Civil War Essay Example for Free

Civil War Essay The aftermath of the Civil War brought in major industrial expansion and significant economic growth for New England, the middle Atlantic states and the mid-west – more so with the completion of the transcontinental railroads years later. In contrast, the same Civil War brought in economic depression for the south. (Slavin, 2008) 3) The 1920s began with a brief depression which was completely forgotten between 1921 and 1929 when America enjoyed economic prosperity. The stock market crash in 1929, however, ended the abundant times and brought in the â€Å"Great Depression†. Similarly, there was a brief economic recession in the early part of the 1990s – it began in early 1992 and ended later that same year. With the end of such recession, the stock market soared and the years that followed witnessed economic expansion in America until the index reached its peak in March 2001 and then dove deep, signaling the end of the good, profitable days of the bourse. The economy worsened in September 2001 after the World Trade Center Tragedy. (Slavin, 2008) The opportunity cost of attending the concert using a free ticket is less time spent on studying. Having to leave for the concert venue earlier than planned and then getting home much later because of the miserable weather would further increase the opportunity cost of attending the concert, since it would mean more study time spent on something else. 5) Last summer, I incurred opportunity costs by cancelling plans to take a summer job and choosing, instead, to spend my summer bumming around with friends. Under no circumstances can we operate outside our production possibilities curve. It would mean generating an output that is more than what results from full employment and full production. Such a scenario is not attainable. (Slavin, 2008) 7) a) According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, â€Å"economists study how society distributes resources, such as land, labor, raw materials, and machinery, to produce goods and services. They may conduct research, collect and analyze data, monitor economic trends, or develop forecasts. † (U. S. Department of Labor) b) According to the College Majors Handbook and as cited in the article, the top three types of jobs for economics graduates are as follows: â€Å"1) Top- and mid-level managers, executives, administrators; 2) Insurance, securities, real estate, business services; and, 3) Accountants, auditors, other financial specialists. † (Schwartz) WORKS CITED Slavin, Stephen L. Economics 8th Edition. McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2008. U. S. Department of Labor. Occupational Outlook Handbook. (http://www. bls. gov/oco/ocos055. htm#nature) Schwartz, Shelly K. â€Å"Economics Grads Face Strong Job Market, but Higher Degrees Still Help. † CNNMoney Personal Finance. (http://money. cnn. com/2000/08/18/career/q_degreeeconomics/)

Mensch und Natur: Ein Beitrag zu der Theorie des :: German Essays

Mensch und Natur: Ein Beitrag zu der Theorie des "Homo Universus" ABSTRACT: The following discussion is centered on German romantic philosophy. The founder of philosophical romanticism, F.W.J. Schelling, speaks of the identity of all spheres of the universe. This view is echoed by other romantic philosophers, e.g., Novalis, Hà ¶lderlin, von Baader, and Schubert, as well as later neoromantics such as Scheler and Heidegger. I wish to show homo sapien as homo universus. Homo sapien is tied to the universe and must be aware of this oneness. Such knowledge will ameliorate his alienation from nature. Uralt ist die Frage: "Was ist der Mensch?" Uralt und à ¤ußerst schwer zugleich. Wir wissen nicht genau sowohl wann "der Mensch" erschienen ist als auch was sein eigenstes Wesen ausmacht. Soll man "den Menschen" mit der geraden Haltung, mit seiner Neigung zur kà ¼nstlerischen oder symbolischen Gestaltung, mit der Sprache oder vielleicht mit der Fà ¤higkeit sich seines Intellects zu bedienen und Abstracta zu schaffen, verbinden? Alle die (sowie auch zahlreichen anderen) Auffassungen beleuchten den Menschen von einer bestimmten Seite, und tragen damit zu einem besseren Verstehen seiner Eigentà ¼mlichkeit bei. Hier wollen wir noch eine Theorie hinzufà ¼gen, die ein zusà ¤tzliches Licht auf "den Menschen" werfen kann. Es geht um die Auffassung des Menschen in mannigfaltigsten Verflechtungen mit der Umwelt. Die Umwelt wird weit begriffen und bedeutet sowohl das unmittelbare Milieu des Menschen als auch den ganzen Kosmos. Der letzte soll nicht nur als das Materiell-Sichtbare verstanden werden, sondern als Etwas, was neben der Materie auch das beinhaltet, was wir "Geist" zu nennen pflegen. Den Menschen wollen wir also als innigst verbunden mit dem allumfassenden "Universum" verstehen, mit Dem, was erfahrungsmà ¤ÃƒÅ¸ig bekannt und erreichbar ist, aber auch mit Dem, was noch der heutigen Erfahrung entflieht und oft als "unnatà ¼rlich" oder "geheimnisvoll" bezeichnet wird. Es ist klar, daß eine solche Theorie des "homo universus" im Mißklang mit den aufklà ¤rerischen oder positivistischen Auffassungen steht. Alle die wollen den Menschen nicht nur von den "unerforschbaren" Weltereignissen "loslà ¶sen", die sie fà ¼r "metaphysisch" halten. Sie wollen auch den Menschen von der sonstigen Natur abgrenzen und ihn als den selbststà ¤ndigen und von der Umwelt wenig abhà ¤ngigen Subjekt ansehen. Erwà ¤hnen kà ¶nnen wir in diesem Zusammenhang I. Kant, der die Welt "entzweit" und sie in die dem Menschen gegenà ¼ber existierenden "Dinge an sich" und in die "Erscheinungen" (Dinge fà ¼r uns) teilt. Der Mensch gewinnt zwar à ¼ber die Noumena die Oberhand im Erkentnisprozeß indem er sie zur "Erscheinungen" macht, er steht aber letzen Endes ihnen gegenà ¼ber einsam und ratlos indem sie vor ihm fà ¼r ewig gechlossen bleiben.

