance to any ‘state close corporation laws’. These rights generally include amending corporate by-laws, voting during the election of the directors and organizing as well as managing annual meetings related with the shareholders among others as mentioned in the articles of association and memorandum. Despite, it has often been observed that the minority shareholders or the institutional investors find it to be quite challenging to exercise the aforementioned rights in a smooth way witnessing minimum disruptions. This is simply because the majority shareholders tend to dominantly control the business operations as they bear large proportion or percentage of shares along with various decision making rights concerning the corporate governance structure of the particular entity. As the majority shareholders possess maximum quantity of shares (i.e. mor e than 50% of the total equity shares), it has been viewed that the interests of minority shareholders are being oppressed by several means. In this similar context, the different ways which contribute towards the oppression of the minority s

Starbucks coffe industry Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Starbucks coffe industry - Case Study Example The organization selected for the study is Starbucks which is a major coffee retail chain based in USA and has operations across numerous areas of the globe. The study would include a theoretical analysis highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of each of the strategies mentioned above. In addition the study would also take into account the similarities and dissimilarities between the chosen set of business strategies. Furthermore the study would analyze the external environmental aspects that govern the coffee industry. This would be followed with an analysis for the trends of the coffee industry that would include an industry analysis of the entire industry. Finally a set of strategies would be proposed for Starbucks from among the chosen set of four generic strategies that would help the firm gain and consolidate its market share in the market and to help generate sustainable competitive advantage in the long run. Introduction In the age of increased market competition it ha s become inevitable for business organizations to purse strategies that differentiate their product offering from the others in the market. Porter proposed a set of three strategies namely focus strategy, differentiation and cost leadership that can be followed by firms to gain market advantage. Firms like Wal-Mart incorporate a single strategy like cost while there are others that use a combination of these strategies to create a hybrid strategy to generate advantage for them in the market. The choice of strategy largely depends upon the nature of the business and the target market segment considering the fact that each set of strategy has its own set of advantages as well as disadvantages (Griffin, 2008, p.207). Firms should therefore analyze their internal as well as external aspects before undertaking and implementing a business strategy. This would help them take the best advantage of the market conditions and would also help them channelize their internal resources and capacit ies to create favorable positioning and brand image of their brands and organization in the minds of the target market audience. Theoretical Background Depending upon the internal and external aspects influencing an organization it is necessary to adopt any of the four strategies namely differentiation, low-cost leadership, best cost and focus strategy. The matrix below lists out the similarities and dissimilarities of these strategies. Strategy Type Advantages Disadvantages Focus Focus Strategies help generate efficiency and promote greater learning and innovation. It helps firms to concentrate to a single segment and analyze their needs more effectively (Moore, 2008, p.84-85). Concentration on a single segment can be disastrous if the key differentiators are imitated by another market player. Narrowing down of difference within the target segments can lead to business risk (Longenecker et.al, 2005, p.66) Differentiation Helps beat the market competition. Generate new products acro ss different segments and reduces the business risks and uncertainties (Parnell, 2003, p.91) Loss of cost based advantage Imitation of key features by competitors (Wit & Meyer, 2010, p.343) Low Cost Leadership Ability to take greater advantage of demand and supply factors. Reduction of market risk (John & Harrison, n.d., p.82). Too much focus on cost can lead to deviation from the market and customers. Product aspects like quality and safety may be compromised

Transformation from Data to information Coursework

Transformation from Data to information - Coursework Example As a nursing practitioner, I had to use an EHR data repository while examining a child with tonsillitis. Upon examining the conditions of the boy and entering those to the computer system, there were plenty of data matching his condition and examination results in the repository. The repository then gave further accumulated information about the health of the boy over time. Among the information were health providers assessments of his previous conditions and action that the clinician undertook on the conditions. In addition, there were more evaluations of the boys clinical problem over his life trajectory. From the data and information I instantly gained clinical knowledge of the boy without him having to narrate his condition and previous conditions. With the knowledge, it was easy to diagnose and compare his situation more accurately and provide the best appropriate treatment for his cure (NI2006 & Murray 2007). Access to and contribution to the amassing body of an individuals specific health information in the EHRs supports Professional collaboration. The EHR provides an interesting assortment of qualitative data (e.g., evaluation of care efforts or patient narratives) AND quantitative data (e.g., lab values or vital signs). In addition, there are transactional data (e.g., delivered medications or performed tests). Such data when studied over time leads to increase in wisdom on nursing practices (McGonigle & Mastrian

Explain why you need a business plan,including some of the important Essay

Explain why you need a business plan,including some of the important factors of a business plan. prepare an outline of the elements entrepreneurs include in their business plan - Essay Example curity offered and credit rating which are not directly connected to the ‘statistics’ of the plan, but have overall impact on the proposal are also highlighted. It can be concluded that the business plan properly developed with attention to details is appreciated by the banks and investors.   This document also acts as a reference guide not only for the banks and investors, but also to the entrepreneurs to compare the actual performance to the ‘standards’ as specified in the business plan.   The achievement of the goal enhances the credibility of the business and the promoters and their trustworthiness.   The business plan carefully prepared seeks to give comfort to the lenders with regard to repayment of loan and implied assurance to them that the servicing of the debt could be comfortably undertaken without undue pressure in the operations and schedule of repayment as agreed would be adhered to.  Ã‚   All other factors should be in a position to enhance this comfort level of the banks. Another important aspect the banker would like to look into is the background of the entrepreneur in terms of his qualifications, experience, skill and capability and reputation of the entrepreneurs, status of the earlier projects if any, the honesty and integrity of the entrepreneur, etc.   These factors can also play in favor of the companies in respect of the rates of interest, and the banker could offer a very competitive rate. If the bankers are satisfied on both these counts, then it is only the question of formalities.   However, the other factors assume greater significance in the case of new entrepreneurs.   The new entrepreneurs should be able to sell their concept effectively by concentrating all the aspects of the business plan to improve the confidence level of the bankers.   Because, the other factors put together should compensate the lack of experience and reputation for the bankers to act upon the proposal favorably.   Under the circumstances prevailing

Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman - Essay Example This gives Wal-Mart the benefit of huge economies of scale, which they enlarge to lower prices. Because of the size of the retailer, this puts Wal-Mart into a position of a monopsonist extracting rents from their suppliers, and then acting as a near monopolist in the final retail goods market. A few companies such as Dial do over a quarter of their commerce with Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart dictates the terms, and those suppliers that wish to stay in the game, comply with the mandates (Martin Vander Weyer, 2006). The Arkansas-based sequence, founded by Sam Walton in 1962, is not just the chief private-sector boss and the major holder of trade market share. Its cheap plan, so all-encompassing that additional stores follow suit still when they are not straight contestant, plays a main role in holding down US price rises; its persistent demand for short prices from suppliers has been a main driver in the sell abroad of US developed jobs to China and elsewhere (Michael C. Keith, 2004). According to the expert analysis the impact of that cost on American grocery bills and consumption behavior, on the financial system of Chile and on the biology of a far-away corner of the soothing polluted by manufacturing amounts of fish foodstuff and faeces, is what Fishman calls the "Wal-Mart effect". It is, in his sight, neither completely bad nor entirely high-quality but it is very, extremely big. Wal-Mart is a power in America's financial life to a far extra important degree than its adjacent British equal, Tesco, over here (Pallabi Gogoi, 2007). Charles Fishman neatly sums up the monopsonistic power Wal-Mart has over its suppliers: No doubt, when it reaches bottomless within the operations of the companies that provide it and changes not merely what they sell, but also modify how those products are wrap up and obtainable, what the lives of the plant workers who make those products are similar to it even from time to time modify the countries where those factories are situated. 450 of Wal-Mart's suppliers have opened up offices in Bentonville, Arkansas, to be close to Wal-Mart's headquarters. These suppliers tout that if they didn't open up an office near Wal-Mart, their competitors would. That's Wal-Mart's effect on suppliers. Suppliers try to make themselves as pliant and accessible as possible for the retail giant. The Wal-Mart squeeze is a well known phenomenon to suppliers. Each year, for consumer products that don't change, Wal-Mart will approach their suppliers and say, this is what you sold us the product for last year, this is what we can get it for from a competitor, and this is what it will cost if we use our private label. Wal-Mart looks to drop the prices of products by 5% a year, every year.3 Wal-Mart's pressure to produce products cheaply has many suppliers going overseas, which reduces some companies from firms that designed, produced, and packaged their own products simply to importers of products (Theresa Howard, 2006). Negative Effects There are other serious repercussions to these lowest possible price points. Wal-Mart's constant

