Sample Introduction

Good Afternoon. My name is Joe Dane ; you can call me Mr. Dane. I am a representative of Morgan State University (MSU). I am here to present to you what our prestigious school of higher learning has to offer for potential students like you. Here at MSU, we are a coeducational institution, located in a residential section of Baltimore, Maryland. We are founding members of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC).Morgan State is a historically black university, established in 1867 as the Centenary Biblical Institute but was renamed Morgan College in 1890 in honoring of the Reverend Lyttleton Morgan, the first chairman of its Board of Trustees. In our vast school, we are strict and cautious about college entrance rules/regulations. Violations of any rules will be handled by our Office of Student Judicial Affair.We have wide variety of athletic programs, ranging from men and women’s basketball, cross-country, tennis, and track & field; Women’s bowling, softball, volleybal l, even cheerleading; Also football for our guys. We proudly represent our school mascot, Morgan State University Bear. Now our school makes it possible for you to apply and highly be accepted; in state Tuition is proximately 7,000 and out-of-state proximately 16,340. We require you have a composite score of (2400) for SAT’s and a score of (36) for ACT’s.;High GPA’s are required. Enrollment size would be approximately 1,040 freshmen. At MSU, we offer implement a semester-based curriculum system and offers choices on 64 majors; most popular are Business, Engineering, Nursing, and Communication and Journalism. WE at MSU, have male ratio of 44% compared to female, 56%. While being a historically black institution, we serve students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. Basically Morgan State University is the best choice for you. Thank You

Remeber the Titans Application Paper

Remember the Titans is a movie that reflects several areas of organizational behavior. Communication, organizational culture, teamwork, diversity, motivation and ethics all play a key role in leadership how an organization functions. Communication The first obstacle that the new head coach faces is taking over an organization where he is the replacement for a very well respected coach with a reputation for winning. In one of scenes, Coach Boone sits down with his new assistant coach, Yost, to talk about the current situation. Boone acknowledges the problems and the challenges that lay ahead but assures Coach Yost that he is committed to producing a winning team and that all decisions will reflect performance rather than race. Coach Boone shows respect to Coach Yost and displays the openness to deal with the issues. Leaders may have a tendency to avoid this confrontation only making matters worse for the long term. It is a great lesson in dealing with problems upfront and resolving the issues to minimize more potential conflicts in the future. Communication is one of the basic functions of management in any organization and its importance can hardly be overemphasized. It is a process of transmitting information, ideas, thoughts, opinions, and plans between various parts of an organization. It is not possible to have human relations without communication. However, good and effective communication is required not only for good human relations but also for good and successful business (Thomson, 2007). Organizational Culture From an organizational structure standpoint, Coach Boone realizes he cannot do everything by himself. On a football team, several coaches are required to work with each specialized part of the team just like in any business. Throughout the movie the offense, defense, and special teams must work together to achieve victory on the field. However, each sub group on the team must trust and rely on the others to perform to execute the game plan well. In one of the final scenes, Coach Boone gets input from Coach Yost to come up with a new offensive play to win the game. Sometimes in larger organizations, silos exist among the departments and there is a resistance to cooperating. It is important in any business that all departments listen to their people for new ideas to improve process that can turn into profitable results. Organizational structure is the hierarchical levels of a company; this structure provides guidelines on subordination and employee responsibilities, and affects the workplace culture. An organization's culture is an informal, collectively held grouping of ideas and values, as well as the types of workplace relationships and ways of doing things within the organization. It affects workplace culture through controlling, coordinating and motivating employees to work together to accomplish company goals and objectives. Both organizational structure and culture affect employee behavior, motivation, performance, dedication, satisfaction, cooperation, and relationships (Thornton, 2011) Teamwork and Diversity Working together as a team is crucial to any organization’s success. Two players in particular believe that at the beginning of merging the two schools, their perceptions of each other’s values make it appear almost impossible to work to together as a team. They both come to realize that they want to win as much as the other person does and eventually become the best of friends. In fact, later in the movie Gary, the white player recommends to Coach Boone that one of his white friends leave the team because of a missed blocking assignment. This is the true transformation of Gary putting the team’s goals before his personal feelings. It is one of the cornerstones of any teamwork’s success. People in any organization bring their own set of values and beliefs to the table when they accept a position in the company. It is up the company’s leadership to instill the vision and culture from the top down. The summer practice camp that they attend is similar to the socialization process that any organization has into bringing new people in. Similar to the Marine’s boot camp, the football players eat, sleep, and practice together to bond and foster a sense of teamwork for Coach Boone. Most companies achieve this socialization process through employee orientation and continuous training. By the end of the camp the players have put aside their difference and are committed to carrying out the team’s goal of winning. The biggest issue that faces the team is the racial tension between the blacks and whites. The movie is set in the early seventies when integration of school began. The socialization process of the summer practice camp helped resolved many of these issues while the players where in seclusion at camp. Upon coming back from camp and attending school, they face the true reality of the racial issues. Still to this day, diversity is a hot topic in corporations across the country. Any company has to battle the preconceived ideas about other races, religions, genders, and sexual orientation to focus on the company’s vision. The movie shows how when people put aside their differences and focus on the organization’s mission that anything is achievable. This is a timeless lesson for any organization in today’s environment. According to the textbook, one of the pervasive challenges with teams is that while diversity may have real potential benefits, a team deeply focuses on commonly held information. To realize their creative potential, diverse teams need to focus not on their similarities but on their differences. The key is for members of diverse teams to communicate what they uniquely know in addition to what they do not know (Judge, Robbins, 2011). Whether in the workplace or on the football field, or even amongst members of a community, effective teamwork can produce incredible results. However, working successfully as a team is not as easy as it may seem. Effective teamwork does not happen automatically; it takes a great deal of hard work and compromise (Woloch, 2008). There are a number of factors that must be in place to cohere together as a team: * Good leadership: Effective leadership is one of the most important components of good teamwork. The team’s leader should possess the skills to create and maintain a positive working environment, motivate, and inspire the team members to take a positive approach to work and be highly committed. An effective team leader will promote a high level of morale and make them feel supported and valued. * Clear communication: Communication is a vital factor of all interpersonal interaction and especially that of a team. Team members must be able to articulate their feelings, express plans and goals, share ideas, and see each other’s viewpoints. Establishing roles: It is necessary for team members to understand their role and responsibilities. The team leader can enable this by defining the purpose in a clear-cut manner in the beginning of the formation of the team. * Conflict Resolution: Conflicts will arise no matter how well a team functions together. The best way to counter conflict is to have structured methods of conflict resolution. Team members should be able to voice their concerns without fear of offending others. Instead of avoiding conflict issues, a hands-on approach that resolves them quickly is much better. Set a good example: The team leader must set a good example for good teamwork to come about. In order to keep team members positive, committed and motivated, the team leader must exhibit these qualities. The team looks to the leader for support and guidance therefore any negativity on the leader’s part can be disastrous (Woloch, 2008). Motivation Coach Boone does a good job of demonstrating motivation throughout the movie. In several scenes, Coach Boone tells his organization that he demands perfection from them and nothing less is acceptable. He communicates clearly with the staff and the players what the team’s goal is from the beginning. Everyone knows their role on their respective teams and expectations. We can see that successful companies have similar success when everyone in the organization knows how their role affects the company’s ability to serve the customer. Coach Boone uses the Equity theory of motivation in that he treats everyone on the team fairly and shows no favoritism. He asks the players to work very hard in practice, but see the results in their victories on the football field. Coach Boone also displays the Hawthorne effect in the movie. He makes an effort to know all of his players and his coaching staff. The Hawthorne effect is a motivation theory that people perform better, when they feel their leader pay attention to them. In today’s work environment, this is more of challenge because it is becoming more popular to have employees work from remote locations or home with the increased technological advances we have seen over the last twenty years in the work place (Ghillyer, 2009). Ethics. Ethical behavior is the last characteristic that can either tear apart any team or propel it to a higher level of success. Coach Yost is under the impression by several influential school board members that the championship game is going to be in favor of the all white school they are playing. They will use this as an excuse to fire Coach Boone and reinstate Coach Yost as the head coach the next school year. During the championship game, Coach Yost faces this internal struggle and dilemma as he sees many unfavorable calls by the referees. He eventually makes the right decision for the player’s chance to win the game. The important lesson is that when temptation is great to make the wrong decision, the long-term benefits of being ethical outweigh the benefits. Managers and their organizations are responding to the problem of unethical behavior in a number of ways. They are writing and distributing codes of ethics to guide employees through ethical dilemmas. They are offering seminars, workshops, and other training programs to try to improve ethical behaviors. They are providing in house advisors and creating protection mechanisms for employees who revel internal unethical practices. Today’s manager must create an ethically healthy climate for his or her employees, where they can do their work productivity with little ambiguity about what right and wrong behaviors are (Judge, Robbins, 2011). In conclusion, the movie demonstrates that leadership must be able to face multiple challenges at the same time. It is hard enough to manage a football team with structure that is in place of three different sub groups performing to win games. When combined with the challenges of diversity and ethics, it remarkable the results the team achieved. These are some valuable lessons that any organization in today’s business world could use. Â  