“Social Inequality Is a Necessary Evil of Capitalist Society”. Please Comment .

â€Å"Social inequality is a necessary evil of capitalist society†. Please comment with the reference of the sociology perspectives being discussed in the lecture and textbook. In the 21th century, the existence of social inequality has already raised to the surface, which give rise to a torrent of furor. Many people sees social inequality as an individual problem, people experience inequality because of their ability or laziness. However, this is somehow not the real case.Indeed, social inequality can be the consequence of the institution of the society, or, simply a characteristic of a particular economic system. This is exactly why social inequality is said to be a necessary evil in a capitalist society. In this essay, the reasons that social inequality must exist in a capitalist society is going to be discussed. The term ‘capitalism’ can be ambiguous, so what really means ‘capitalism’? Over these centuries, capitalism has been further divided or m utated into many types of systems.Generally, capitalism is an economic system. The most notable and common meaning of capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. Private ownership means that individuals consist of the freedom to control their own assert. This means individuals will not interfere with one another as they use, exchange (sell) or give away what they find unclaimed or abandoned, what they make, and what they get from other persons by gift or exchange (purchase). (Watts, 1975) Compared to capitalism, the definition of social inequality is relatively clearer.Basically, anything unequal happened within a society or groups can said to be a social inequality. Sociologically, according to Marger(2005), the more evident inequalities in nowadays’ society are mainly the differences in income and wealth, differences in social standing and prestige, and differences in power. Now, do ‘capitalist society’ and ‘capitalism’ consist of an identical meaning? This is a very discussible question. Rather than only an economic system, the influence of capitalism is more than that.As Marxian theory stated that economic institution are the determinants of the entire system of society, the society’s economic foundation conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general (Marx and Engel,1968, cited from Marger,2005), it is believed that a capitalist society refers to a society the norms and culture of the societies are influenced by its economic structure, namely capitalism. In a capitalist society, some particular characteristics are developed. As this is not an economic analysis, the focus point would be more about social characteristics.First of all, the capital accumulation is a trait that the owner, or the entrepreneur was dependent upon not only the accumulation of his own capital but also the aggregation of the capital of others. (Schumpeter, 1942) Besides, in a modern capitalistic st ate, competition is engaged to capitalism. The competition between corporations is the key to lower the costs of production and prices, and also the competition among workers to compete for limited employment, while competition leads to a maximization of self-interest. Democracy is also said to be the necessities of capitalism.Przeworski and Wallerstein (1982, cited from Goodin, 2009) explained it by using the term ‘class compromise’. Democracy is the compromise between capitalist and workers as it brings out the equilibrium that they share the same political power even through their quantity of wealth are unequal. This is redistribution, according to Prezeworski and Wallerstein. Lastly, modern capitalist society triggered the variation of forms of capital as nowadays, money and raw materials are not the only things that create profit, and this will be further discussed below.In this way, how these characteristics reflect or contribute to social inequality? Let’s discuss this issue from different sociological perspectives. From the conflict-theory-approach, Marxian and Weberian models are necessary to understand structured inequality in societies. According to Marx, social inequality is fundamental in capitalist society (Marger, 2005) Marx state that capitalism leads to class division—the capitalist class and the industrial working class, while this is the basic of capitalism and also the basic of social inequality.So in this way, the one who own resources and commodity can rule the other class. The working class must accept what capitalist pay them for their labor as they have no capital. This ruling practice can create a result of not only control the economic system and wealth distribution, but also the authority and the privilege of capitalist. As a result, the social inequality remains unchanged and the working classes by no means accept it. Under Marx’s analyses, the inevitable inequality in a capitalist society will eve ntually trigger a class conflict.Marx explains that the economy and politics are interdependent on each other, by which, we can applying to this essay is democracy and capitalism. Nowadays, democratic capitalism is a well-known political-economic system. Using Marx’s concept, democracy is created by those capitalist who try to make control and rule the two classes in a seemingly democratic way. For instance, in the USA, everyone has a right to vote, this allows people to have equality chance to choose the best politician they believe in.Through voting, they feel like they are given the opportunity to an equal chance, yet the structure-basis soical inequality remain unchanged. After analyzing this topic from Marxian perspectives, let’s move on to the Weberian model. According to Marger(2005), Weber suggested a more multidimensional model than that of Marx. Other than just a class division base on economic interest, Weber suggest the class, status and party are the facto rs that create inequality. Regarding this topic, the idea of Weber about the concept of class would be quite proper to explain the inevitability of inequality in capitalist society.In Weber’s points of view, the formation of class or the class position of a particular person is not just simply base on the means of production, rather there are things like skills and credentials. For instance, doctor is a worker for the hospital, but their social position is more than simply a worker. Here comes to the concept of capital—In the industrialism period, technologies are material-intensive, thus the means of production only focused on the physical capital, namely raw materials, money and other kinds of assert.However, in the modern capitalist society, technologies are shifted into informative-intensive, bringing out the diversity of capital. Goodwin(2003) suggested that there are five types of capital—-financial capital, social capital, natural capital, produced capita l and human capital. In this way, the accumulation of capital is not only money and material in modern capitalist society are varied—-different types of capitalist are being developed. As a result, our degrees of accumulation of different kinds of capital would result inequality diversity, not only difference in wealth, but difference in privilege and social position.Weber’s concept is able to explain the inequality of privilege, power and social position rather than just wealth in modern capitalist society. As we