Freedom movement Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Freedom movement - Essay Example It also marked an important moment for the Black American society who continuously fought for equal rights within the American society (Smith & Wynn, 2009. The act ended the application of the Jim Crow laws that upheld segregation under the principles of â€Å"separate but equal.† It is important to note that prior to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, African-Americans faced serious discrimination in nearly all important sectors of the economy including employment, transport, property ownership, education and even politics. The passage of the law has since shaped the American society and that is still undergoing transformation. The consequences of the passage of the Civil Rights Act 1964 have seen significant diversity in the employment sector in America. Currently, Blacks face limited if any discrimination in employment. This has seen significant growth of the American economy as every individual struggles to involve in any income generating activity. Since the pas sage of the Act that led to increase in employment of the African-Americans, the economy of the USA has witnessed significant stability considering fair distribution of income and reduced overreliance of the economy on the White population. Additional consequence of passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 relates to significant integration of people from different races, religion and ethnicity, which is working to liquidate some of the native culture of the various American communities. In politics, the passage of the act has seen significant involvement of Blacks in the daily politics of USA. It is due to the strict provisions of the Act that America is currently under the Presidency of Barrack Obama who is a Black American. Furthermore, it is due to the Act that African-Americans like Condoleezza Rice managed to occupy powerful government office during administration of President George Bush. Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956) The cause of the boycott related to the arrest of Rose Parka who was a civil rights activist for failing to empty a bus seat in Montgomery. The Black community responded to the arrest by boycotting transport by bus until in 1956 when court overruled the segregation laws in Montgomery as unconstitutional. This even revolutionized social structure and has led to free interaction between Whites and the Blacks (Phibbs, 2009). The law has seen free movement of people across the states by same transport means. This has worked to alienate fears of discrimination alongside enhancing trade and economic development in the USA. The event and the accompanying ruling transformed the political policies created by states and local governments. Currently, many states abide by the principles of equality and fairness that has help in political stability in America. Role of Black women in the Freedom Movement Despite being subject to gender discrimination within their own race, Black women proved an essential part of the whole Freedom Movement. Black wom en assumed the roles of bridge leaders to support their male counterparts in advancing their fight for freedom. The women assumed the roles of bridge leaders because it was only area that they could occupy since men held the formal leadership positions. In that line, the Black women practiced four main types of bridge leadership that included mainstream, community, indigenous and

The Circulatory System and It's Importance Essay

The Circulatory System and It's Importance - Essay Example Because of what it does for man, the circulatory system can also be considered the most important one. Without the circulatory system, man will not be able to live. People usually associate the circulatory system with blood and they are not mistaken. In the most basic sense, the job of the circulatory system is to ensure that blood moves around inside man’s body, supplying the nutrients needed in order for all the parts of the body to function properly. While the blood carries the oxygen and nutrients to the body, it also collects the carbon dioxide from the same. If there is no proper flow of blood, the organs in the body will not be able to function well. The circulatory system can be divided into three parts: pulmonary circulation, coronary circulation and systemic circulation. The heart, lungs and bloods vessels are the major organs in each of these parts. Each individual part has its own unique process of blood circulation. â€Å"The successful circulation of each part r esults to an efficient distribution of blood throughout the body.† (Body) The heart The central organ in the circulatory process is the heart. Composed of four chambers that are divided by a wall, this muscle pushes 2,000 gallons of blood containing oxygen and nutrients into the body. (Dowshen) The heart sends the blood out through its pumping motion. â€Å"It beats about 100,000 times a day, more than 30 million times per year, and about 2.5 billion times in a 70-year lifetime (Dowshen).† The speed of the heart’s pumps depends on the kind of activity the body does. It pumps slower when the body is at rest and faster when the body is in motion. This is because man uses up more energy when immersed in activity. Energy comes from oxygen and oxygen comes from blood. The source of oxygen-rich blood is the heart. The four chambers of the heart can be grouped into two; namely, the upper and lower. The upper chamber or left and right atria receive the blood which has pa ssed through the different organs in the body. On the other hand, the heart releases the blood to be used from the lower chamber or left and right ventricles. Two cardiac valves separate the bottom part of the heart from the blood vessels that allow blood to the rest of the body. The pulmonic valve is between the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery which goes to the lungs. The aortic valve is between the left ventricle and the aorta. The heart also has two major arteries which in turn gives blood to the heart. The right coronary artery allows blood into the right atrium, right ventricle and the bottom part of the right and left ventricle. In contrast, the left coronary artery pumps blood to the left atrium and the left ventricle. Because of the heart’s function in supplying blood, it can be said that the heart is the most important organ in the circulatory system. The blood vessels Blood moves around the body through three groups of blood vessels. Aside from those which deliver and release blood to and from the heart, there are also blood vessels responsible for distributing blood throughout the body and bringing blood back to the heart. The first group of blood vessels can be found in the heart. When leaving the heart, blood flows through two arteries. The aorta is the thickest blood vessel and carries blood with oxygen to the rest of the body. The pulmonary artery, on the other hand, delivers blood to the lungs which converts oxygen-poor blood into oxygen-rich blood for the body to use. The second group of blood ve

Instructional strategies & approaches Essay Example for Free

Instructional strategies approaches Essay The beginning of the 20th century marked the focus on problem-based learning. This is the strategy that I would like to implement in the classroom. As what most teachers generally agree, problem solving together with several other core competencies (i. e. comprehending and composing, critical and creative thinking, and metacognition) is among the most important dimensions of thinking and learning (Jonassen,1994). Moreover, the ability to engage in effective and purposeful problem solving is critical to the development of individuals and their communities. As what Nickerson (1994) argues, problem solving is (1) at the core of the survival of individuals and communities interacting with an increasingly complex external environment; (2) essential to developing and sustaining a democratic society, and; (3) an increasingly sought-after high level cognitive ability in the knowledge workplace of today. But despite the acknowledgement of the importance of developing problem solving skills, relatively little research has been conducted on this theme in the field of instructional design (Jonassen, 1994). Moreover, within the existing research base, even fewer contributions have been made to the development of instructional design approaches for ill-structured or complex problem solving instruction. The majority of the instructional design literature in the area of problem solving instruction points to the use of particular instructional strategies to support the acquisition of problem solving skills (e. g. cognitive apprenticeships and simulations). However, these strategies have rarely been researched with sufficient rigor to ascertain their effectiveness in achieving the desired outcomes (Nickerson, 1994). Recent literature has dedicated a fair amount of attention to considering the methods for applying problem-based learning as an instructional strategy in the context of primary and secondary school contexts (Ennis, 1987; Baron R. J. Sternberg, 1998). The majority of this work has approached the application of problem-based learning to formal instruction from a conceptual or theoretical standpoint, with little reporting on empirical research studying the effectiveness of this approach. Research findings on learner performance The existing research on learner performance in problem-based learning environments is characterized in a number of ways: (1) most of the research conducted to date compares the impact of problem-based learning on learner performance to the instructional strategies that characterize traditional, classroom-based teaching. (2) The research studies tend to focus primarily on learner performance on standardized tests, rather than performance in complex and authentic transfer contexts, and (3) the studies generally measure performance in terms of outcome measures rather than process-measures of performance. In this context, the research on the impact of problem-based learning on student performance has generally shown that there are no statistically significant differences in learner performance when compared to performance of learners receiving lecture-based instruction (Bransford, et al. 1990). Student perceptions of the effectiveness of problem-based learning on their performance appears to be consistent with the general research findings. Although only one research study was identified regarding student perceptions of the effectiveness of problem based learning, it is worthwhile noting that in this study, students pointed to problem-based learning as a more effective method of instruction than traditional, lecture-based methods, while qualifying their observations by noting that traditional teaching methods are more effective for knowledge acquisition (Biggs Moore, 1993). Research findings on student attitudes There are a number of other research studies, in which students in problem-based learning environments reported significantly higher levels of motivation and satisfaction and where it is reported that problem-based learning enhances intrinsic interest in the subject matter to a greater extent than traditional instructional methods (Savery, 1992). Given the general finding that learners in problem-based learning environments report more positive attitudes and higher levels of motivation, it is important to consider the factors learners attribute to their favorable disposition toward problem-based learning. Research conducted by Wilson (1995) provides some insight into this, reporting that students in problem-based learning curricula perceived their curriculum to be more stimulating and enjoyable than traditional instructional methods. In addition, research conducted by Bransford, et al.(1990) reports that students in problem-based learning environments rated their curriculum more favorably for democratic decision making, and for supporting effective interaction among peers. Another issue of relevance to effective design of problem-based learning environments is the extent to which various instructional support tools and mechanisms are provided to learners through this strategy. Research conducted by Biggs Moore (1993) found that students tend to rely on different instructional support tools at different stages in their learning process. In their study, Biggs Moore (1993) found that the four most meaningful elements impacting the students’ learning processes were (1) learning materials, (2) small-group process, (3) facilitator effectiveness, and (4) academic support. Furthermore, the study found that these four factors shifted in relative importance as the students progressed through the curriculum, with facilitator effectiveness being of greatest importance at the outset, while learning materials were the most important factor in determining learning success toward the end of the instruction. This finding appears to be generally consistent with the theory underscoring problem-based learning, which argues that, as students develop greater independent ability to engage in effective hypothetico-deductive reasoning, their reliance on the facilitator for this kind of support will be reduced. Problem-based learning is one constructivist instructional strategy that has shown much promise in its application to disciplines and domains where learners have to tackle complex problems in ambiguous situations. This approach to instruction â€Å"structures courses and entire curricula on problems rather than on subject content† (Ericsson Hastie, 1994)). Hence, problem – based learning strategy is appropriate in any circumstance of the teaching-learning process as life is always full of problems. There will always be problems. If a learner knows the technique of problem solving, he will be able to tackle whatever difficulties he meets. Further, this strategy gives direction to a discussion and prevents wandering off from the topic. It stimulates reflective thinking and furnishes a guide for organizing ideas. It directs attention to the task to be done and encourages concentration. The implementation issues surrounding the use of problem-based learning involves both the teacher, as he has to guide the pupil’s learning, and the learner’s, as they may not be able to recognize the problem without the teacher’s guidance. To raise the problem, the teacher must set the stage. The teacher should assist them by directing their observation to related data and recalling past experiences that have a bearing on the problem. The next issue is working on the problem. This involves organization of facts, principles, and ideas pertinent to the problem, selecting a hypothesis and trying it out, gathering data through reading, observing, etc. , evaluating the solution, and forming a conclusion. Hence, in implementing the problem- based learning strategy, the teacher directs the learning while the learners do the work. As a conclusion, problem-based learning strategies should be used as the need and situation arises. But a word of caution, however: Some teachers try to look for problems in every subject so that they can present the lesson in probable form. This will tend to make learning too stilted and formal. Besides, a problem will be considered as such by the pupils only if it is real and worthwhile. Further, what the teacher thinks of as a problem may not always be one to the class. To the pupils, it may just be a task or exercise assigned by the teacher. Hence, this strategy should be used only when: 1. A difficulty exists which demands solution and is thought provoking. 2. The problem is clear, definite, suitable to the level of the learner, and of practical value. 3. It is real, interesting, and worthwhile to the learner. In order to use the problem-based strategy, these are the essential steps to follow: (1) recognition and statement of the problem, originating in a difficulty or perplexing situation, (2) statement of hypothesis – inspection and proposal of solutions, (3) critical evaluation of suggested solution, and (4) verification of accepted solution. There may be several basic problem-solving approaches that have emerged and although teachers stress one specific approach to solve problems, students often use a variety of approaches, especially with more complex problems. In this regard, the teacher must be aware of how their students process information and what approaches they use to solve problems in order to teach according to the way the students think. The teacher who insists on one approach and penalizes students who uses other approaches is discouraging their problem-solving potential. Problem-solving must be part of the teachers` instructional strategies. They should consider it as a commitment and complementary to the teaching-learning process. References Biggs, J.B. Moore, P. J. (1993). The process of learning. New York: Prentice Hall Borich, G (2004). Effective teaching methods (5th ed. ). New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. Bransford, J. D. ; Vye, N. ; Kinzer, C. ; Risko, V. (1990). Teaching thinking and content knowledge. In: B. F. Jones L. Idol (Eds), Dimensions of thinking and cognitive instruction. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Ennis, R. H. (1987). A taxonomy of critical thinking dispositions and abilities. In: J. B. Baron R. J.Sternberg (Eds), Teaching thinking skills: Theory and practice. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company. Ericsson, K. A. Hastie, R. (1994). Contemporary approaches to the study of thinking and problem Academic Press. solving. In: R. J. Sternberg (Ed), Thinking and problem solving. (2nd ed) San Diego: Jonassen, D. (1994). Designing constructivist learning environments. In C. Reigeluth (Ed. ), Instructional design theories and models: A new paradigm of instructional theory (Vol. II,). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Nickerson, R.S. (1994). The teaching of thinking and problem solving. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed), Thinking and problem solving. (2nd ed) San Diego: Academic Press. Nickerson, R. S. (1994). The teaching of thinking and problem solving. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed), Thinking and problem solving. (2nd ed) San Diego: Academic Press. Savery, J. R. Duffy, T. M. (1992). Problem-based learning: An instructional model and its constructivist framework. Wilson, B. (1995). Constructivist Learning Environments. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.

