Your detailed and thorough post due by Wednesday@MIDNIGHT for full credit (A). Partial credit (C) can be earned by posting late, which is better than a ZERO.
Remember, weekly blogging is worth 1/3 of your entire semester grade.
Be sure to communicate with Dr. W as needed - rob.williams@madriver.com.
Read and blog THE NEW HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT, Chapter 4-5 (and look over appendices).
2) EVIDENCE: Post and number THREE specific observations from EACH CHAPTER of our reading(s) that supports your thesis.
Use 2-3 sentences for each observation, and combine direct quotations from the text (AUTHOR's LAST NAME, 27), with IYOW analysis.
3) QUESTION: Include in your post a SINGLE SPECIFIC question you'd ask the class based on our readings.
Ch 4 thesis:
ReplyDeleteSocioeconomic inequality has caused structural violence, a public health crisis, and made humanity unable to problem solve due to an inseparable link to market values.
Ch. 4 evidence:
1. “Overwhelming loyalty to market values blinds society to mechanisms of true improvement; and the second being the rise of consumerism, infinite wants, and the commodification of reality.” (pg. 160)
2. “Put mildly, economic growth or development results in inequality as a side effect. This is due to the inherently exploitative and imbalanced procedural dynamics of market economics. This inequality materializes both within nations and between nations in the same basic way, as we see with globalization. We have been told that “rising tides lift all boats” and while that idea may be somewhat true over time, it is a grossly misleading aphorism. The truth is that this “rise” only occurs in tandem with the creation of corrosive inequality, including many stages of adjustment and abuse before the possibility that those “drowning boats” find mild buoyancy.” (pg. 162)
3. “Suicide, something our intuition would peg as a very personal, detached act of “free will,” is very much a public-health problem because of its population-level predictability in reaction to certain social preconditions. While it is often difficult to determine why a given individual commits suicide, the socioeconomic correlations are undeniable. For example, suicides can be directly correlated with inevitable outcomes of the “boom and bust” cycle of economic growth and recession.” (pg. 178)
Ch. 4 question:
How much responsibility do you take for the current state of the world, do you think you can make a difference?
Ch. 5 thesis:
We as a society must shift our focus from things to people, changing the ideology and purpose for why we do what we do, namely economically.
Ch. 5 evidence:
1. “Today the world produces 17 percent more calories per person than it did thirty years ago, despite an increase in population of 70 percent. We can produce enough food to provide everyone with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per day. This is more than enough to maintain good health for most. Yet a substantial portion of the world is still malnourished, dying of starvation. This simple fact shows that there are flaws in the economic pipeline that are producing distribution inefficiencies and exceptional waste.” (pg. 238)
2. “In fact, I would argue that what we have today isn’t really an economic system at all. It is an anti-economic system. Its focus on trade and profit translates into the system preference for general privation and conflict. It is grossly unfair in its allocation of resources, and by inherent design concentrates wealth among a few, dividing the rest of humanity into subclasses of varying relative insecurity. One cannot define a system as being “economic” when its structural characteristics support the opposite of thrift (i.e., growth), the opposite of problem solving (i.e., profit from servicing problems, not solving them), and the opposite of equitable allocation across the population.” (pg. 249)
3. “As philosophers have argued, work, in its truest state, is the creative act of inquiry, invention, and development. The drive to solve problems is inherent in us; our minds are simply wired that way. People have no problem working hard on what they enjoy. Unfortunately, the exploitative drudgery of our historical existence, coupled with an economic system that requires work for income, has distorted this inherent drive through arduous and monotonous labor. “Jobs” are not vocations. Jobs are structural prerequisites for survival in an economic system based upon labor-for-income.” (pg. 269)
Ch. 5 question:
Is education the first step to reversing the path we are going down as a society, teaching people that a dollar earned can go towards sustaining yourself and the world, not for upgrading ones’ wealth?
Chapter Four
ReplyDeleteThesis: Structural imbalance is the cause of many other damaging aspects in society, especially public health.
Public health is extremely affected by group-based hierarchy, especially ones in which there is a dominance of certain groups over other groups. One way in which we see a more indirect cause is poverty. Poverty puts these individuals at a disadvantage contributing to the issue. Since the lower class is outlined as a majority, this effect is seen at an even larger scale.