An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory

An Introduction to Marxist ECONOMIC THEORY Ernest Mandel 2 An IntroductIon to MArxIst EconoMIc ) was the most influential exponent of Marxist economic theory in the Western world during the second half of the 20th century, and is best known for his masterful two-volume work Marxist Economic Theory (1962) and his brilliant Late Capitalism (1972).In the former, he demonstrated that it was possible, on the basis of the contemporary data, to reconstitute the whole economic system of Karl Marx 100 years after the first publication of Marx’s Capital. In the latter work, Mandel provided an explanation of the causes of the 20-year â€Å"wave† of rapid growth of the world capitalist economy after World War II, which also demonstrated that it would soon be followed by an indeterminately â€Å"long wave† of much slower economic growth, and recurrent social and political crises in the developed capitalist countries.Late Capitalism also provided the first comprehensive analys is of the new features of global capitalism that emerged in the post-war period and that are still with us today — transnational corporations as the dominant form of capitalist business organisation, the enormous growth of the services sector, the crucial role of state expenditure in propping up an economic system marked by financial instability, long-term stagnation punctuated by speculative booms, mindless consumerism and accelerating environmental destruction.This pamphlet, which was first published in French in 1964, provides a concise exposition of the elementary princples of Marxist economic theory. In the first section, Mandel elucidates the basic categories of Marx’s economic doctrine from the emergence of the social surplus product to the labour theory of value. In the second section, he explains the basic laws of motion of capitalism and its inherent contradictions.In the final second, he applies these to some of the new features exhibited by the new stage of imperialist capitalism that emerged after the second world war, which at the time he termed â€Å"neo-capitalism†. In his more mature work Late Capitalism, Mandel abandoned this term in favour of the designation â€Å"late capitalism†, explaining in the introduction to 4 An IntroductIon to MArxIst EconoMIc thEory that work that the designation â€Å"neo-capitalism† could be falsely â€Å"interpreted to imply either a radical continuity or discontinuity with traditional capitalism†.Instead, Mandel stressed that the â€Å"era of late capitalism is not a new epoch of capitalist development [but] merely a further development of the imperialist, monopoly-capitalist epoch† with â€Å"the characteristics of the imperialist epoch enumerated by Lenin† at the beginning of the 20th century remaining â€Å"fully valid for late capitalism†.? I. thE thEory of VAluE And surplus VAluE In the last analysis, every step forward in the history of civili sation has been brought about by an increase in the productivity of labour.As long as a given group of men barely produced enough to keep itself alive, as long as there was no surplus over and above this necessary product, it was impossible for a division of labour to take place and for artisans, artists or scholars to make their appearance. Under these conditions, the technical prerequisites for such specialisation could not possibly be attained. socIAl surplus product As long as the productivity of labour remains at a level where one man can only produce enough for his own subsistence, social division does not take place and any social differentiation within society is impossible.Under these conditions, all men are producers and they are all on the same economic level. Every increase in the productivity of labour beyond this low point makes a small surplus possible, and once there is a surplus of products, once man’s two hands can produce more than is needed for his own sub sistence, then the conditions have been set for a struggle over how this surplus will be shared. From this point on, the total output of a social group no longer consists solely of labour necessary for the subsistence of the producers.Some of this labour output may now be used to release a section of society from having to work for its own subsistence. Whenever this situation arises, a section of society can become a ruling class, whose outstanding characteristic is its emancipation from the need of First presented at an educational weekend organised by the Paris Federation of the United Socialist Party in 1963 and subsequently published in Les Cahiers du Centre d’Etudes Socialistes, February 1964. 6 An IntroductIon to MArxIst EconoMIc thEory working for its own subsistence.Thereafter, the labour of the producers can be divided into two parts. A part of this labour continues to be used for the subsistence of the producers themselves and we call this part necessary labour; the other part is used to maintain the ruling class and we give it the name surplus labour. Let us illustrate this by the very clear example of plantation slavery, as it existed in certain regions and periods of the Roman Empire, or as we find it in the West Indies and the islands of Portuguese Africa starting with the 17th century, on the great plantations which were established there.In these tropical areas, even the slave’s food was generally not provided by the master; the slave had to produce this himself by working a tiny plot of ground on Sundays and the products from this labour constituted his store of food. On six days of the week the slave worked on the plantation and received in return none of the products of his labour. This is the labour which creates a social surplus product, surrendered by the slave as soon as it is produced and belonging solely to the slavemaster.The work week, which in this case is seven days, can be divided into two parts: the work of one day, Sunday, constitutes necessary labour, that labour which provides the products for the subsistence of the slave and his family; the work of the other six days is surplus labour and all of its products go to the master, are used for his sustenance and his enrichment as well. The great domains of the early Middle Ages furnish us with another illustration. The land of these domains was divided into three parts: the communal lands consisting of forest, meadows, swamps, etc. the land worked by the serf for his own and his family’s subsistence; and finally, the land worked by the serf in order to maintain the feudal lord. The work week during this period was usually six days, not seven. It was divided into two equal parts: the serf worked three days on the land from which the yield belonged to him; the other three days he worked on the feudal lord’s land, without remuneration, supplying free labour to the ruling class. The products of each of these two very different types o f labour can be defined in different terms.When the producer is performing necessary labour, he is producing a necessary product. When he is performing surplus labour, he is producing a social surplus product. Thus, social surplus product is that part of social production which is produced by the labouring class but appropriated by the ruling class, regardless of the form the social surplus product may assume, whether this be one of natural products, or commodities to be sold, or money. Surplus value is simply the monetary form of the social surplus product. The Theory of Value and Surplus Value When the ruling class appropriates the part of society’s production previously defined as â€Å"surplus product† exclusively in the monetary form, then we use the term â€Å"surplus value† instead of â€Å"surplus product†. As we shall see later on, however, the above only constitutes a preliminary approach to the definition of surplus value. How does social surpl us product come into existence? It arises as a consequence of a gratuitous appropriation, that is, an appropriation without compensation, by a ruling class of a part of the production of a producing class.When the slave worked six days a week on a plantation and the total product of his labour was taken by the master without any compensation to the slave, the origin of the social surplus product here is in the gratuitous labour, the uncompensated labour, supplied by the slave to the master. When the serf worked three days a week on the lord’s land, the origin of this income, of this social surplus product, is also to be found in the uncompensated labour, the gratuitous labour, furnished by the serf.We will see further on that the origin of capitalist surplus value, that is to say, the revenue of the bourgeois class in capitalist society, is exactly the same: it is uncompensated labour, gratuitous labour, which the proletarian, the wage worker, gives the capitalist without rec eiving any value in exchange. coMModItIEs, usE VAluE And ExchAngE VAluE We have now developed several basic definitions which will be used throughout this exposition. A number of others must be added at this point. Every product of human labour normally possesses utility; it must be able to satisfy a human need.We may therefore say that every product of human labour has a use value. The term â€Å"use value† will, however, be used in two different senses. We will speak of the use value of a commodity; we will also talk about use values, as when we refer, for example, to a society in which only use values are produced, that is to say, where products are created for direct consumption either by the producers themselves or by ruling classes which appropriate them. Together with this use value, a product of human labour can also have another value, an exchange value.It may be produced for exchange on the market place, for the purpose of being sold, rather than for direct consumpt ion by the producers or by wealthy classes. A mass of products which has been created for the purpose of being sold can no longer be considered as the production of simple use values; it is now a production of commodities. The commodity, therefore, is a product created to be exchanged on the market, as opposed to one which has been made for direct consumption. Every 8 An IntroductIon to MArxIst EconoMIc thEory commodity must have both a use value and an exchange value.It must have a use value or else nobody would buy it, since a purchaser would be concerned with its ultimate consumption, with satisfying some want of his by this purchase. A commodity without a use value to anyone would consequently be unsaleable, would constitute useless production, would have no exchange value precisely because it had no use value. On the other hand, every product which has use value does not necessarily have exchange value. It has an exchange value only to the extent that the society itself, in whi ch the commodity is produced, is founded on exchange, is a society where exchange is common practice.Are there societies where products do not have exchange value? The basis for exchange value, and a fortiori for trade and the market place, is constituted by a given degree of development of the division of labour. In order for products not to be directly consumed by their producers, it is essential that everybody should not be engaged in turning out the same thing. If a particular community has no division of labour, or only its most rudimentary form, then it is clear that no reason for exchange exists. Normally, a wheat farmer has nothing to exchange with another wheat farmer.But as soon as a division of labour exists, as soon as there is contact between social groups producing different use values, then exchange can come about, at first on an occasional basis, subsequently on a more permanent one. In this way, little by little, products which are made to be exchanged, commodities, make their appearance alongside those products which are simply made for the direct consumption of their producers. In capitalist society, commodity production, the production of exchange values, has reached its greatest development.It is the first society in human history where the major part of production consists of commodities. It is not true, however, that all production under capitalism is commodity production. Two classes of products still remain simple use value. The first group consists of all things produced by the peasantry for its own consumption, everything directly consumed on the farms where it is produced. Such production for self-consumption by the farmer exists even in advanced capitalist countries like the United States, although it constitutes only a small part of total agricultural production.In general, the more backward the agriculture of a country, the greater is the fraction of agricultural production going for self-consumption. This factor makes it extreme ly difficult to calculate the exact national income of such countries. The second group of products in capitalist society which are not commodities but remain simple use value consists of all things produced in the home. Despite the fact that considerable human labour goes into this type of household The Theory of Value and Surplus Value 9 production, it still remains a production of use values and not of commodities.Every time a soup is made or a button sewn on a garment, it constitutes production, but it is not production for the market. The appearance of commodity production and its subsequent regularisation and generalisation have radically transformed the way men labour and how they organise society. thE MArxIst thEory of AlIEnAtIon You have no doubt already heard about the Marxist theory of alienation. The emergence, regularisation and generalisation of commodity production are directly related to the expanding character of this phenomenon of alienation.We cannot dwell on this aspect of the question here but it is extremely important to call attention to it, since the history of trade covers far more than the capitalist era. It also includes small-scale commodity production, which we will discuss later. There is also a postcapitalist society based on commodities, a transitional society between capitalism and socialism, such as present-day Soviet society, for the latter still rests in very large measure on the foundations of exchange value production.Once we have grasped certain fundamental characteristics of a society based on commodities, we can readily see why it is impossible to surmount certain phenomena of alienation in the transitional period between capitalism and socialism, as in Soviet society, for example. Obviously this phenomenon of alienation does not exist — at least in the same form — in a society where commodity production is unknown and where the life of the individual and his social activity are united in the most elementa ry way. Man works, but generally not by himself; most often he is part of a collective group having a more or less organic structure.His labour is a direct transformation of material things. All of this means that labour activity, the act of production, the act of consumption, and the relations between the individual and his society are ruled by a condition of equilibrium which has relative stability and permanence. We should not, of course, embellish the picture of primitive society, which was subject to pressures and periodic catastrophes because of its extreme poverty. Its equilibrium was constantly endangered by scarcity, hunger, natural disasters, etc.But in the periods between catastrophes, especially after agriculture had attained a certain degree of development and when climatic conditions were favourable, this kind of society endowed all human activities with a large degree of unity, harmony and stability. Such disastrous consequences of the division of labour as the elimin ation of all aesthetic activity, artistic inspiration and creative activity from the act 10 An IntroductIon to MArxIst EconoMIc thEory of production and the substitution of purely mechanical and repetitive tasks were nonexistent in primitive society.On the contrary, most of the arts, music, sculpture, painting, the dance, were originally linked to production, to labour. The desire to give an attractive and appealing form to products which were to be used either by the individual, his family, or larger kinship groups, found a normal, harmonious and organic expression within the framework of the day’s work. Labour was not looked upon as an obligation imposed from without, first of all because it was far less intense, far less exhausting than under capitalism today. It conformed more closely to the rhythms of the human organism as well as to the rhythms of nature.The number of working days per year rarely exceeded 150 to 200, whereas under capitalism the figure is dangerously cl ose to 300 and sometimes even greater. Furthermore, there was a unity between the producer, his product and its consumption, since he generally produced for his own use or for those close to him, so that his work possessed a directly functional aspect. Modern alienation originates basically in the cleavage between the producer and his product, resulting both from the division of labour and commodity production.In other words, it is the consequence of working for the market, for unknown consumers, instead of for consumption by the producer himself. The other side of the picture is that a society which only produces use values, that is, goods which will be consumed directly by their producers, has always in the past been an impoverished society. Not only was it subject to the hazards of nature but it also had to set very narrow limits to man’s wants, since these had to conform exactly to its degree of poverty and limited variety of products.Not all human wants are innate to man . There is a constant interaction between production and wants, between the development of the productive forces and the rise of new wants. Only in a society where labour productivity will be developed to its highest point, where an infinite variety of products will be available, will it be possible for man to experience a continuous expansion of his wants, a development of his own unlimited potential, an integrated development of his humanity. thE lAw of VAluEOne of the consequences of the appearance and progressive generalisation of commodity production is that labour itself begins to take on regular and measurable characteristics; in other words, it ceases to be an activity tied to the rhythms of nature and according with man’s own physiological rhythms. Up to the 19th century and possibly even into the 20th, the peasants in various regions of Western Europe did not work in a regulated way, that is to The Theory of Value and Surplus Value 11 say, they did not work with the same intensity every month of the year.There were periods in the work year when they worked very hard and other periods, particularly during the winter, when all activity virtually came to a halt. It was in the most backward agricultural areas of most of the capitalist countries that capitalist society, in the course of its development, found a most attractive source of reserve manpower, for here was a labour force available for four to six months a year at much lower wages, in view of the fact that a part of its subsistence was provided by its agricultural activity.When we look at the more highly developed and prosperous farms, those bordering the big cities, for example, and which are basically on the road to becoming industrialised, we see that