Power Relations In Diego Velazquezs Las Meninas English Literature Essay

Power Relations In Diego Velazquezs Las Meninas English Literature Essay The author of the painting Las Meninas (1656), Diego Velà ¡zquez (1599-1660) worked at the court of Philip IV, thus at the centre of the centralised power structure of one of the original nation-states of Early Modern Europe. Las Meninas has been argued both in Velà ¡zquez time and in ours to be his masterpiece. My purpose in this essay is to argue for an interpretation of this painting and its shaping by an exploration of power relations rather than by perspectival considerations. My interest in the present essay will be to analyse Las Meninas within the perspective of power relations, in an effort to provide an alternative reading to the literature based purely on the technical aspects of the painting. A lot has been written regarding the great unclearness that the painting Las Meninas seals, but, there is a question that we must acknowledge in presence of the visual intricacy of the painting, what indeed did Velà ¡zquez paint? I am not looking to provide the final answer to this question in this essay. However, I believe that by analysing Las Meninas within the perspective of power relations, I can contribute to the scholarship on Velà ¡zquez and provide an approach that can also contribute to the answer of this question. Las Meninas (fig. 1) (Spanish for The Maids of Honour) is an oil on canvas painting with 318 cm ÃÆ'- 276 cm. The setting is a large room and it has long been unclear whether the interior represented in the painting is real or imaginary. F. J. Sà ¡nchez Cantà ³n identified the room by the paintings in it as the main chamber of an apartment in the Alcà ¡zar of Madrid that had been occupied by Prince Baltazar Carlos before its assignment to Velà ¡zquez.  [2]  However, F. Ià ±iguez Almech was unable, when analysing the seventeenth-century plans of Alcà ¡zar, to identify any room that would correspond to the one in the painting, being possible that Velà ¡zquez did not depict any actual room.  [3]   Fig. 1. Diego Velà ¡zquez, Las Meninas, 1656, Museu Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Available from: Museu Nacional del Prado Galerà ­a On-Line (accessed 29 March 2010). The painting presents a composition distributed in well organised spatial structure that provides to the depicted room a sensation of realism, proximity and depth, being the composition concentric, with the Infanta Margarita Marà ­a de Austria as its focal point.  [4]  The depth of the painting is accentuated by the frames on the wall on the right, by the canvas on the left and by the two empty chandeliers on the ceiling. In addition, the painting combines discreet colours, providing harmony to the painting (white, grey and black of the attires with details in red, beige of the canvas, and again tones of black and grey in the non-illuminated parts of the room).  [5]   On the right of the room, one has an oblique view of the wall with apertures which seem to be windows that let light into the room. On the left, the view of the room is cut by a large canvas seen from the back. The painter himself, Diego Velà ¡zquez, is portrayed in front of this canvas with a paintbrush on his hand, who seems to have just stopped working on the canvas for a moment in order to gaze out his models. Velà ¡zquez was fifty-seven years old when he painted Las Meninas and depicted himself in it, but without wrinkles, white hair, or any other sign that could indicate his actual age. The canvas Velà ¡zquez is working on is not visible to the viewer. More or less to the centre of the canvas stands a little girl identified as the Infanta of Spain, Doà ±a Margarita Marà ­a de Austria, who also gazes out in the manner of a portrait, and around who the other figures gravitate . . . like planets of an intricate, subtly ordered system, and reflect her light.  [6]  She is s urrounded on both sides by two young women attendants (the meninas of the title), being the one on the left (Doà ±a Marà ­a Agustina Sarmiento de Sotomayor) kneeling at the feet of the Infanta and offering her a bà ºcaro in a tray, while the other on the right (Doà ±a Isabel de Velasco) inclines a bit to the Infanta and turns her glance outwards the canvas. To the right of this group, in the corner of the canvas, stand two dwarves of distorted appearance, also court attendants. The woman named Marà ­a Barbola gazes outwards, while the midget who steps on the dog is Nicolasico Pertusato. On a more distant plan is Doà ±a Marcela de Ulloa, lady of honour, who turns her head to address a man (escort for ladies of the court), who stands beside her and looks outwards. Some distance behind them is the rear wall of the room, which has a door where stands Don Josà © Nieto Velà ¡zquez, Aposentador of the Queen, also gazing outwards. To the left of Josà © Nieto, the King Philip IV and the Queen Marà ­a Ana de Austria are reflected in a mirror. Some of the figures in the painting present little problem of identification, namely Velà ¡zquez and the Infanta; the others are less obvious. This identification of the figures in the painting is based on Velà ¡zquez earliest biographer, Antonio Palomino, who named the figures in Las Meninas on the basis of the known population of the court in Book III of his Museu Pictà ³rico y Escala Óptica, which was first published in 1724.  [7]  Palomino also identifies the two paintings in the upper part of the back wall with the then current royal holdings: Minerva Punishing Arachne and Apollos Victory over Marsyas, both originally by Peter Paul Rubens.  [8]   The Infanta occupies the centre of the visual focus, together with the King and Queens reflection on the mirror and the painter. The superior half of the painting is occupied with lamps and spots of light that enter trough the openings on the right wall; there are shadows covering the back superior part of the wall. The scene is taken from an angle that closes itself in the right with an opening in the wall. In the left, in another diagonal plan, the painting that is being painted by Velà ¡zquez leaves the figures in second plan and cuts obliquely the space. In the back, the mirror and the door make allusion to unknown spaces, which together with the spatial configuration of the portrayed room open the painting to the exterior and pulls the viewer to inside of the composition. As Madlyn Millner Kahr points out, the mirror in the painting contributes its own special brand of magic. In Las Meninas it directs the observers attention to events going on outside the picture (the presence of the royal couple), which in turn brings the observer within the picture area.  [9]   On her article Velà ¡zquez and Las Meninas, Kahr divides the cast of characters with a wide range of ages and physical types into different groups.  [10]  One of these groups is the dog, the midget and the female dwarf. According to Kahr, these three characters form a group apart due to their position in space and their compositional unity.  [11]  The central group, as Kahr argues, stands behind them, being constituted by the Infanta and the two meninas. The painter, Doà ±a Marcela de Ulloa and the guardadamas forms another group; and the last group is composed by the Aposentador of the Queen standing in the stairs and by King Philip IV and Queen Marà ­a Ana reflected on the mirror.  [12]  Thus, Kahr divides the characters in groups of three. This division provides unity, coherence and structure to the painting, and by placing the group of the Infanta and the two meninas as the central one, Kahrs group division concurs with Palominos consideration that the painting is a portrait of the Infanta.  [13]  The light that enters the room by the right side wall apertures mainly illuminates the Infanta, Doà ±a Maria Agustina Sarmiento and partially the other menina, that are highlighted in relation to the darkness behind them, reinforcing the conception that Las Meninas is a portrait of the Infanta of Spain. Carl Justi also described Las Meninas as a portrait of the Infanta Margarita as the centre of a recurrent scene of the palace life.  [14]   Joel Snyder agrees that considering the painting as the portrait of the Infanta Margarita, as Palomino and Carl Justi do, is a movement in the correct direction, but it fails to explain the presence of all the other figures in it that compete for our attention.  [15]  Jonathan Brown states that the subject of the painting is no one in particular, but that the painting is a claim for the nobility of Velà ¡zquezs art.  [16]  However, Snyder points out: To suggest that Las Meninas is a demonstration of the nobility of painting and of its proper place in the liberal arts, as Jonathan Brown does, is to locate the interest of the painting in the conditions of its origination and in the means employed to produce the demonstration. This is surely interesting and, if correct, revealing; but, again, it does not bring us to terms with the subject of the painting with what the painting is tout ensemble.  [17]   Firstly, the tout ensemble of the painting may be explored individually (considering the power relations between each figure in the painting), in order to then identify the subject of the painting. In approaching this issue, one should agree that one can identify the presence of the centralised power in the painting Las Meninas. The power in this painting may be recognized in several aspects. There is in the painting two distinct social groups: the working class and the one that enjoys the labour of those who work. On the one hand, we have the painter, the maids, the lady of honour, the escort for ladies of the court, the Aposentador of the Queen, and the dwarfs represented; while, on the other hand, we have the aristocracy represented in the Infanta that occupies the centre of the painting and King Philip IV and Queen Marà ­a Ana de Austria reflected on the mirror. When one questions why Velà ¡zquez depicted himself together with all the members of the royal household, the answer may be that he wanted to indicate that he also belonged to this illustrious circle. Sira Dambe states that in Golden Age Spain, the art of painting, still relegated to the rank of craft, had not yet been accorded equal status with the higher arts, such as music or poetry.  [18]  Therefore, this painting may be seen as Velà ¡zquezs proclamation of . . . power and status as a creator.  [19]  The ecclesiastic power is also present in the cross of the Santiagos Order in the chest of the painter, which was not originally painted by Velà ¡zquez, being painted after the artists death by the Kings demand.  [20]  When analysing the Fable of Arachne and Las Meninas, Jonathan Brown states, [Velà ¡zquezs] claim for the nobility of his art are firmly embedded in these multi-layered works, and in Las Meninas the gentleman painter, stands confidently at the easel, bas king in the glory of the monarchs person. And on his breast, the vibrant red cross of Santiago marks the artist as a nobleman.  [21]   In addition, one can also identify the presence of the artistical power of the painter over the remaining figures due to the dominium of the artistic language, but at the same time, the artistic needs to obey to a superior power, and in this case, the kingship. This statement finds support on the royal couple pictured in the mirror that accordingly represent the royal power. On her article Picturing Power: Representation and Las Meninas, Amy M. Schmitter affirms: The Kings representation is a force of power, a manifestation of royal power that embodies, displays, and extends it. It is a representation that acts, that represents by presenting, exhibiting, or exposing titles and qualifications, by figuring them in painting, by being a sign, by bringing to observation, and by playing in public. It thereby constitutes its subject, the royal power and the royal office, by representing it.  [22]   One can agree that the depiction of the King Philip IV and the Queen Marà ­a Ana de Austria on the mirror and of the Infanta Margarita as main focus of the painting represents directly in the painting the royal power it represents those that should be looked with reverence and submission. Furthermore, with the glances one receives and returns in the painting, the represented royal power gazes with control and vigilance over everyone else. Regarding the power relations between the remaining figures of the painting, one can argue that the meninas, the guardadamas and the lady of honour, by their own social condition are subordinates of the kingship. The two dwarfs are also condemned to the royal power and have as their function to entertain the royal household. The dog that is being stepped by the dwarf on the right is condemned to an even lower position (a submissive animal). In this perspective of power relations, the presence of Josà © Nieto Velà ¡zquez becomes enigmatic. Despite being the Aposentador of the Queen and therefore ruled by the royal power, he is portrayed in profile on the stairs of the back door, seemingly indicating an indecision of staying under the gaze of the royal power or leaving. From this analysis, one can agree that all the figures of the painting are entangled in the webs of power. Although the delimitations of power are well defined in the painting, representing the historical, political and economic conditions of seventeenth-century Spain, another way of looking at this issue is through the indirect allusions also present in the painting, such as the dwarf, positioned in perfect diagonal alignment with the painter. The two associate by contrast: the painter as the creator and admirer of what is beautiful, and the dwarf as symbol of deformity. In common, there is the fact that both are represented images of social groups placed aside from power. One should, nevertheless, consider this opposition from another angle. From the contrast itself between what the painter and the dwarf represent, one can obtain an exchange of parts by acknowledging that the arts represent both the sublime as well as the grotesque. Therefore, there is in this aesthetical inscription a subversion of the institutionalised values of power. The power of kingship is also central in Michel Foucaults chapter on Diego Velà ¡zquezs Las Meninas, being this the opening chapter of his book The Order of Things.  [23]  According to Foucault the function of the mirror reflection of the King and the Queen is to bring to the painting what is external to it. In the chapter Las Meninas, Foucault attributes the theme of the painting to the external space and gives the Infanta and her maids (internal space) the function of entertaining the King and Queen that are in front of the representation (outside space) as Và ©lazquezs models.  [24]   Foucaults critical analysis derives from the observation angle of the Infanta, the King and Queen in the mirror and how their gazes define the centre of the picture. The mirror in the back leads to the conclusion, as Foucault states, that it is about a question of what looks and what is looked. From these encounters of gazes and perceptions, the author notes that the notion of double arises from this painting. To Foucault the double reveals itself in the painting from inside the painting itself. The painting that Velà ¡zquez is painting in the portrait will be the representation of the reflexion of the King and Queen in the mirror at the back.  [25]   On the chapter dedicated to Las Meninas, Foucault argues that the Classical age, roughly the period from the seventeenth-century to the eighteenth-century, was a period when the intellectual world focused on the representations of the real. Accordingly, Foucault defines the subject of Las Meninas as the representation itself. To quote from Foucault: Perhaps there exists, in this painting by Velà ¡zquez, the representation as it were of Classical representation, and the definition of space it opens up to us . . . But there, in the midst of this dispersion which is simultaneously grouping together and spreading out before us, indicated compellingly from every side, is an essential void: the necessary disappearance of that which is its foundation of the person it resembles and the person whose eyes it is only a resemblance. This very subject which is the same has been elided. And representation, freed finally from the relation that was impeding it, can offer itself as representation in its pure form.  [26]   Therefore, Foucault argues that in Las Meninas representation tries to interpretate itself. In contemporaneous philosophy, it is the language that is going to establish the relation between the similarities with the world, making possible representation. Thus, one can affirm that the turning point from classic epistà ªmà ª to modern epistà ªmà ª is the passage of language as mediator (in representation) to object of knowledge. In the modern epistà ªmà ª, language does not reveal more directly the identity of the world, but it reveals the relations between things and the Man. It is from here that occurs the questioning of Man as centre around whom all the knowledge is created. Thus, Velà ¡zquez painting represents what is to come. The modern epistà ªmà ª is anticipated in Velà ¡zquezs Las Meninas it is the utopic function of art of anticipating the future. Consequently, to Foucault, Las Meninas is represented in an epistemic system the subject of representation should rema in invisible (the empty space of the kingship is the place that in the modern episteme will be occupied by the Man). Foucault points out: At once object since it is what the artist is copying onto his canvas and subject since what the painter had in front of his eyes, as he represented himself in the course of work, was himself, since the gazes portrayed in the picture are all directed toward the fictitious position occupied by the royal personage, which is also the painters real place, since the occupier of that ambiguous place, in which the painter and the sovereign alternate, in never-ending flicker, as it were, is the spectator, whose gaze transforms the painting into object, the pure representation of that essential absence.  [27]   Moreover, Foucault argues that the mirror portrayed in Las Meninas portrays the confrontation between representation and reflexion, being that a painting is different from a mirror and a representation goes beyond a reflexion. Therefore, the painting is a representation for the observer, and in the painting of Velà ¡zquez one has the painting itself, and inside it one has other represented paintings and also a canvas in first plan viewed from the back. In all, this painting is a representation that has as subject a kind of empty place that we can fill with several models. Foucault argues that instead of instituting a simple relation of mimesis as the main theme of the painting, the figures of the royal couple would be indicated as a kind of essential emptiness.  [28]   According to Foucault, the canvas on the left is the place for a dichotomy between visible/invisible. What the painter looks is doubly invisible, because it is not represented in the painting, and because we cannot see ourselves. The mirror in the back is the only visible representation, but despite that fact, no one looks at it. However, what is there represented, has nothing to do with what the painting presents, it reflects something that is exterior to the painting. In the place occupied by the spectator, are the models of the painter. Therefore, the painting allows to see what is doubly invisible. The characters in the mirror are the less noticed, but it is around them that all the representation happens. It is to them that all the other characters look gazing outwards the painting.  [29]  Thus, there are three looks that meet on the outside of the painting: of the model, in the moment he is being painted, of the spectator that contemplates the scene, and of the painter in the moment he paints the painting (the one in front of us, and not the one represented in the painting). Quoting from Foucaults The Order of Things: Of all the figures represented before us, they [the royals] are also the most ignored, since no one is paying the slightest attention to that reflection [in the mirror] which has slipped into the room behind them all, silently occupying its unsuspected space; in so far as they are visible, they are the frailest and the most distant form of all reality. Inversely, in so far as they stand outside the picture and are therefore withdrawn from it in an essential invisibility, they provide the centre around which the entire representation is ordered: it is they who are being faced, it is towards them that everyone is turned . . . from the canvas with its back to us to the Infanta, and from the Infanta to the dwarf playing on the extreme right, there runs a curve . . . that orders the whole arrangement of the picture to their gaze and thus makes apparent the true centre of the composition, to which the Infantas gaze and the image in the mirror are both finally subject.  [30]   One should note here that Foucaults theory emphasises the interior look it constitutes the interior from the exterior as a device built from the outside to the inside of the webs of power. Las Meninas, in Foucaults interpretation help us see this paradigm. By observing the painting, it is noticeable that the modern subject is constituted by surveillance, by the absent look (but at the same time very present), of a power that determines everything, from the characters clothing, gestures, attention, social position, in sum the ways of feeling and seeing are determined by a power that sees all and controls all. In view of these arguments, Foucault points out: In the profound upheaval of such an archaeological mutation, man appears in his ambiguous position as an object of knowledge and as a subject that knows: enslaved sovereign, observed spectator, he appears in the place belonging to the king, which was assigned to him in advance by Las Meninas, but from which his real presence has for long been excluded.  [31]   On his article Velà ¡zquez Las Meninas, Leo Steinberg presents similar arguments to Foucaults, including the viewers of the painting as part of a sphere which the partitioning picture plane cuts in two.  [32]  As Steinberg points out, if the picture were speaking instead of flashing, it would be saying: I see you seeing me I in you see myself seen see yourself being seen and so on beyond the reaches of the grammar.  [33]  What particularly interests me in Foucaults and Steinbergs approaches is the placing of the modern Man (in Foucaults case), and the observer (in Steinbergs case), as pivotal figures in the interpretation of Las Meninas, being that in their approaches the Man/observer holds the power he occupies the place of the royal power. To conclude, when one considers all these different approaches to Las Meninas, one is presented with a complex web of power relations. Firstly, the painting was produced in seventeenth-century Spain, a original nation-state of Early Modern Europe, and in and with the court of Philip IV the centre of a centralised power structure. Secondly, the painting depicts the royal power interiorly with the portrayal of the Infanta and the King and the Queen in the mirror, and at the same time exteriorly trough the implied presence of the royal couple reflected on the mirror. Thirdly, the painting also portrays all those ruled by the monarchic power, such as the maids of honour, the lady of honour, the guardadamas, the dwarfs, the Aposentador of the Queen, and also the painter. Fourthly, it also depicts Velà ¡zquezs proclamation of power by portraying himself in the royal household as a nobleman, and at the same time it celebrates his artistical power. Finally, the painting invisibly portrays the Man/observer that occupies the same place of the royal couple outside the painting, and that this way holds the power both as subject of representation and holder of knowledge. Therefore, one can conclude that what Velà ¡zquez did indeed paint in Las Meninas was power royal power, artistical power, and intellectual power. The setting and the figures of Las Meninas are merely incorporations of power relations, being the painting on his whole a metaphor of power.