can see, the conflict-approach focus on the inevitability of inequality, while the structural-functionalism approach is focused on the need of inequality. Functional theorists begin with the metaphor that the society is organized as a whole or a living system. ( Rigney, 2001) In this organic system, people must take up different role to maintain the operation of the society.In this way, there is a necessity of inequality. Under this scheme, some roles are rel atively important than others, namely doctor is considered more important than trash collectors. According to David and Moore (1945), this is due to the more important to the survival of the society than others. These positions require much talent and education, thus these important roles would earn more income and prestige compared to others, which leads to an open up of competition. Being one of the characteristics in capitalist society, competition is everywhere.People start compete by strive for limited university quota, limited working positions, limited resources and so on. Eventually, those with more talent and stronger ability occupied those more important positions such as layer, judgers, and doctor and those with less talent, in other words, less human capital are taking up less important role namely driver, salesman and so on. This occupational stratification creates differences in income and reward, applying to a capitalist society, create winners and losers.Applying the functionalist perspective to capitalist society, the variation of roles and the occupation of better positions by people with more human capital, is necessary for the ‘health’ of this organic system to fully extend its function, which explain why a capitalist society needs social inequality. Both the conflict approach and structural-functionalist approach explain inequality in terms of the macrostructure of the society, conflict theorists see the society as a war, while the functionalists see the society as a body and they both sees ‘inequality’ in a objective way(Scott, 2003).In contrast, the way symbolic interactionists see things are contradictory to the above approach. Symbolic interactions explain social inequality in a more subjective and micro-structural way. According to Blumer (1969), interactionists describe the society as the interaction among people, while human beings act based on the meaning of things have for them. From their perspective, th ere is no inherent equality or inequality. In such way, the meaning of social inequality are defined by individual’s interaction and it become a nteractive process, so terms like ‘inequality’ are used creatively for people to understand their world. (Scott, 2001) Therefore, when we consider the social inequality in capitalist society from interactionist perspective, how people feel about the existing inequality is putting into consideration. In this way, the sets of value and beliefs developed from people are the key to create an endurance of inequality. The ideology of people is developed through interaction and their own interpretation.Although capitalism has created a social inequality, it is still a dominant economic system throughout the world, why? This is because people feel fine about it and accept it. According to Marger (2005), a long-range stability and popular acceptance require the development of an effective ideology and its communication through so cialization. Parents interact with their children, friends interact with friends, workers interact with workers—–eventually they view the inequality of power, wealth and privilege as natural or even benefitical.Looking capitalism through the symbolic-interaction’s eye, sometime it is not only the system, capitalism, set up the latent ‘law’ that inequality must exist, it is rather comes from the interpretation of individual, and eventually emerge to the whole masses. Using the education system in Hong Kong as an example, competition is seen as natural. School is believed to be the place where people start accumulating human and social capital namely knowledge and relationships which contribute to their career. The concept ‘winner’ and ‘loser’ are incepted starting from school, it is a common beliefs among student to compete with others.They strive for getting into famous primary and secondary school and university. As we can see, not only the structure needs inequality, the masses needs inequality so that they are able fight for an opportunity. All in all, the three sociological perspectives focus on different aspects of the situation. From conflict-approach, it is believed that the inequality is inevitable due to the concept of class, there are always different class and social positions that create an inescapable social inequality.The seemingly fair democracy system can be seen as a cover to play down the existing inequality, and also a strategy of the ruling class, so there are actually hidden conflicts in the capitalist society. From the factionalist perspective, inequality is seen as a functional trait to create a healthy society, people with more capital (resources, knowledge, skills. etc) should occupy a more important roles in order to maintain a fine operation of the society, so social inequality is needed in a capitalist society.From the symbolic interactional perspective, the acceptance of s ocial inequality by the masses is put into concern. The interpretation of inequality is subjective and varying among people, thus through interaction between people, particular norms, beliefs and culture of capitalism is developed, and people trust that inequality is beneficial for the society. Not only in terms of the society’s structure, but also in terms of people under the capitalist structure, social inequality is a necessary evil in the capitalist society.Name: Luk Sze Ip Lydia Reference: Blumer, Herbert. (1969). Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Davis, Kingsley, Wilbert Moore. (1945). Some Principles of Stratification. American Sociological Review 10:242-249 Harris, Scott R. (2003). Critiquing and Expanding the Sociology of Inequality: Comparing Functionalist, Conflict, and Interactionist Perspectives. In Quarterly Journal of Ideology 25. P. 1-21. (Electronic journal) Harris, Scott R. (2001). What Can Interactionism C ontribute to the Study of Inequality? The Case of Marriage and Beyond. In Symbolic Interaction vol. 24:455-480. Wiley  on behalf of the  Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction Martin N. Marger. (2005). Social inequality—Patterns & Processes (3rd. edition). The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Neva R. Goodwin. Five Kinds of Capital: Useful Concepts for Sustainable Development. In Neva Goodwin. , et. al. (2003)Law and Socio-Economics of the American Association of Legal Scholars annual meeting.Medford MA 02155, USA Rigney, Daniel. (2001). The Metaphorical Society: An Invitation to Social Theory. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Robert E. Goodin, . et. al. (2009) The Oxford handbook of Political Science. Oxford University Press. USA Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1942) 1950 Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. 3d ed. New York: Harper; London: Allen & Unwin V. Orval Watts, (1975),Capitalism: Definition, Origin, and Dynamics. In Mark W. Hendrickson. (1992). the morality of capital ism. The Foundation for Economic