The relationship between business and industry is contradictory. Since the industrial revolution, we’ve advanced at such a fast pace that our techniques of “grotesque material production” did numbers on the environment, more than the entirety of production before it. Businesses see material production from an economic standpoint where at the end of the day maximizing all that grant them profit, whereas an industrial standpoint is one that lowers the total profit gain to gain a sense of stabilization and waste reduction.
According to epidemiological research, being poor and a lower class is devastating to health in many ways, like previously mentioned. Other than physical health problems though, it can create many psychological issues as well. Branching off of this, the leading causes of death in lower income countries don’t affect those of higher income.
Chapter Five
Thesis: “An appropriately designed social system is the starting point of healthy social psychology, peaceful cohabitation, positive public health, and an all-around quality of life.”
Scarcity is an interesting issue to discuss because as it’s put in the book, it's completely relative. The amount of a certain resource may be huge but if we’re consuming a massive amount of it then it will soon be depleted. On the other side of things, however, there may be a resource that is very limited but there isn’t much production around it so it may not be considered scarce.
An example that’s showcased is the argument that oil extraction will soon be depleted and supplies are on a “Negative” or downward trend. Looking back at when this argument was at its peak, the ways in which extraction were done was causing this to be the result. However, due to new extraction methods the argument has been basically eradicated.
After all of this negativity and pointing out the issues wrong within society, it may seem that all is lost. This isn’t the case, there is still time to reconstruct and build a new foundation that allows for prosperous regrowth. If we find the potential in these new foundations, the result can be mind blowing. The aspect of “the light at the end of the tunnel” that was outlined that I especially liked was sustainable abundance. This idea of maximizing efficiency to reduce the issues of scarcity and economic inequality as much as possible seems euphoric.
Question: The entirety of this book revolves around the fact that the foundation of our society is the root to all our issues and fixing it will then have a chain effect, do you agree with this statement and if not what is your theory?
Chapter Four:
ReplyDeleteThesis: Improper balancing of economic and social structures puts a damper on society.
Evidence:
Poverty is just not the "economic condition where people are unable to meet their most basic needs", there is much more too it. It can be defined as absolute poverty, meaning the people do not meet nutritional requirements to live or they are prone to the environmental conditions. Relative poverty, which people are unable to rise to common living standards and poverty of the spirit, causing those who are in poverty to not be able to enjoy aspects of life such as art and spiritualism.(157)
Public health, is crucial to a sustainable society, but is generally defined as "science dealing with the protection and improvement of community health by organized efforts". It can be defined as anything that threatens health, such as polluted water supply causing cancer in a community, it just doesn't need to refer to policies by the government. However, due to structural imbalances with Socioeconomics, those who are better off tend to be living much healthier than those who are living in a lower status. Not only that but the stress of "feeling poor" also takes a detriment to health for those who are not well off.(176-179)
Terrorism and gang behavior are "largely rooted in socioeconomic destabilization", meaning when these imbalances are present, this type of behavior can rise up within society(231). However, national wars, while being fully institutionalized, also has root causes of imbalnces within society, most of the time being linked to the acquisition of resources(232).
Chapter 5:
Thesis: In order to fix the multitude of problems caused by our socioeconomic structure, we need to change it to focus on the populous instead of profit.
Evidence:
The concept of scarcity has driven us to do things out of fear. We have been brainwashed that the earth has a "carrying capacity" and we are quickly filling it up. Not only that but we have a finite amount of resources, causing value to be put into more things than others. However, often times we do not look at we have become more efficient with the resources and are able to "do more with less" (250-251).
Ecological balance is a point we can return to, even though we are in a "business-as-usual" scenario, basically the idea of being fine with the world around us, if we removed ourselves from this, we can realize the potential we have to save the world. We could be able to "end socioeconomic inequality, and dramatically increase public health", just to name a few things. We would also be able to reach a "Social abundance", which focuses on maximizing efficiency within society (262).
We cannot sustain ourselves in the long run, without fixing socioeconomic inequality. We can not be secure by creating more advanced weapons, as it can cause "extreme destruction" and the alienated populace will increase its capacity for destruction. Security can no longer be assured, unless we remove socioeconomic inequality (288).
Question: Is removing socioeconomic inequality truly possible, not only that but would it be the cure-all that Joseph believe it is?