My Manufacturing Firm Essay -- Economic Systems, Market-Oriented Econo

Economic Systems An economic system refers to the rules of the game on how a country is governed economically (Peng, 27). A country’s strategy for its services, goods produced and the process in which its economic plan is executed. Market economy is characterized by the â€Å"invisible hand† of market forces (Peng, 27). The effect of supply and demand affects the availability and price of a product for the interaction of businesses. Command economy is defined by a government taking (Peng, 27). All stellar decisions associated with production, distribution, product and service prices are controlled by the government. Mixed economy has elements of both a market economy and a command economy (Peng, 28). Businesses will have some flexibility in decision- making, but the government has control in others. When running a business in each of these different economic systems, it’s important to understand where the goods and services offered can be used and marketed. Economics are admin istered in a different manner by governments around the world. China’s economic transformation over the past two decades has converted to a market-oriented economy. The market-oriented reforms China implemented have unleashed individual initiative and entrepreneurship (globalEdge, 2010). A repercussion that the Chinese government deals with is the increased pollution and decline of natural resources. This can have an effect on job growth, new entrants entering the workforce and the foulness of crimes for an international business. There is an increase leeriness of purchasing Chinese products due to the contamination by pollution and chemicals. China’s key task was to create a socialist market economy (globalEdge, 2010). Many businesses are state-owned and o... ...ordination of goals and objectives that might get out of hand by the host country managers, by having a plan of action. Host country nationals will make local decision about product pricing and distribution, but the home office can overrule the local decisions. The staffing approach that best fits Mexico is the ethnocentric approach. Under this approach, people are perceived in the interest of how well they can complete a job or task rather than on the essence of religion, culture or their home country. Employees are chosen throughout the business by who they are and not where they come from concluding in a diverse workforce. This approach is genuinely global. A geocentric approach to international business sees its entire staff as able to in fact contribute to the business goals and objectives. Decision making is related to the well-being of the business. My Manufacturing Firm Essay -- Economic Systems, Market-Oriented Econo Economic Systems An economic system refers to the rules of the game on how a country is governed economically (Peng, 27). A country’s strategy for its services, goods produced and the process in which its economic plan is executed. Market economy is characterized by the â€Å"invisible hand† of market forces (Peng, 27). The effect of supply and demand affects the availability and price of a product for the interaction of businesses. Command economy is defined by a government taking (Peng, 27). All stellar decisions associated with production, distribution, product and service prices are controlled by the government. Mixed economy has elements of both a market economy and a command economy (Peng, 28). Businesses will have some flexibility in decision- making, but the government has control in others. When running a business in each of these different economic systems, it’s important to understand where the goods and services offered can be used and marketed. Economics are admin istered in a different manner by governments around the world. China’s economic transformation over the past two decades has converted to a market-oriented economy. The market-oriented reforms China implemented have unleashed individual initiative and entrepreneurship (globalEdge, 2010). A repercussion that the Chinese government deals with is the increased pollution and decline of natural resources. This can have an effect on job growth, new entrants entering the workforce and the foulness of crimes for an international business. There is an increase leeriness of purchasing Chinese products due to the contamination by pollution and chemicals. China’s key task was to create a socialist market economy (globalEdge, 2010). Many businesses are state-owned and o... ...ordination of goals and objectives that might get out of hand by the host country managers, by having a plan of action. Host country nationals will make local decision about product pricing and distribution, but the home office can overrule the local decisions. The staffing approach that best fits Mexico is the ethnocentric approach. Under this approach, people are perceived in the interest of how well they can complete a job or task rather than on the essence of religion, culture or their home country. Employees are chosen throughout the business by who they are and not where they come from concluding in a diverse workforce. This approach is genuinely global. A geocentric approach to international business sees its entire staff as able to in fact contribute to the business goals and objectives. Decision making is related to the well-being of the business.

Tommy Hilfiger Versus Ralph Waldo Emerson in the Battle of Conformity :: essays research papers

I turn my head and see a streak of blouse and miniskirt flouncing by, its wearer dark and supple with the tan of a Pittsburgh January and luxuriously blonde from the bottle of her favorite stylist. Her male companion wears a sweater that cost him more than the herd of sheep from whence its essential material came, with baggy blue jeans marked with the name of a certain Hilfiger fellow, and shoes pioneered by one Dr. Martin, likely a prominent podiatrist somewhere in the world. The girl giggles airily and shoves her companion playfully with a hand accented by newly (and plastically) long, manicured, French-tipped nails. A small wonder it is indeed that she did not lose her balance in so doing, for her towering shoes elevate her feet to such an alarming angle that I am scarce able to understand exactly how she is able to walk.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  They continue sauntering along together, linking arms and looking reminiscent of a modeling photo shot for that certain Abero-something-or-other clothing store, only in color and live action. I conjecture the communal price of their clothing and fashionable accessories. On second thought, I do not even want to conjecture; I have quite enough of an idea. â€Å"’The virtue in most request is conformity,’† I think to myself, repeating the adage mentioned by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay on Self-Reliance, â€Å"and from that standpoint, this is a very ‘virtuous’ couple indeed.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Emerson precedes himself in wisdom. I heartily agree with his standpoint on conformity. Society today encourages many different aspects of compliance, but perhaps the most prominent one is conformity of appearance. There are societal standards for males, females, young and old that make them either ideal or outlying, and most of these standards are dependent upon cosmetic appearance. Ours is a superficial society, a manufactured American view of perfect people and perfect beauty thrives almost universally unbounded by resistance, whether passive or powerful. The manners in which people conform to the society’s image of beauty are many, including cosmetics, fashions of clothing and shoes, hair styles, modish colors; everything down to the size of purse a woman carries is first spotted in a magazine and then purchased and used once deemed to be worthy of public sight. Outlandish fashions become the mode primarily because they are advertised as being â€Å"th e things you simply cannot live without!† It is a universal truth that fashion is a form of ugliness so hideous that it must be changed every four months; but the public is content to stay within the confines of the current trend in order to conform, and not necessarily because the fashion is attractive.