Alexander Hamilton´s Views on Government Essay - 571 Words

Alexander Hamilton was the architect of the federalist papers and much of the financial structure of America. He was only reluctantly admitted to the rule of the great American thinkers. His prominence as a primary nationalist and financial visionary in the post-revolutionary were truly uncovered in the middle of the twentieth century. Historical evidence points to him being Christian and saying: â€Å"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man.† (Alexander Hamilton) Historians started to reassess his success. He is preeminently†¦show more content†¦When his dream came true, he took the role of artillery captain and served in the battles of Long Island, Trenton, Princeton and White Plains. General Nathanael Green commended Hamilton to Washington, who too k him on as assistant in March 1777, but later resigned after a clash with Washington. He continued his dissimilarity in the service in a commanding role in Yorktown. Subsequently when the war ended, he started his legal career. His role in the Annapolis Convention addressing the issues in the interstate commerce clause established him as leading supporter of a robust central government in the new colonies. He established most of the intellectual property to lay the foundation for the federal government. In the federalist papers he makes a strong argument for nationalism and a strong state. He commented on everything from public administration to foreign affairs. He also laid the groundwork for the Central Bank, but the public’s weak understanding on the subject made it unreasonably difficult. Skipping ahead some to the elections of 1800, his political career was ended at the hands of Aaron Burr. The cause was Hamilton’s electoral support of Thomas Jefferson over Burr. Aaron Burr confronted Hamilton and challenged him to a duel on July 11, 1804 near Weehawken, New Jersey. Burr struck Hamilton in the abdomen mortally wounding him, and Hamilton shot a branch above Burr’s head. He died the following day. Some questions I would have forShow MoreRelatedThomas Jefferson And The Constitution911 Words   |  4 Pages In 1796 prior to retiring his position as president, George Washington had warned that the creation of a political government would most certainly lead to (crisis), perhaps because of their discrepancy of opinions. 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