work is much more regular and the amount of expended labour much greater, being distributed in a regular way throughout the year, with dead seasons progressively eliminated. This holds true not only for our times but even as early as the Middle Ages, at least from the 12th century on.The closer we get to the cities, that is to say, to the marketplace, the more the peasant’s labour becomes labour for the market, that is to say, commodity production, and the more regulated and more or less stable his labour becomes, just as if he were working inside an industrial enterprise. Expressed another way, the more generalised commodity production becomes, the greater the regulation of labour and the more society becomes organised on the basis of an accounting system founded on labour.When we examine the already fairly advanced division of labour within a commune at the beginning of commercial and craft development in the Middle Ages, or the collectives in such civilisations as the Byzantine, Arab, Hindu, Chinese and Japanese, certain common factors emerge. We are struck by the fact that a very advanced integration of agriculture and various craft techniques exists and that regularity of labour is true for the countrysi de as well as the city, so that an accounting system in terms of labour, in labour-hours, has become the force governing all the activity and even the very structure of the collectives.In the chapter on the law of value in my Marxist Economic Theory, I give a whole series of examples of this accounting system in work-hours. There are Indian villages where a certain caste holds a monopoly of the blacksmith craft but continues to work the land at the same time in order to feed itself. The rule which has been established is this: when a blacksmith is engaged to make a tool or weapon for a farm, the client supplies the raw materials and also works the blacksmith’s land during the whole period that the latter is engaged in making the implement.Here is a very transparent way of stating that exchange is governed by an equivalence in work-hours. In the Japanese villages of the Middle Ages, an accounting system in work- 12 An IntroductIon to MArxIst EconoMIc thEory hours, in the liter al sense of the term, existed inside the village community. The village accountant kept a kind of great book in which he entered the number of hours of work done by villagers on each others’ fields, since agriculture was still mainly based on cooperative labour, with harvesting, farm construction and stock breeding being done in common.The number of work-hours furnished by the members of one household to the members of another was very carefully tallied. At the end of the year, the exchanges had to balance, that is, the members of household B were required to have given household A exactly the same number of work-hours which members of household A had given household B during the year. The Japanese even refined things to the point — almost 1000 years ago! where they took into account that children provided a smaller quantity of labour than adults, so that an hour of child labour was â€Å"worth† only a half-hour of adult labour. A whole system of accounting was set up along these lines. There is another example which gives us a direct insight into this accounting system based on labour-time: the conversion of feudal rent from one form to another. In feudal society, the agricultural surplus product could take three different forms: rent in the form of labour (the corvee), rent in kind, and money rent.When a change is made from the corvee to rent in kind, obviously a process of conversion takes place. Instead of giving the lord three days of labour per week, the peasant now gives him a certain quantity of wheat, livestock, etc. , on a seasonal basis. A second conversion takes place in the changeover from rent in kind to money rent. These two conversions must be based on a fairly rigorous accounting in work-hours if one of the two parties does not care to suffer a loss in the process.For example, if at the time the first conversion was effected, the peasant gave the lord a quantity of wheat which required only 75 workdays of labour, whereas p reviously he had given the lord 150 workdays of labour in the same year, then this conversion of labour-rent into rent in kind would result in the sudden impoverishment of the lord and a rapid enrichment of the serfs. The landlords — you can depend on them! — were careful to see to it when the conversion was made that the different forms of rent were closely equivalent. Of course the conversion could eventually turn out to be bad one for one of the participating classes, for example, against the landlords, if a sharp rise in agricultural prices occurred after rent was converted from rent in kind to money rent, but such a result would be historical in character and not directly attributable to the conversion per se. The origin of this economy based on an accounting in labour-time is also clearly apparent in the division of labour within the village as it existed The Theory of Value and Surplus Value 13 between agriculture and the crafts. For a long time the division rem ained quite rudimentary.A section of the peasantry continued to produce part of its own clothing for a protracted historical period, which in Western Europe extended almost a thousand years; that is, from the beginning of the medieval cities right up to the 19th century. The technique of making clothing was certainly no mystery to the cultivator of the soil. As soon as a regular system of exchange between the farmer and textile craftsman was established, standard equivalents were likewise established — for example, an ell of cloth [a measure varying from 27 to 48 inches] would be exchanged for 10 pounds of butter, not for 100 pounds.Obviously the peasants knew, on the basis of their own experience, the approximate labour-time needed to produce a given quantity of cloth. Had there not been a more or less exact equivalence between the time needed to produce the cloth and the time needed to produce the butter for which it was exchanged, there would have been an immediate shift i n the division of labour.If cloth production were more lucrative than butter production, the butter producers would switch to producing cloth. Since society here was only at the threshold of an extreme division of labour, that is to say, it was still at a point where the boundaries between different techniques were not clearly marked, the passage from one economic activity to another was still possible, particularly when striking material gains were possible by means of such a change.In the cities of the Middle Ages as well, a very skilfully calculated equilibrium existed between the various crafts and was written into the charters which specified almost to the minute the amount of labour-time necessary for the production of different articles. It is inconceivable that under such conditions a shoemaker or blacksmith might get the same amount of money for a product which took half the labour-time which a weaver or other artisan might require in order to get the same amount of money f or his products.Here again we clearly see the mechanism of an accounting system in workhours, a society functioning on the basis of an economy of labour-time, which is generally characteristic of the whole phase which we call small-scale commodity production. This is the phase intervening between a purely natural economy, in which only use values are produced, and capitalist society, in which commodity production expands without limit. dEtErMInAtIon of thE ExchAngE VAluE of coMModItIEsOnce we have determined that the production and exchange of commodities becomes regular and generalised in a society based on an economy of labourtime, on an accounting system in work-hours, we can readily understand why 14 An IntroductIon to MArxIst EconoMIc thEory the exchange of commodities, in its origins and inherent nature, rests on this fundamental basis of an accounting system in work-hours and consequently follows this general rule: the exchange value of a commodity is determined by the quanti ty of labour necessary to produce it.The quantity of labour is measured by the length of time it takes to produce the commodity. This general definition of the labour theory of value is the basis of both classical bourgeois political economy from the 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century, from William Petty to Ricardo; and Marxist economic theory, which took over the theory of labour value and perfected it. However, the general definition must be qualified in several respects.In the first place, not all men are endowed with the same capacity for work, with the same strength or the same degree of skill at their trade. If the exchange value of commodities depended only on the quantity of labour expended individually, that is, on the quantity of labour expended by each individual in the production of a commodity, we would arrive at this absurdity: the lazier or more incompetent the producer, and the larger the number of hours he would spend in making a pair of shoes, the gr eater would be the value of the shoes!This is obviously impossible since exchange value is not a moral reward for mere willingness to work but an objective bond set up between independent producers in order to equalise the various crafts in a society based both on a division of labour and an economy of labour-time. In such a society wasted labour receives no compensation; on the contrary, it is automatically penalised. Whoever puts more time into producing a pair of shoes than the average necessary hours — an average determined by the average productivity of labour and recorded in the Guild Charters, for example! such a person has wasted human labour, worked to no avail for a certain number of hours. He will receive nothing in exchange for these wasted hours. Expressed another way, the exchange value of a commodity is not determined by the quantity of labour expended by each individual producer engaged in the production of this commodity but by the quantity of labour socially necessary to produce it. The expression â€Å"socially necessary† means: the quantity of labour necessary under the average conditions of labour productivity existing in a given country at a given time.The above qualification has very important applications when we examine the functioning of capitalist society more closely. Another clarifying statement must be added here. Just what do we mean by a â€Å"quantity of labour†? Workers differ in their qualifications. Is there complete equality between one person’s hour of work and everybody else’s, regardless of such differences in skills? Once again the question is not a moral one but has The Theory of Value and Surplus Value 15 o do with the internal logic of a society based on an equality between skills, an equality in the marketplace, and where any disruption of this equality would immediately destroy the social equilibrium. What would happen, for example, if an hour’s work by an unskilled laboure r was worth as much as an hour’s work by a skilled craftsman, who had spent four to six years as an apprentice in acquiring his skill? Obviously, no one would want to become skilled. The hours of work spent in learning a craft would be wasted hours since the craftsman would not be compensated for them after becoming qualified.In an economy founded on an accounting system of work-hours, the young will desire to become skilled only if the time lost during their training period is subsequently paid for. Our definition of the exchange value of a commodity must therefore be completed as follows: â€Å"An hour of labour by a skilled worker must be considered as complex labour, as compound labour, as a multiple of an hour of unskilled labour; the coefficient of multiplication obviously cannot be an arbitrary one but must be based on the cost of acquiring a given skill. It should be pointed out, in passing, that there was always a certain fuzziness in the prevailing explanation of c ompound labour in the Soviet Union under Stalin which has persisted to this very day. It is claimed that compensation for work should be based on the quantity and quality of the work, but the concept of quality is no longer understood in the Marxist sense of the term, that is to say, as a quality measurable quantitatively by means of a specific coefficient of multiplication. On the contrary, the idea of quality is used in the ourgeois ideological sense, according to which the quality of labour is supposed to be determined by its social usefulness, and this is used to justify the incomes of marshals, ballerinas and industrial managers, which are ten times higher than the incomes of unskilled labourers. Such a theory belongs in the domain of apologetics despite its widespread use to justify the enormous differences in income which existed under Stalin and continue to exist in the Soviet Union today, although to a lesser extent.The exchange value of a commodity, then, is determined by the quantity of labour socially necessary for its production, with skilled labour being taken as a multiple of simple labour and the coefficient of multiplication being a reasonably measurable quantity. This is the kernel of the Marxist theory of value and the basis for all Marxist economic theory in general.Similarly, the theory of social surplus product and surplus labour, which we discussed at the beginning of this work, constitutes the basis for all Marxist sociology and is the bridge connecting Marx’s sociological and historical analysis, his theory of classes and the development of society 16 An IntroductIon to MArxIst EconoMIc thEory generally, to Marxist economic theory, and more precisely, to the Marxist analysis of all commodity-producing societies of a precapitalist, capitalist and postcapitalist character. hAt Is socIAlly nEcEssAry lAbour? A short while back I stated that the particular definition of the quantity of socially necessary labour for producing a commod ity had a very special and extremely important application in the analysis of capitalist society. I think it will be more useful to deal with this point now although logically it might belong to a later section of this presentation. The totality of all commodities produced in a country at a given time has been produced to satisfy the wants of the sum total of the members of this society.Any article which did not satisfy somebody’s needs, which had no use value for anyone, would be a priori unsaleable, would have no exchange value, would not constitute a commodity but simply a product of caprice or the idle jest of some producer. From another angle, the sum total of buying power which exists in this given society at a given moment and which is not to be hoarded but spent in the market, must be used to buy the sum total of commodities produced, if there is to be economic equilibrium.This equilibrium therefore implies that the sum total of social production, of the available pro ductive forces in this society, of its available work-hours, has been distributed among the various sectors of industry in the same proportions as consumers distribute their buying power in satisfying their various wants. When the distribution of productive forces no longer corresponds to this division in wants, the economic equilibrium is destroyed and both overproduction and underproduction appear side by side.Let us give a rather commonplace example: toward the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, a city like Paris had a coach-building industry, which together with associated harness trades employed thousands or even tens of thousands of workers. In the same period the automobile industry was emerging and although still quite small it already numbered some scores of manufacturers employing several thousands of workers. Now what is the process taking place during this period? On the one hand, the number of carriages begins to decline and on the other, the number of a utomobiles begins to increase.The production of carriages and carriage equipment therefore shows a trend toward exceeding social needs, as these are reflected in the manner in which the inhabitants of Paris are dividing their buying power; on the other side of the picture, the production of automobiles is below social needs, for from the time the industry was launched until the advent The Theory of Value and Surplus Value 17 of mass production, a climate of scarcity existed in this industry. The supply of automobiles on the market was never equal to the demand. How do we express these phenomena in terms of the labour theory of value?We can say that in the carriage industry more labour is expended than is socially necessary, that a part of the labour expended by the sum total of companies in the carriage industry is socially wasted labour, which no longer finds an equivalent on the marketplace and is consequently producing unsaleable goods. In capitalist society, when goods are unsal eable it means that an investment of human labour has been made in a specific industrial branch which turns out to be socially unnecessary labour, that is to say, it is labour which finds no equivalent in buying power in the marketplace.Labour which is not socially necessary is wasted labour; it is labour which produces no value. We can see from this that the concept of socially necessary labour embraces a whole series of phenomena. For the products of the carriage industry, supply exceeds demand, prices fall and goods remain unsaleable. The reverse is true in the automobile industry where demand exceeds supply, causing prices to rise and under-production to exist. To be satisfied with these commonplaces about supply and demand, however, means stopping at the psychological and individual aspects of the problem.On the other hand, if we probe into the deeper social and collective side of the problem, we begin to understand what lies below the surface in a society organised on the basi s of an economy of labour-time. The meaning of supply exceeding demand is that capitalist production, which is anarchistic, unplanned and unorganised, has anarchistically invested or expended more labour hours in an industrial branch than are socially necessary, so that a whole segment of labour-hours turns out to be pure loss, so much wasted human labour which remains unrequited by society.Conversely, an industrial sector where demand continues to be greater than supply can be considered as an underdeveloped sector in terms of social needs; it is therefore a sector expending fewer hours of labour than are socially necessary and it receives a bonus from society in order to stimulate an increase in production and achieve an equilibrium with social needs. This is one aspect of the problem of socially necessary labour in the capitalist system. The other aspect of the problem is more directly related to changes in the productivity of labour.It is the same thing but makes an abstraction of social needs, of the â€Å"use value† aspect of production. In capitalist society the productivity of labour is constantly changing. Generally speaking, there are always three types of enterprises (or industrial sectors): those which are technologically right at the social average; those which 18 An IntroductIon to MArxIst EconoMIc thEory are backward, obsolete, on the downgrade, below the social average; and those which are technologically advanced and above average in