Comparing T.S. Eliot and Charles Dickins :: essays papers

Comparing TS Eliot and Charles Dickins The poetry written by Thomas Stearns Eliot, Portrait of a Lady has a strong connection with the novel by Henry James. Both deal with almost the same issues. In the poem Eliot talks about how a person will live his or her life during the 19th century. How they would always do exactly what was considered right during that era in society. Eliot mention how rare and strange it is to find true friends. In the novel everyone pretend to be your best friend and was only using the person to benefit something for his or her own convections (Lozano, 2). You do not know how much they mean to me, My friends, and how, How rare and strange it is, to find In a life composed so much, So much of odds and ends (Eliot 19-21). Many people during the 19th century really made friends so that they can have more people coming to their tea parties, one of the things that are mention in the poem as well as in the novel (Lozano, 3). Isabel Archer was considered to be a very innocent lady; she was being taken advantage so that others can get what they wanted when all she wanted was a real friend. Madame Merle was a clever woman who used her to get money for her daughter (Henry, 181). Repeatedly saying in this poem that he will serve tea to his â€Å"friends†. He is saying that in this era there was no such thing as a real friend even though everyone wanted one of his or her own. For everybody said so, all our friends, They all were sure our feelings would relate So closely! I myself can hardly understand. We must leave it now to fate.

Economic Development and Social Change Essay

1) What is the primary goal of modernization theory in contrast to theories of capital formation? Compare and contrast Hoselitz’ formulation of modernization theory with Lewis’ theory of capital formation In the 18th century, during the Age of Enlightenment, an idea named the Idea of Progress emerged whereby its believers were thought of being capable of developing and changing their societies. This philosophy initially appeared through Marquis de Condorcet, who was involved in the origins of the theoretical approach whereby he claimed that technological advancements and economical changes can enable changes in moral and cultural values. He encouraged technological processes to help give people further control over their environments, arguing that technological progress would eventually spur social progress. In addition, Émile Durkheim developed the concept of functionalism in the sociological field, which emphasizes on the importance of interdependence between the different institutions of a society and their interaction in maintaining cultural and social unity. His most well known work, The Division of Labour in Society, which outlines how order in society could be controlled an d managed and how primitive societies could make the transition to more economically advanced industrial societies. Another reason for the emergence of the modernization theory derived from Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, which represented the widespread practical interest on economic development during a time when there was a constant relation between economic theory and economic policy that was considered necessary and obvious. It was by analysing, critiquing, and hence moving away from these assumptions and theories that the modernization theory began to establish itself. At the time the United States entered its era of globalism and a ‘can do’ attitude characterized its approach, as in the functionalist modernization advanced by B. Hoselitz: â€Å"You subtract the ideal typical features or indices of underdevelopment from those of development, and the remainder is your development program†. As he also presents in Social Structure and Economic Growth , this body of economic theory â€Å"abstracted from the immediate policy implications to which it was subject† and also â€Å"assumed human motivations and the social and cultural environment of economic activity as relatively rigid and unchanging givens†(23-24). He claims that the difference lies in the extra examination of what is beyond simply economics terms and adjustments, by â€Å"restructuring a social relations in general, or at least those social relations which are relevant to the performance of the productive and distributive tasks of the society†(26). Most forms of evolutionism conceived of development as being natural and endogenous, whereas modernization theory makes room for exogenous influences. Its main aim is to attain some understanding of the functional interrelationship of economic and general social variables describing the transition from an economically â€Å"underdeveloped† to an â€Å"advanced† society. Modernization theory is usually referred to as a paradigm, but upon closer consideration turns out to be host to a wide variety of projects, some presumably along the lines of ‘endogenous change’ namely social differentiation, rationalization, the spread of universalism, achievement and specificity; while it has also been associated with projects of ‘exogenous change’: the spread of capitalism, industrialization through technological diffusion, westernization, nation building, state formation (as in postcolonial inheritor states). If occasionally this diversity within modernizat ion is recognized, still the importance of exogenous influences is considered minor and secondary. I do not view ‘modernization’ as a single, unified, integrated theory in any strict sense of ‘theory’. It was an overarching perspective concerned with comparative issues of national development, which treated development as multidimensional and multicausal along various axes (economic, political, cultural), and which gave primacy to endogenous rather than exogenous factors. (Tiryakian, 1992: 78) In the context of Cold War modernization theory operated as a highly interventionalist tool enabling the ‘free world’ to impose its rules and engage in ‘structural imperialism’. Typically this occurred in the name of the forces of endogenous change such as national building, the entrepreneurial spirit and achievement orientation. In effect modernization theory was a form of globalization that was presented as endogenous change. Modernization theory, therefore, emerged from these ideas in order to explain the process of modernization within societies. The theory examines not only the internal factors of a country but also how with the aid of technology and the reformation of certain cultural structures, â€Å"traditional† countries can develop in the same manner that more developed countries have. In this way, the theory attempts to identify the social variables, which contribute to social progress and the development of societies, and seeks to explain the process of social evolution. The question of the functional relations between all or most culture traits is left open, and special attention is â€Å"given only to those aspects of social behaviour that have significance for economic action, particularly as this action relates to conditions affecting changes in the output of goods and services achieved by a society†(30). They conceptualize the process of development in a similar linear, evolutionary form as older evolutionary theories of progress, but seek to identify the critical factors that initiate and sustain the development proc ess. These factors, they argue, are both intrinsic and extrinsic: the former involves the diffusion of modern technologies and ideas to the developing world, while the latter requires the creation of local conditions, such as the mobilization of capital, which will foster progress. Modernization theorists believe that primitive production, an anachronistic culture, and apathetic personal dispositions combine to maintain an archaic socioeconomic system that perpetuates low levels of living. Modernization theorists hold that policies designed to deal with these traditional impediments to progress primarily through economic intervention, provide the key to prosperity. Overall, Hoselitz’s modernization theory is a sociological theory of economic growth that determines the mechanisms by which thesocial structure of an underdeveloped economy was modernized – that is, altered to take on the features of an economically advanced country. Hoselitz’s answer was based on the â€Å"theory of social deviance† – that is, that new things were started by people who were different from the norm. Unlike Lewis’ theories that we will revise later, Hoselitz thought that small-scale private economic development was the best way of achieving development in Third World economies. This particularly involved revaluing what he called â€Å"entrepreneurial performance†, something that Lewis also agrees with, but in a way that provided not only wealth but also social status and political influence. In Chapter 8 of Sociological Aspects of Economic Growth, Hoselitz focuses on the creation of â€Å"generative cities† (that is, cities producing innovations) rather than traditional rural areas were the focal points for the introduction of new ideas and social and economic practices. Many of the early colonial settlements in the New World and South Africa, Hoselitz claimed, were parasitic, enjoying a certain degree of economic growth â€Å" within the city itself and its surrounding environs† only at the expense of the rest of the region, which was ruthlessly exploited for its natural and agricultural resources (p.280). Although prescriptions for inducing social change and removing cultural obstacles to economic modernization in developing countries may be described as social policies, they do not seek to deal directly with mass poverty and its attendant problems of malnutrition, ill-health, inadequate housing, illiteracy, and destitution. These critical welfare concerns are seldom referred to by modernization theorists, namely by Hoselitz. Instead, the implicit assumption in his writings is that the process of economic development and social change will raise levels of living and remedy these problems automatically. Since economic growth, engendered by capital investments in modern industry, will expand employment, the proportion of the population in subsistent poverty will steadily decline. The increasing numbers of workers in the modern economy will experience a steady rise in real income that will be sufficient not only to satisfy their basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter but permit them to purchase consumer commodities as well as social goods such as medical care, education, and social security. Arthur Lewis was one of the first economists to create a theory about how industrialized and economically stable countries are capable of helping undeveloped countries progress. He presented this theory in his work Economic Development with the Unlimited Supplies of Labor† where he brings about the concept of capital formation. He defines it as the transfer of savings from households and governments to business sectors, resulting in increased output and economic expansion. He claims that his â€Å"model says, in effect, that if unlimited supplies of labor are available at a constant real wage, and if any part of profits is reinvested in productive capacity, profits will grow continuously relatively to the national income, and capital formation will also grow relatively to the national income†(158). From here bridged off his development of the two-sector model of the economy and the theory of dualism. Both posit the existence of a substantial pool of underutilized labor in a backward, subsistent agricultural sector of an economy that perpetuates low levels of production and mass poverty. This model comprises two distinct sectors, the capitalist and the subsistence sectors. The former, which may be private or state-owned, includes principally manufacturing industry and estate agriculture; the latter, mainly small-scale family agriculture and various other types of unorganized economic activity. Here the capital, income and wages per head, the proportion of income saved, and the rate of technological progress are all much higher in the capitalist sector. The subsi stence sector is both at a very low level, and also stagnant, with negligible investment and technical progress and no new wants emerging. Institutional arrangements are the ones maintaining this chronic disequilibrium between the sectors, implicit in these differences in real income and productivity. In the extended family the members receive approximately the average product of the group even if the marginal product is much less. The process of development, initiated by an increase in the share of capitalists in the national income, I essentially the growth of the capitalist sector at the expense of the subsistence sector, with the goal of the ultimate absorption of the latter by the former. To some extent, this is similar to Hoselitz’s development of the modernization theory, whereby the claims that the formation of his generative cities (a) creates a new demand for industrial raw materials from the surrounding region, and (b) attracts new population to the cities, thereby increasing the demand for food from the countryside. The net effect of these forces is a â€Å"widening of economic development over an increasing area affecting a growing proportion of the population outside the city†(Hoselitz, 282). However, Lewis’ theory has several limitations and conditions, most importantly that his theory can be applied only in countries with unlimited supplies of labor. Unlimited supplies of labor arise from the employment of more workers than is productively effective. Lewis went through all of the areas of Caribbean society where he thought there were pools of labour in which the marginal productivity was negative, negligible or zero. His plan now was to make this a potential, industrial labour force. He could take all of the labour away from agriculture, away from casual labour, without lowering the profit margins of the places where they are currently employed. This was not a radical, disruptive assault on the existing economic order, which resulted in one of the main reasons that his theory was so successful. Ineffective production, occurring when an additional worker prevented the previous one from producing another product (hence equaling a negative marginal productivity) was common in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and other undeveloped regions of the world. Several sectors of the economy employ too many people with negligible, zero or negative marginal productivity. According to Lewis these productively unnecessary individuals are employed in agriculture, or are casual workers, petty traders, or women of the household. He claims that the transfer of these people’s work from these areas towards commercial employment is one of the most notable features of economic development. The second source of labor for expanding industries is the increase in the population resulting from the excess of births over deaths. After his analysis of the effect of development on death rate, whereby he concludes that â€Å"[death rates] come down with development from around 40 to around 12 per thousand†(144), he claims therefore that â€Å"in any society where the death rate is around 40 per thousand, the effect of economic development will be to generate an increase in the supply of labor†(144). From this point of view, he states, †Å"there can be in an over-populated economy an enormous expansion of new industries or new employment opportunities without any shortage of unskilled labor†(145), though too many people could again cause ineffective production. He clarifies this by saying, â€Å"Only so much labor should be used with capital as will reduce the marginal productivity of labor to zero†(145). This can be achieved by offering and maintaining decently high wages. The wages offered should be only slightly higher than the wages available in the subsistence sector, since wages that are too high may attract more workers than needed. But firstly, and perhaps most importantly, entrepreneurial-minded capitalists are required in order to invest in the nation. Tax holidays attract the foreign capitalists. It is not a very difficult task, because they have very good incentives to come. The planter class in the Caribbean seemed just like the planter class in the American South – it had no desire to go industrial and no desire to go competitive. It was still trapped in a situation between an old monopoly system and a market situation since they were able to negotiate for a protected market for sugar, not a competitive market. Lewis then looked around realized the only way he could keep this program of industrialization launched would be by visiting England and America where capitalists and entrepreneurs were flourishing and foster their entrance into the Caribbean. Again, he employed the concept of a dual economy where a subsistence sector existed, but also from where he created from scratch this modern industria l sector to establish on modern capitalism. Capitalists in North America and Europe found these labouring conditions and costs in the Caribbean quite attractive. Getting this labour to the imported capitalists would not be resisted locally because he was taking those labourers with marginal productivity of zero. Once they began working, he would then re-invest more capital into the factory, so that it could expand, employ more workers, export more products, and increase profits, hence developing a self-feeding system that would eventually lead the national income to grow. Although Hoselitz also is of the belief that the formation of a dual economy is beneficial, rather than necessarily attract foreign capitalists through such incentives, Hoselitz believes that the creation of westernized cities led the way forward. He claims that cities modelled after the Western cities exhibited a spirit difference from the traditionalism of the countryside. In this way, he differs slightly from Le wis in that he favored a shift in political power away from traditional leaders and toward total control by economic and urban modernizers in underdeveloped countries, not necessarily foreign entrepreneurial capitalist as Lewis asserts. Lewis knew that some products would work better than others, so he developed an Industrial Programming Market – a number of basic calculations about those particular commodities, if produced in the Caribbean, would be particularly competitive internationally. And so as a result of this study Lewis found that the production of airbrushes, gloves, furniture, needles, shirts, and leather goods would be particularly good to produce, given the skills of the labour force available at the time. For the self-feeding system to be a continuous process, costs of labour had to remain fairly constant. If the cost of labour rose too rapidly, they would not be sustained since the goods would no longer be internationally competitive. The key to this model is indeed international competitiveness. Capitalists can create more capital when the supply of money is higher, and hence if governments create credit, inflation arises yet does not have the same effect as the inflation that arises during depression periods. This inflation only has an effect on the prices in the short-run so that in the long run the final effect equal to what it would be if capital was formed by the reinvestment of profit. Lewis discusses at so me length the methods by which governments of underdeveloped countries can raise revenue, especially the substantial funds required for government capital