productivity.What do we mean when we say a sector or an enterprise is technologically backward and has a productivity of labour which is below the average? Such a branch or enterprise is analogous to our previously mentioned lazy shoemaker, that is, it is one which takes five hours to produce a specific quantity of goods in a period when the average social productivity demands that it be done in three hours. The two extra hours of expended labour are a total loss, a waste of social labour.A portion of the t otal amount of labour available to society having thus been wasted by an enterprise, it will receive nothing from society to compensate it. Concretely it means that the selling prices in this industry or enterprise, which is operating below average productivity, approach its production costs or even fall below them, that is to say, the enterprise is operating at a very low rate of profit or even at a loss. On the other hand, an enterprise or industrial sector with an above average level of productivity (like the shoemaker who can produce two pairs of shoes n three hours when the social average is one pair per three hours) economises in its expenditure of social labour and therefore makes a surplus profit, that is to say, the difference between its costs and selling prices will be greater than the average profit. The pursuit of this surplus profit is, of course, the driving force behind the entire capitalist economy. Every capitalist enterprise is forced by competition to try to get greater profits, for this is the only way it can constantly improve its technology and labour productivity.Consequently all firms are forced to take this same direction, and this of course implies that what at one time was an aboveaverage productivity winds up as the new average productivity, whereupon the surplus profit disappears. All the strategy of capitalist industry stems from this desire on the part of every enterprise to achieve a rate of productivity superior to the national average and thereby make a surplus profit, and this in turn provokes a movement which causes the surplus profit to disappear, by virtue of the trend for the average rate of labour productivity to rise continuously.This is the mechanism in the tendency for profit rates to become equalised. thE orIgIn And nAturE of surplus VAluE And now, what is surplus value? When we consider it from the viewpoint of the Marxist theory of value, the answer is readily found. Surplus value is simply the monetary form of th e social surplus product, that is to say, it is the monetary form of that part of the worker’s production which he surrenders to the owner of the means of production without receiving anything in return. The Theory of Value and Surplus Value 19 How is this surrender accomplished in practice within capitalist society?It takes place through the process of exchange, like all important operations in capitalist society, which are always relations of exchange. The capitalist buys the labour-power of the worker, and in exchange for this wage, he appropriates the entire production of that worker, all the newly produced value which has been incorporated into the value of this production. We can therefore say from here on that surplus value is the difference between the value produced by the worker and the value of his own labourpower. What is the value of labour-power?In capitalist society, labour-power is a commodity, and like the value of any other commodity, its value is the quanti ty of labour socially necessary to produce and reproduce it, that is to say, the living costs of the worker in the wide meaning of the term. The concept of a minimum living wage or of an average wage is not a physiologically rigid one but incorporates wants which change with advances in the productivity of labour. These wants tend to increase parallel with the progress in technique and they are consequently not comparable with any degree of accuracy for different periods.The minimum living wage of 1830 cannot be compared quantitatively with that of 1960, as the theoreticians of the French Communist party have learned to their sorrow. There is no valid way of comparing the price of a motorcycle in 1960 with the price of a certain number of kilograms of meat in 1830 in order to come up with a conclusion that the first â€Å"is worth† less than the second. Having made this reservation, we can now repeat that the living cost of labour-power constitutes its value and that surplus value is the difference between this living cost and the value created by this labour-power.The value produced by labour-power can be measured in a simple way by the length of time it is used. If a worker works 10 hours, he produces a value of 10 hours of work. If the worker’s living costs, that is to say, the equivalent of his wage, is also 10 hours of work, then no surplus value would result. This is only a special case of the more general rule: when the sum total of labour product is equal to the product required to feed and maintain the producer, there is no social surplus product.But in the capitalist system, the degree of labour productivity is such that the living costs of the worker are always less than the quantity of newly created value. This means that a worker who labours for 10 hours does not need the equivalent of 10 hours of labour in order to support himself in accordance with the average needs of the times. His equivalent wage is always only a fraction of his day’s labour; everything beyond this fraction is surplus value, free labour supplied by the worker and appropriated by the capitalist without an equivalent offset.If this difference did not exist, of course, then no employer would hire 20 An IntroductIon to MArxIst EconoMIc thEory any worker, since such a purchase of labour-power would bring no profit to the buyer. thE VAlIdIty of thE lAbour thEory of VAluE To conclude, we present three traditional proofs of the labour theory of value. The first of these is the analytical proof, which proceeds by breaking down the price of a commodity into its constituent elements and demonstrating that if the process is extended far enough, only labour will be found.The price of every commodity can be reduced to a certain number of components: the amortisation of machinery and buildings, which we call the renewal of fixed capital; the price of raw materials and accessory products; wages; and finally, everything which is surplus value, such as profit, rent, taxes, etc. So far as the last two components are concerned, wages and surplus value, it has already been shown that they are labour pure and simple. With regard to raw materials, most of their price is largely reducible to labour; for example, more than 60% of the mining cost of coal consists of wages.If we start by breaking down the average manufacturing cost of commodities into 40% for wages, 20% surplus value, 30% for raw materials and 10% in fixed capital; and if we assume that 60% of the cost of raw materials can be reduced to labour, then we already have 78% of the total cost reduced to labour. The rest of the cost of raw materials breaks down into the cost of other raw materials — reducible in turn to 60% labour — plus the cost of amortising machinery. The price of machinery consists to a large degree of labour (for example, 40%) and raw materials (for example, 40% also).The share of labour in the average cost of all commodities thus passes suc cessively to 83%, 87%, 89. 5%, etc. It is obvious that the further this breakdown is carried, the more the entire cost tends to be reduced to labour, and to labour alone. The second proof is the logical proof, and is the one presented in the beginning of Marx’s Capital. It has perplexed quite a few readers, for it is certainly not the simplest pedagogical approach to the question. Marx poses the question in the following way. The number of commodities is very great.They are interchangeable, which means that they must have a common quality, because everything which is interchangeable is comparable and everything which is comparable must have at least one quality in common. Things which have no quality in common are, by definition, not comparable with each other. Let us inspect each of these commodities. What qualities do they possess? The Theory of Value and Surplus Value 21 First of all, they have an infinite set of natural qualities: weight, length, density, colour, size, mo lecular nature; in short, all their natural physical, chemical and other qualities.Is there any one of the physical qualities which can be the basis for comparing them as commodities, for serving as the common measure of their exchange value? Could it be weight? Obviously not, since a pound of butter does not have the same value as a pound of gold. Is it volume or length? Examples will immediately show that it is none of these. In short, all those things which make up the natural quality of a commodity, everything which is a physical or chemical quality of this commodity, certainly determines its use value, its relative usefulness, but not its exchange value.Exchange value must consequently be abstracted from everything that consists of a natural physical quality in the commodity. A common quality must be found in all of these commodities which is not physical. Marx’s conclusion is that the only common quality in these commodities which is not physical is their quality of bei ng the products of human labour, of abstract human labour. Human labour can be thought of in two different ways. It can be considered as specific concrete labour, such as the labour of the baker, butcher, shoemaker, weaver, blacksmith, etc.But so long as it is thought of as specific concrete work, it is being viewed in its aspect of labour which produces only use values. Under these conditions we are concerning ourselves only with the physical qualities of commodities and these are precisely the qualities which are not comparable. The only thing which commodities have in common from the viewpoint of exchanging them is that they are all produced by abstract human labour, that is to say, by producers who are related to each other on a basis of equivalence as a result of the fact that they are all producing goods for exchange.The common quality of commodities, consequently, resides in the fact that they are the products of abstract human labour and it is this which supplies the measure of their exchange value, of their exchangeability. It is, consequently, the quality of socially necessary labour in the production of commodities which determines their exchange value. Let us immediately add that Marx’s reasoning here is both abstract and difficult and is at least subject to questioning, a point which many opponents of Marxism have seized upon and sought to use, without any marked success, however.Is the fact that all commodities are produced by abstract human labour really the only quality which they have in common, apart from their natural qualities? There are not a few writers who thought they had discovered others. In general, 22 An IntroductIon to MArxIst EconoMIc thEory however, these have always been reducible either to physical qualities or to the fact that they are products of abstract labour. A third and final proof of the correctness of the labour theory of value is the proof by reduction to the absurd. It is, moreover, the most elegant and most à ¢â‚¬Å"modern† of the proofs.Imagine for a moment a society in which living human labour has completely disappeared, that is to say, a society in which all production has been 100% automated. Of course, so long as we remain in the current intermediate stage, in which some labour is already completely automated, that is to say, a stage in which plants employing no workers exist alongside others in which human labour is still utilised, there is no special theoretical problem, since it is merely a question of the transfer of surplus value from one enterprise to another.It is an illustration of the law of equalisation of the profit rate, which will be explored later on. But let us imagine that this development has been pushed to its extreme and human labour has been completely eliminated from all forms of production and services. Can value continue to exist under these conditions? Can there be a society where nobody has an income but commodities continue to have a value and to be s old? Obviously such a situation would be absurd. A huge mass of products would be produced without this production creating any income, since no human being would be involved in this production.But someone would want to â€Å"sell† these products for which there were no longer any buyers! It is obvious that the distribution of products in such a society would no longer be effected in the form of a sale of commodities and as a matter of fact selling would become all the more absurd because of the abundance produced by general automation. Expressed another way, a society in which human labour would be totally eliminated from production, in the most general sense of the term, with services included, would be a society in which exchange value had also been eliminated.This proves the validity of the theory, for at the moment human labour disappears from production, value, too, disappears with it. II. cApItAl And cApItAlIsM cApItAl In prEcApItAlIst socIEty Between primitive society founded on a natural economy in which production is limited to use values destined for self-consumption by their producers, and capitalist society, there stretches a long period in human history, embracing essentially all human civilisations, which came to a halt before reaching the frontiers of capitalism.Marxism defines them as societies in which small-scale commodity production prevailed. A society of this kind is already familiar with the production of commodities, of goods designed for exchange on the market and not for direct consumption by the producers, but such commodity production has not yet become generalised, as is the case in capitalist society. In a society founded on small-scale commodity production, two kinds of economic operations are carried out.The peasants and artisans who bring their products to market wish to sell goods whose use value they themselves cannot use in order to obtain money, means of exchange, for the acquisition of other goods, whose use value i s either necessary to them or deemed more important than the use value of the goods they own. The peasant brings wheat to the marketplace which he sells for money; with this money he buys, let us say, cloth. The artisan brings his cloth to the market, which he sells for money; with this money he buys, let us say, wheat.What we have here, then, is the operation: selling in order to buy . C ommodity—Money—Commodity, C —M—C w hich has this essential character: the value of the two extremes in this formula is, by definition, exactly the same. But within small-scale commodity production there appears, alongside the artisan and small peasant, another personage, who executes a different kind of economic operation. Instead of selling in order to buy, he buys in order to sell. This type of person goes to market without any commodities; he is an owner of money.Money cannot be sold; but it can be used to buy, and that is what he does: buys in order to sell, in order to resell: M—C—M’. There is a fundamental difference between the two types of operation. The 24 An IntroductIon to MArxIst EconoMIc thEory second operation makes no sense if upon its completion we are confronted by exactly the same value as we had at the beginning. No one buys a commodity in order to sell it for exactly the same price he paid for it. The operation â€Å"buy in order to sell† makes sense only if the sale brings a supplementary value, a surplus value.That is why we state here, by way of definition. M’ is greater than M and is made up of M+m; m being the surplus value, the amount of increase in the value of M. We now define capital as a value which is increased by a surplus value, whether this occurs in the course of commodity circulation, as in the example just given, or in production, as is the case in the capitalist system. Capital, therefore, is every value which is augmented by a surplus value; it therefore exists not only in ca pitalist society but in any society founded on small-scale commodity production as well.For this reason it is necessary to distinguish very clearly between the life of capital and that of the capitalist mode of production, of capitalist society. Capital is far older than the capitalist mode of production. The former probably goes back some 3000 years, whereas the latter is barely 200 years old. What form does capital take in precapitalist society? It is basically usury capital and merchant or commercial capital. The passage from precapitalist society into capitalist society is characterised by the penetration of capital into the sphere of production.The capitalist mode of production is the first mode of production, the first form of social organisation, in which capital is not limited to the sole role of an intermediary and exploiter of non-capitalist forms of production, of small-scale commodity production. In the capitalist mode of production, capital takes over the means of produ ction and penetrates directly into production itself. orIgIns of thE cApItAlIst ModE of productIon What are the origins of the capitalist mode of production?What are the origins of capitalist society as it has developed over the past 200 years? They lie first of all in the separation of the producers from their means of production. Subsequently, it is the establishment of these means of production as a monopoly in the hands of a single social class, the bourgeoisie. And finally, it is the appearance of another social class which has been separated from its means of production and therefore has no other resources for its subsistence than the sale of its labour-power to the class which has monopolised the means of production.Let us consider each of these origins of the capitalist mode of production, which are at the same time the fundamental characteristics of the capitalist Capital and Capitalism 25 system as well. First characteristic: separation of the producer from his means of pr oduction. This is the fundamental condition for existence of the capitalist system but it is also the one which is generally the most poorly understood. Let us use an example which may seem paradoxical since it is taken from the early Middle Ages, which was characterised by serfdom.We know that the mass of peasant-producers were serfs bound to the soil. But when we say that the serf was bound to the soil, we imply that the soil was also â€Å"bound† to the serf, that is, he belonged to a social class which always had a base for supplying its needs, enough land to work so that the individual serf could meet the needs of a household even though he worked with the most primitive implements. We are not viewing people condemned to death by starvation if they do not sell their labour-power.In such a society, there is no economic compulsion to hire out one’s arms, to sell one’s labour-power to a capitalist. We can express this another way by stating that the capitalist system cannot develop in a society of this kind. This general truth also has a modern application in the way colonialists introduced capitalism into the African countries during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Let us look at the livin