formation. For familiar political and administrative reasons much of this revenue has to be raised from indirect taxes, notably import and excise duties and export taxes. He argues that indirect taxation is more likely to increase than to decrease the supply of effort: The taxpayer usually does not know how much tax is included in the prices of the articles he buys, so in so far as the disincentive effect of taxation is psychological it can be avoided by using indirect rather than direct taxes†¦ If it is an increase in indirect taxation, the effect is probably to increase effort rather than to reduce it (414). Because of the multiple restrictions in this model, it is designed for countries with unlimited supplies of labor and hence this growth has a limit: â€Å"The process must stop when capital accumulation has caught up with population, so there is no longer surplus labor†(172). Furthermore, if wages are too high, they may consume the entirety of the profit leading to no re-investment. Several other reasons for the end of capital formation vary; the occurrence of natural disasters, war or a change of political system can also prevent further economic expansion in a closed economy. Lewis’ model is powerful but also highly restricted and specific to only a handful of nations. Some critics also claim that the distinction between the two sectors is too sharp; that small-scale agriculture is often far from stagnant and the emergence of the production of cash crops by individual producers has in fact been a key instrument in economic development since capital formation is actually created in this type of agriculture. Also, this model requires low wages for the labor force, yet very low wages result in a wide gap between the lower and upper class in a society, an issue that many have questioned thoroughly. Lewis says openly that exploitation can easily occur in this model, but that it is part of capital accumulation. He believes that one has to sacrifice a generation to grow the economy, because he assumed that if all goes well and more consumers are attracted to Caribbean, they will generate more business, and the economy will grow to the point where the weal th can be redistributed to the people. He reckoned that it would take, given the rate of growth that he observed in the Caribbean, one generation, thus a period between 40 and 50 years, to grow the economy and claim that poverty could be eradicated in this region. And yet the cost of this would be exploiting this generation, so that their children could benefit from it later. Hoselitz, as stated earlier, applied the ideas of Parsons and other sociologists to an analysis of the development process under the assumption, drawn from Adam Smith, that increasing productivity was associated with more detailed social divisions of labor: A society on a low level of economic development is, therefore, one in which productivity is low because division of labor is little developed, in which the objectives of economic activity are more commonly the maintenance or strengthening of status relations, which social and geographical mobility is low, and in which the hard cake of custom determines the manner, and often the effects, of economic performance. An economically highly developed society, in contrast, is characterized by a complex division of social labor, a relatively open social structure from which caste barriers are absent and class barriers are surmountable, in which social roles and gains from economic activity are distributed essentially on the basis of achievement, and in which, therefore, innovation, the search for and exploitation of profitable market situations, and the ruthless pursuit of self-interest without regard to the welfare of others is fully sanctioned. (Hoselitz, 1960: 60). These preceding theories both provide us with some preliminary indications and developments of views of modern social orders broader than that envisaged in the initial models provided. They stress the historical dimensions of the process of development, emphasizing that this process is not universal, something in the very nature of humanity or in the natural development of human societies. Instead, the modernization process is fully bound to a certain period in human history, even though in itself it is continuously developing and changing throughout this period. Development and the challenges it brings forward constitute a basic given for most contemporary societies. Though it certainly is pervasive in the contemporary setting, it is not necessarily irreversible in the future, and it would be wrong to assume that once these forces have impinged on any â€Å"society†, they naturally push toward a given, relatively fixed â€Å"end-plateau.† Rather, as we have seen, they evoke within different societies, in different situations, a variety of responses which depend on the broad sets of internal conditions of these societies, on the structure of the situation of change in which they are caught, and the very nature of the international system and relations, whether those of â€Å"dependency† or of international competition. Section 2 5) Briefly outline David Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage; then outline in greater detail Samir Amin’s theory of periphery capitalism and why he thinks that trade between the central and peripheral capitalist economies does not meet the conditions of Ricardo’s theory In 1817, David Ricardo, an English political economist, contributed theory of comparative advantage in his book ‘Principles of Political Economy and Taxation’. This theory of comparative advantage, also called comparative cost theory, is regarded as the classical theory of international trade. According to the classical theory of international trade, every country will produce their commodities for the production of which it is most suited in terms of its natural endowments climate quality of soil, means of transport, capital, etc. It will produce these commodities in excess of its own requirement and will exchange the surplus with the imports of goods from other countries for the production of which it is not well suited or which it cannot produce at all. Thus all countries produce and export these commodities in which they have cost advantages and import those commodities in which they have cost disadvantages. Ricardo states that even if a nation had an absolute disadvantage in the production of both commodities with respect to the other nation, mutually advantageous trade could still take place. The less efficient nation should specialize in the production and export of the commodity in which its absolute disadvantage is less. This is the commodity in which the nation has a comparative advantage. Ricardo takes into account the following assumptions: there are two countries and two commodities; there is a perfect competition both in commodity and factor market; cost of production is expressed in terms of labor; labor is the only factor of production other than natural resources; labor is homogeneous i.e. identical in efficiency, in a particular country; labor is perfectly mobile within a country but perfectly immobile between countries; there is free trade; production is subject to constant returns to scale; there is no technological change; trade between two countries takes place on barter system; full employment exists in both countries; there are no transport costs. In 1973, Samir Amin, an Egyptian political economist, begins his dialogue in Unequal Development by referring to Marx’s writing on non-European societies, namely India and China, and creates a work in which he reevaluates Peter Evans’ theory of Dependent Development and simultaneously presents his theory of peripheral capitalism in developing societies. He shows how these early ideas established the notion of the centre and the periphery, and how â€Å"the development of capitalism in the periphery was to remain extraverted, based on the external market, and could therefore not lead to a full flowering of the capitalist mode of production in the periphery†(199). He then begins to develop his own theory of the transition to peripheral capitalist economy by questioning David Ricardo’s assumptions in his theory of comparative advantage, and later outlines nine theses to support his views. Peripheral capitalism is based on, but not identical to, the imperialistic relationships developed between colonizing nations and their colonies. In this economic relationship, the players are the same – the colonizing nation becomes the â€Å"center†, while the colony becomes the â€Å"periphery† – but the role that each society plays is different from the classic imperialist relationship. The peripheral economy is marked by extreme dependence on external demand, or extroversion, as well as stunted and unequal rates of development within the society. Amin maintains that in order for these societies to break free of extroversion and develop, they must be actively removed from the peripheral capitalist relationship. He proposes nationalization and socialization as an alternative, a system which-when contrasted with peripheral capitalism-could not be a more different approach to economic development. Unfortunately for the developing nation s, socialism was largely unsuccessful as an economic experiment, consistently causing stagnation and underdevelopment in societies that attempted it. Peripheral capitalism evolves from colonial imperialism, an economic system in which the colonizing nation penetrates deep into the heart of the colonial economy in an effort to manipulate it towards the benefit of the mother country. Every aspect of the colonial economy is geared not towards the expansion of the colonial economy itself, but rather towards the production of something that the colonizing nation cannot produce itself. As a result, the success and the existence of a particular sector of the colonial economy is dependent upon whether or not the mother country has a need for that sector; colonial economies are rooted heavily in external demand. This extroversion leaves the colonial economy without an indigenous set of linkages, as economic sectors that will benefit from colonial activity function mostly within the economy of the colonizing nation. When autocentric, or internally-driven, economic growth is blocked in such a way that a peripheral economy emerges with the sa me sort of external dependence on the central economy that was suffered by the colonial economy. The peripheral economy is typically plagued by an unequal division of labor, or specialization, between itself and the central economy. While the latter enjoys the benefits and progress associated with industrialization, the periphery tends to remain predominantly agricultural. What little industry may exist in the peripheral economy is most often â€Å"light† industrial production of small, simple goods, as opposed to the â€Å"heavy† industrial production of machinery and complex products that characterizes the central economy. Additionally, Amin argues that there is often a â€Å"hypertrophy of the tertiary sector†(200) of the peripheral economy; too much of the economy is devoted to providing services, â€Å"expressed especially in the excessive growth of administrative expenditure†(201) effectively anchoring the society’s development due to a lack of productive advancement. Yet another malady of the peripheral economy is the reduced value of the local ‘multiplier effect’, another result of the remnants of economic infrastructure modification from the colonial period. If an economy is replete with linkage sectors, then any money put into the leading sector will generate a multiplied effect in all of the forward and backward linkages of that industry. Peripheral economies, however, are effectively stripped of linkages during their colonial phase of development hence spending in the peripheral economy ultimately benefits the central economy, where most of the peripheral industries’ linkages are realized. Not only is the local multiplier effect reduced in the peripheral economy, but Amin claims that it also leads to â€Å"the marked propensity to import†(201), and thus is in effect transferred to the central economy, where revenue is collected every time money is spent in the periphery. Because peripheral input ultimately goes abr oad, local businesses are not stimulated, as they would be if linkages were realized within the periphery, worsening the already-detrimental conditions of the peripheral economy. Adding to the lack of stimulation of local business is the fact that peripheral industries tend to be dominated by monopolies established from foreign capital. After the majority of revenue goes to the central economy through linkage industries, what little money remains in the local economy is often put into businesses controlled by central capitalists. In other words, almost every dollar put into the periphery ultimately finds its way to the central economy. In Unequal Development, Amin maintains that no economy can be expected to develop without successfully making the transition from extrovert to introvert so that it can â€Å"assert the dominance of the exporting sector over the economic structure as a whole†(203), and that no peripheral capitalist economy can independently heal the economic wounds inflicted by colonialism. Therefore, the only way to promote development in peripheral capitalist economies is to actively remove them from their disadvantageous relationship with the central economy, which, according to Amin, should be replaced by internal nationalization and socialization of the once-peripheral economy. The establishment of a nationalist socialist state would serve both to eliminate external dependence, as well as to reconcile the disarticulated nature of the local economy. The first critique of Ricardo’s theory made by Amin is its lack of specificity – claiming that his examples of trade between Portugal and England were very exclusive to intra-European trade and could not exactly be applied to relations between several different country relations around the World. If there is a large difference in GDP between two countries, then what statistics demonstrate is that the country with the smaller GDP would benefit more from this transaction, and this was â€Å"the source of special problems that dictate[d] development policies in the periphery that [were] different from those on which development of the West was based†(201); a factor that Ricardo hadn’t considered it in his theory. Another vital yet neglected consideration was the importance of the commodity in terms of a nations’ GDP: wine was a big section of the Portuguese GDP, greater than it was for England, so the trade benefited the Portuguese to a greater extent than it did to the British. He elaborates upon this idea by explaining how the relation between central and periphery assumes the mobility of capital, since the centre is investing greatly in the periphery. What the periphery chooses to specialize in is to a large extent determined by the centre, since very often the selection comes after it has been forced to serve the imperial country. As he clearly states, this type of trade â€Å"compels the periphery to confine itself to the role of complementary supplier of products for the production of which it possesses a natural advantage: exotic agricultural produce and minerals†(200). The result is a decrease in the level of wages in the periphery for the same level of productivity than at the centre, hence limiting the development of industries focused on the home market of the periphery. The disarticulation due to the adjustment of the orientation of production in the periphery to the needs of the centre prevents the transmission of the benefits of economic progress from the poles of development to the economy as a whole. Overall, this is what Amin defines by ‘unequal specialization’, which in turn violates the conditions of Ricardo’s theory. Another argument that Amin makes involved the Keynesian multiplier effect. He claims that this effect does not take place to the situation at the centre because of its advantaged stage of monopoly, characterized by difficulties in producing surplus. Due to this unequal specialization as well as the significant propensity to import that follows, the effect is a transferring of multip lier effect mechanisms and the accelerator theorem from the periphery to the centre. Furthermore, Amin includes the social aspect of this process, which is a result of the individual history of each nation and the power imbalance created. Amin finds that the nature of the pre-capitalist formations that took place previously and the epoch in which they became integrated in the capitalist system are both very important factors in determining the presence or lack of development to come. He also draws a line between two different terms, ‘peripheral formations’ and ‘young central formations’, whereby the latter, based on the predominance of a simple commodity mode of production, are capable of independently evolving towards a fully developed capitalist mode of production. Amin terminates by asserting â€Å"the domination by central capital over the system as a whole, and the vital mechanisms of primitive accumulation for its benefit which express this domination, subject the development of peripheral national capitalism to strict limitationsâ₠¬ (202). These countries would hence not gain equal benefits under this trade, only if the patterns of specialization were undertaken in more ideal conditions, conditions that approximated Ricardo’s theory more closely. Rather than being a positive force for development, this type of trade becomes a force created under development. It will contribute to development in the centre, and underdevelopment in the periphery. He concludes that this inevitably hinders the development of peripheral nations: â€Å"the impossibility, whatever the level of production per head that may be obtained, of going over to auto centric and auto dynamic growth†(202).