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Technology Management in Education - Annotated Bibliography Example This paper was important to my study of management of technology in education as it enabled me to have a clear picture of the concerns that accompany its use and the types of technological tools that can presently be found in many classrooms. I also found it useful to learn the extent to which teachers are familiar with technology. This particular study examined the present trends of technology and the way that the concerns of teachers have developed over time. The research was carried out over a four year period and looked at two hundred teachers who were assessed over aspects such as awareness, the amount of information they have concerning the use of technology in education and how exactly they manage this technology. This study looked at the concerns that teachers have over several levels of their professional development. In using this paper for my research, I was able to have a better understanding of the concerns of teachers and especially the feelings that they have over the implementation of technology and more importantly, the tools that they use in order to effectively manage this technology. this paper was especially important since it looks at the implementation across a number of international environments which I believe enabled my paper to be more comprehensive. In this particular study, the author presents a report on the research that she has done on schools and how teaching has evolved in the 21st century. She examines the impact that technology has had on the field of education and examines how education has moved from instances where teachers stood in front of the classroom to one which focuses more on collaboration and centered on the student. This paper was critical to my research since it enabled me to learn how technology has enabled students become global citizens and some of the core characteristics of school curriculums in the 21st century. The paper also enabled me to have an understanding of the strategies that are needed in

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History of Business Ethics and Ethical Theory - Essay Example The current business environment is highly competitive, organisations are encouraged to practice fair trade and avoid foul play so as to have a competitive edge over its rivals. Corporate social responsibility is a major ethical consideration in a company since it shows that the entity is mindful of the peoples’ welfare. Other important ethical principles in an entity include truth, honesty and justice. These principles have to be in line with the business environment in which the firm operates in to ensure long term success. It is important to understand the company’s ethical value so as to manage it appropriately. Firstly, there should be an assessment of the efficiency of ethical value in the organisation. Secondly, the leadership and senior management have to show commitment towards the program (Maignan and Ferrel, 2004:34). Thirdly, there should be formalisation of the code of ethics through proper training and communication (Maignan and Ferrel, 2005:34). Fourthly, there should be codification of the ethics and proper communication within the entity (Maignan and Ferrell, 2005:45). Finally, the code of ethics should be integrated into the organisation’s culture. In order to achieve this, the leadership should be on the forefront in ensuring the company’s ethics are maintained. Various stakeholders have the power to influence the attainment of ethical values and norms in a given entity. They are encouraged to do vigilantly so as to keep the company’s ethics in check. There are various challenges affecting ethics in an entity including, defiance by some employees and failure to keep up with the stated code of ethics (Maignan and Ferrell, 2005:45). This results to the practice of... It is important to understand the company’s ethical value so as to manage it appropriately. Firstly, there should be an assessment of the efficiency of ethical value in the organization. Secondly, the leadership and senior management have to show commitment towards the program. Thirdly, there should be a formalization of the code of ethics through proper training and communication (Maignan and Ferrel, 2005:34). Fourthly, there should be a codification of the ethics and proper communication within the entity (Maignan and Ferrell, 2005:45). Finally, the code of ethics should be integrated into the organization’s culture. In order to achieve this, the leadership should be on the forefront in ensuring the company’s ethics are maintained.Various stakeholders have the power to influence the attainment of ethical values and norms in a given entity. They are encouraged to do vigilantly so as to keep the company’s ethics in check. There are various challenges affec ting ethics in an entity including, defiance by some employees and failure to keep up with the stated code of ethics. This results in the practice of unethical behavior in businesses including foul play among the employees, unfair trade practices, poor time management and poor customer service. These are some of the unethical issues common to businesses in the contemporary world. In a nutshell, ethics are important in the daily activities of a business since they determine the relationships within the entity and with interested parties.

Should euthanasia be permitted in cases of terminally ill patients Research Paper

Should euthanasia be permitted in cases of terminally ill patients - Research Paper Example This ethical issue comes in view when a patient seeks death for himself/herself if the diseases are incurable, the cost is too high for the family to bear or he/she does not want to endure the pain any longer. This is not an easy decision for himself/herself and for the family as it accounts to a suicide. Euthanasia or the mercy killing therefore leads to opposing views from various sides, leading to controversy. Is mercy killing right legally, morally and ethically? Is it right or wrong? Types of Euthanasia: Euthanasia is derived from Greek term meaning â€Å"good death†. It has not gained acceptance because of legal and ethical issues involved with it. Euthanasia is classified into two types – the Active and the Passive Euthanasia. The term, Active Euthanasia is used when a patient’s life is cut short by the physicians at their own discretion, after the patients express their wish. Passive Euthanasia refers to withholding of treatment that would have helped the patient to survive in this world. Active euthanasia: The supporters of Active Euthanasia believe that the person is â€Å"better off dead† instead of continuing to live a life of â€Å"severely diminished quality† (Paterson, 2008). ... It might be viewed as homicide by skeptics, and is being condemned by the authorities and moralists around the world. Passive Euthanasia: Active Euthanasia might be unacceptable to the people on moral and ethical grounds but on the other hand quite a sizable number accept Passive Euthanasia. No doubt, a person undergoing Passive Euthanasia will experience some pain after the removal of life sustaining aids until he/she dies, but there are various reasons why it is accepted. â€Å"Firstly, treatment might simply be futile and hence incapable of benefiting the patient. Second, the treatment will be highly cost –effective.† (Garrard and Wilkinson, 2005). Thirdly the treatment should be withdrawn as it is excessively harmful. The fourth reason would be the patient may refuse to undergo treatment. Some treatment may have extreme pain or some may have a less probability of success, the failure of the treatment may cause extreme levels of burdens and poor quality of life. So u nder these circumstances the treatment refusal leads to passive euthanasia though the physician is aware of the effects of it. (Garrard and Wilkinson, 2005) Issues on Euthanasia: There is no major moral difference between killing a suffering patient and letting them to die. The Active Euthanasia is more or less killing and Passive Euthanasia is letting the patient die by removing the life sustaining aids. The first doctor, who was charged of Euthanasia, was Harold Blazer in 1935. He killed his daughter who was suffering from cerebral spinal meningitis. He killed her by placing a chloroform handkerchief on her nose till she stopped breathing. She was thirty when he killed her. In the trial he was acquitted on moral grounds. The first doctor to be found guilty was Joseph

Evaluate methods of managing and developing human resources Essay

Evaluate methods of managing and developing human resources - Essay Example herent of its human resources who are usually motivated and encouraged to commit to the workforce and in this way they feel the organization is valuing them therefore; they play an important role in the organization. For an organization to succeed, it is important that it motivates its employees and have a high-level job involvement. An organization is able to experience increased productivity if it motivates its employees and makes them enjoy their work. Workers who have the ability and desired skills for performing a certain job have the great chance of increasing the company’s productivity. Therefore, companies that recognize the efforts of its workers are able to encourage its employees to meet and even exceed the expected productivity. One of the strategies that companies use to improve its productivity is developing its employees using several development programs such as education and training. During employee development, the manager can set various development goals for employees because the goals and training will enable the worker to reach his career aspirations. Moreover, companies that have invested in their employees through recruitment and training, they usually lose when the employees leaves and joins other companies. Therefore, it is important for companies to try and retain their workers and make them loyal in order to help it in achieving goals by reducing the costs incurred when recruiting new employees. Loyalty can be enhanced by offering recognition of the superior performance, and this will enhance satisfaction inside the workers’ mind. Induction is also used as a training method because it enables a newly recruited employee to catch up and become reproductive quickly. Induction is importa nt because it prevents the organisation from costly mistakes that may be caused by the recruit. In addition, most managers use employee motivation and involvement to enhance their motivation at the workplace1. A motivated worker will show up at the

Effective Decision Making Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Effective Decision Making - Essay Example Alan Mulally is a man that has turned around the automaker's finances through his effective decision making. Mulally became the CEO of Ford Motor Company in Fall 2006. He is not an expert in building cars, yet he has been able to steer his company through the rough waters that has devastated other auto companies without any government bailouts. One interesting observation is that his leadership style is very positive in terms of effective decision-making. This paper identifies the role of Alan Mullally as a leader who has always supported effective decision making. It also discusses how Mullally has created a constructive decision environment. The paper further discusses the generation and evaluation of alternatives in effective decision making and implementation of decisions effectively. Discussion In 2006, Bill Ford Jr., the founder's great-grandson, put sideways the very factual probability of merger, even bankruptcy, and took a decision to place another CEO on his position as an attempt to save Ford Motor Company. He offered the post to a Detroit outsider, Alan Mullally, accredited with the post-9/11 resuscitation of Boeing and lured to Ford by the prospect of saving an "American and global icon. (Brown, 2009, 52)" After joining Ford as a CEO, Mullally has taken several decisions to change the company's prejudiced culture and insisted on teamwork. He developed a recovery plan and worked out on that plan uncompromisingly. He surveyed the entire business weekly to measure progress of other competitors and deeply monitored his own company’s performance. Mullally’s wise decisions win over the Ford family by safeguarding a critical finance just aforementioned to the credit calamity along with the reduction in the number of brands and streamlining of production as per customer demands (Naughton, 2011, 66). He invested and applied advanced technologies for improved fuel efficiency and better production. His one of the effective decisions was an agree ment UAW that yielded cheap labor costs that fended off the corporate invaders and convinced the public to buy Ford Cars. Another major decision Mullally has taken to get Ford the place where it is now was the well-publicized denial to accept the government bailout GM and Chrysler necessary to survive (Taylor, 2009, money.cnn.com). Mullally rests controlled in reducing costs and invest more in product development. Restructured models lift Ford Motor's U.S. market share to 17.5% from 16.1 %. That profited the company from the challenges of its competitors. Suppliers report that domestic-make customers turned progressively to Ford after General Motors and Chrysler went through bankruptcy and accepted government coffers to persist (Taylor, 2009, money.cnn.com). Mullally has created a constructive decision environment on the basis of his timely efforts and effective decisions. In late 2006, Ford borrowed $23 billion, hocking everything, including the company's Blue Oval logo. That gave Ford the cash cushion it needed to withstand losses and develop new models such as the Fiesta. The most important thing Ford has done is invest heavily in new product during this down cycle (Naughton, 2011, 66). The trade-off was a debt load that Mullally has said puts Ford at a competitive disadvantage with rivals GM and Chrysler, which slashed their debt in bankruptcy. Mullally's discipline showed when he made the historic decision to terminate the 71-year-old Mercury brand by year end. His

Organizational Change Plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 6000 words

Organizational Change Plan - Essay Example The situation to be discussed in this case is no exception: the desired change should first be situated within the greater context of the company’s overall goal, in order to determine how best to take the company from its present to its desired status. The present situation Ranchers Bank (RB) is a $3 billion financial services firm that exclusively deals in extending loans to farmer and ranchers for agricultural purposes. It operates solely in Texas and employs 1,000 loan officers in 254 offices located in each county. RB is a traditional bank which waits for clients to walk into its local offices to apply for loans. For several years, the agricultural sector has experienced zero growth, and the company’s profitability has suffered as the rate of new business generated is only half of the rate of payoff. There is a strong possibility that if RB continues doing business the same way it has done so for the past 30 years, it shall eventually end up in bankruptcy. The strategic goal/s RB’s principal goal is to stay viable and avoid bankruptcy; since bankruptcy is inevitable if the bank maintained status quo. RB therefore needed to change from the status quo merely to survive. This leads to the secondary goal – that of growth. ... keeping the main strategic considerations in mind, the resulting plan should be appropriately contextualized to maximize effectiveness and assure practicability. Analyzing the broad economic environment Political The banking industry has been at the center of the recent financial crisis, and while the culprits are principally the major financial conglomerates, the entire industry has been subjected to closer scrutiny both by the political leaders and the public. The need for greater oversight has resulted in legislated regulations which shall be tackled in the discussion on legal issues below. Other than these, emphasis on ethical practices has given rise to industry-wide corporate governance standards consistent with the Basel Committee principles for the international banking community (BCBS, 2010). For small banks to survive, they must likewise comply with the corporate governance benchmarks in their relations with their stakeholders. Economic The economic situation is still tenab le, purportedly on the road to recovery from the 2008 depression. Many markets impacting on loans creation continue to be depressed both on the demand side (e.g. real estate due to the mortgage foreclosures resulting in the housing glut), as well as supply side (e.g., labor market due to the increasing unemployment). The dollar continues to slide such that increasingly savings and transactions in the international market are converting to foreign currencies (e.g. the yuan, which is increasingly being used in international trade and securities floats). The looming budget deficit due not in small part to the trillion dollars in bailout may be exacerbated by continued reports in the bankruptcy of companies benefitted by these loans. Much will depend upon the economic policies of the

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and Brick Lane by Monica Ali Essay Example for Free

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and Brick Lane by Monica Ali Essay Having read both Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and Brick Lane by Monica Ali, I am going to concentrate the city question on Brick Lane. Brick Lane tells the story of Nazneen, an eighteen year old moved to London from her rural upbringing in Bangladesh to Tower Hamlets, a close tight community of Bengali families living in blocks of flats struggling to make their way up in the city to earn sufficient money and a civilised upbringing for their children, yet still yearning to go back to their home land. Nazneen is married to Chanu, twenty years older than her, he is educated yet earns his money working as a taxi driver. This novel has clear descriptions of city life, the diversity of the people within and how Nazneen interprets the city from her point of view. There are many ways in which the material conditions of the city are described in this novel, the different areas of the city of London are described from the block of flats where Nazneen lives to the big office blocks in the city centre. City life in this novel begins with Nazneen describing the Tattoo lady who lives in the block of flats opposite her, from here we become familiar with the lack of space and understand the very little room they have in the urban areas of London Most of the flats that closed three sides of a square had net curtains and the life behind them was all shapes and shadows. But the tattoo lady had no curtains at all. Morning and afternoon she sat with her thighs spilling over the sides of her chair. By reading this, it is already forming an idea of the main settings of the novel which are the block of flats, very cramped and close, very little sense of privacy. We also get an idea of the type of people living around the area as well, the tattoo lady is frequently mentioned in the novel, informing us that at least two thirds of the flesh on show was covered in ink. Another material condition of the city we come across in this novel is when Nazneen actually considers visiting the tattoo lady at the flat opposite hers, however such is city life that Nazneen reconsiders this The tattoo lady might be angry at an unwanted interruption. Although this is not an actual object described in the city, from Nazneens thought we get an idea of the type of people she would come across whilst living in the city, it forms the surroundings of the narrative by mentioning Nazneens neighbours. Monica Ali also describes the smell of the surroundings where Nazneen lives The breeze on Nazneens face was thick with the smell from the overflowing communal bins. This material condition most definitely helps to form the surroundings of the novel shaping the condition of the area where Nazneen lives. Although Monica Ali has focused on forming the surroundings of the city where Nazneen lives with the smell and the neighbours, she has also formed the novel with the material conditions of inside the flat where Nazneen lives, in the novel Nazneen spends most of her time inside the flat to sit day after day inside this large box with the furniture to dust, and the muffled sound of private lives sealed away above, below and around her. By giving brief descriptions like this it shapes the scene of the narrative from the beginning of the novel, we are informed of the furniture inside the flat, Nazneen mentions that she has never seen more furniture inside one room, with all this, we are already shaping the narrative with the material conditions inside of Nazneens flat. Whilst living in the city, Nazneen mentions outdoor surroundings quite often, although she spends most of her time inside her flat or at Razias, whenever Nazneen has gone outside the boundaries of her area, we as the are given more description of the actual city conditions There were more cars than people out here; a roaring metal army tearing up the town. By describing the cars as an army tearing up the town, we can immediately shape the city life of the narrative with the pollution and the noise of the cars. We can imagine the dirt and the hustle of the city. The people who passed walked, looked ahead at nothing or looked down at the pavement to negotiate puddles, litter and excrement. This was the material conditions of the city life which helped form the narrative, which helped give the reader an idea of the city life and scenes to which we can imagine Nazneen and her husband walking across. The social life in this novel also helps to form the material conditions of city life and the novel, Nazneens social life throughout the novel consisted of Mrs Islam and Razia gossiping about fellow women, she would often visit Razia at her flat, whilst going to Razias flat we are given descriptions of the surroundings within Nazneens boundary of her estate, we are informed of the group of young Bengali men who stood in the bottom of the stairwell, combing their hair and smoking or making loud, sudden hoots this was the social life the young men had in the city, they would hang around in gangs not achieving much, Nazneen stayed within her boundaries as well, so it gives the reader an impression that social life within a city should be kept in the boundaries that you live in, like a safety barrier. We are also informed of the material conditions of the corridors and stairwells where Nazneen lives, the front doors are mentioned to be the same across the corridors peeling red paint show ing splinters of pale wood, a rectangular panel of glass with wire meshing suspended inside, gold rimmed keyholes and stern black knockers. On the wall someone had drawn a pair of buttocks in thick black pen this helps the reader to form a picture in their minds of the state of city life where Nazneen lives, The stairs gave off a tang of urine Although Nazneen is told to stay within the boundaries of the estate because if she went out people would talk and gossip about her, Nazneen did go out. This was when she got lost, and we as the readers gained more knowledge of the material conditions of city life which formed the narrative, we are told that to get to the other side of the street without being hit by a car was like walking out in the monsoon and hoping to dodge the raindrops. Immediately we can imagine the fast movement of the city, cars going past like buzzing bees, to cross the road, Nazneen waited next to a woman and stepped out with her, like a calf with its mother short descriptions like this form the material conditions of the city life in this novel so skilfully. Throughout the novel, we are not only informed of the material conditions of the city where Nazneen lives or around the area of Bethnal Green, we are also informed of the streets buildings past Brick Lane. She looked up at a building as she passed. It was constructed almost entirely of glass, with a few thin rivets of steel holding it together. The building was without end, above somewhere it crushed the clouds. The material conditions mentioned here are most entirely opposite to the towers described of Tower Hamlets. Although both scenes have very large buildings, the towers in the city centre are described as palaces, with entrances and colonnades across the front this was the diversity of the material conditions of city life which helped form the narrative, because the reader is informed that the city is not the same throughout, every area has its own distinctive features, some parts of the city are very well looked after whereas others such as where Nazneen lives are forgotten ab out. The material conditions of city life in the novel are mentioned to the reader in many ways, we are told of the people that Nazneen walks past when she goes to the city centre every back she saw, was on a private, urgent mission to execute a precise and demanding plan. They could not see her anymore than she could see God from this, we acknowledge the independency of the people in the city. Soon Nazneen realises that she does not fit in with these working people, they are dressed smart, they have coats and handbags whereas Nazneen has a cardigan and a sari, although Nazneen was dressed differently, only one woman noticed she was there and smiled at her. By giving details such as this, Monica Ali has formed and shaped the narrative according to city life, every person with its own mission. So far, throughout the novel, only roads and streets, people and buildings have been mentioned. However when Nazneen does come across some greenery, she says in this city, a bit of grass was something to be guarded, fenced about, as if there were a sprinkling of emeralds sown in among the blades. This, yet again is another material condition of city life, although it is not unpleasant like the conditions in Nazneens area, green grass has not yet been mentioned up until now, and when it has the grass is guarded with fence, so from this, we can imagine the very few places in the city to relax and enjoy the scenery. We also get the indication that in this novel, for Nazneen there is no place for her to get away from everything, the city would not pause even to shrug. Throughout the novel, the descriptions of the city and the buildings given to us by Nazneen have been described just as Nazneen saw them, however, later on in the novel, when Nazneens son becomes ill, whilst in the ambulance van, and with her fear for her son, she mentions The city shattered. Everything was in pieces. She knew it straight away, glimpsed it from the painful white insides of the ambulance. Just as Nazneens heart shattered in pieces, the city did too with her, so she is relating the material conditions of the city with her emotions and giving the reader an image of doom and gloom within the city. Although the material conditions described to us previously in the novel have been mostly doom and gloom anyway, Nazneen has only just implied the greyness and dullness of it along with her emotions. Frantic neon signs. Headlights chasing the dark. An office block, cracked with light. These shards of the broken city. Up until now the city was not mentioned as broken, it was just described as how Nazneen saw it, but now, we get the real image of the city, the material conditions which helped form the narrative The crystal towers and red bricked tombs. The bare-legged girls shivering at the bus stop. Up until now, Nazneen had simply described the different dress code of non Asian females, now that she saw they were at the bus stop bare legged in the early hours of the morning, Nazneen is ridiculed by them, she talks about them along with the broken city. She is giving the reader material conditions of the city which make it so grim. The well fed dogs and bloated pigeons. This is something Nazneen would never see in her homeland Bangladesh, dogs are of no importance and pigeons always a pest. So now, we get to witness Nazneens interpretations of the material conditions of the city life, how she feels it is all wrong compared to h er land. The cars that had screamed alongside the ambulance, urging it on, parting in waves. The cars that had previously been described as an army now screaming, this clearly shows the rage within Nazneen and the material city conditions which she so hates. Throughout the novel, London is not the only city mentioned, with Nazneens sister living in the city in Bangladesh, Dhaka, she often receives letters from Hasina talking about her home, and the surroundings Street is wide and nice. But plastic bag blowing everywhere. Walk in street for five ten minute and by finish you cover in bag on legs and arm and stomach. From this we realise, that city conditions throughout the world are the same. The little things which give the city its status, the material conditions such as bags on the floor is what makes living in a city so different to other places. A wind blew in over the courtyard and fetched up a crisp packet at her feet. Nazneen although she was in a different country to her sister, they were both in the same situation, both living in a city with material conditions such as rubbish on the pavements and non stopping people. To conclude, the material conditions of city life in Brick Lane are mentioned with such metaphors and descriptions which inform the narrative of the surroundings, the people, the scenery and the atmosphere within. The buildings described in so many ways, the smallest details found on the floors to the stairwells of the block of flats.