Chapter 4: Societal and economic structures are currently imbalanced and damaging
ReplyDeletePoverty in the US for example is a product of consumerism and how it has created different classes, those in poverty being the lower class. “In the end, this poverty of the spirit, manifested in the form of mindless consumerism, has led not only America but also the world to embrace what is a profoundly unsustainable and dehumanizing ethic. ” (Joseph, 176)
“Increased rates of death and disability [are] suffered by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society, as contrasted with the relatively lower death rates experienced by those who are above them. ” (Joseph, 181) Societie’s structure in America is built off of greed and leaves a majority of the country in this position.
“Perhaps the most embracing way to think about how structural violence unfolds or metastasizes throughout society is as a form of social pollution. Just as air pollution common to cities has been linked to a spectrum of physical and mental health problems, one can think of market-induced inequality as a “toxic cloud” looming over society.” (Joseph, 190) Just as how air pollution is preventable this social pollution is also preventable, but both are not taken care of because of the greed power and voice the upper class has.
Chapter 5: If we want to get better we have to start caring more about people rather than material goods and things
“We may understand in principle that we have a finite amount of physical resources on the planet, but exactly how and why those resources are processed, allocated, and used is really what decides the state of earthly scarcity.” (Joseph, 247) How society has chosen to use these resources has lead to far more negativity and “evil” in my opinion. Because of the emphasis and focus on material goods we have let greed outway our sense of morale and let ourselves grow/learn in a society that teaches us to care more for the things we own than the people immediatly around us, how many families have been broken up over something stupid like - insert some rich person item-, even their despare is marketed to us through television and media coverage, its disgusting not to mention none of my business or any of our business for that matter.
“what we have today isn’t really an economic system at all. It is an anti-economic system. Its focus on trade and profit translates into the system preference for general privation and conflict. It is grossly unfair in its allocation of resources, and by inherent design concentrates wealth among a few, dividing the rest of humanity into subclasses of varying relative insecurity. ” (Joseph, 249) America is basically just a sandbox only the rich kids get to play in while we all get shoved and have sand kicked in our face, we can’t even afford the tools to create a sand castle, or afford the sand that they literally just kicked in our face.
“The report also warned that if the 500 ppm threshold of C02 is passed, as is predicted if trends stay the same, future generations will need to find ways to “suck greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and store them underground to preserve the livability of the planet.” (Joseph, 258) I don’t need to explain that they of course wouldn’t care about future generations when they can’t even care about those suffering currently. If I wanted to have kids I would be doing them a favor by not having them at this point even if I was ever able to afford taking care of another living thing alongside myself. At this point everyone is doing future generations a favor by not having them, oh but wait some people don’t even have a choice because they can’t afford the proper medical treatment if they got pregnant, or afford the protection to prevent getting pregnant.
Q: Will we honestly be able to rip out this deeply ingrained way of living in time to save our planet and those living on it?
Thesis)
ReplyDeleteChapter 4: Improper management of both social and economic structures has resulted in a stunted society.
Chapter 5: In order to prevent a stunted society we must first change our present social/economic structures.
Evidence)
Chapter 4:
“Only recently have social scientists have come to realize the destructive nature of relative poverty, as the problems associated with it tend to blend into the general disorder of society.”(158). Since poverty is a result of the failures of both social economic structures present in society, it only makes sense that a society structured in this manor would ultimately fail.
“Overall, modern social science shows that an economically stratified society is fundamentally destabilized, manifesting a range of public health problems.”(158). These health problems can vary based on the individual. “From the prevalence of physical and mental health disease that targets the lower class, reducing life expectancy and well-being, to the psychosocial stress of social exclusion generating antisocial…”.(158)
“As such, these characteristics invariably link back to the structure of society and what is incentivized by the social system. As expressed, there is a primary market logic that leads people to operate in very shortsighted and ultimately neurotic ways.” (159).
Chapter 5:
“The main problem with the capitalism-works-best defense is that it ignores modern economic potentials that far exceed what the market is capable of. Since technological progress is at the root of increasing standards of living, along with consequential alleviations of social tension, ….”. (238). This ultimately flawed structured society has become stunted due to socioeconomic structures failing to support the populous.
“We can produce enough food to provide everyone with at least 2,700 kilocalories per day. This is more than enough to maintain good health for most. Yet a substantial portion of the world is still malnourished, dying of starvation.” (238).
“Capitalism’s competitive incentive, promoted as the virtuous force behind world progress, has now become the greatest detriment to social advancement.” (238). If this structure is not altered or adjusted in some way this would lead to a further degradation of society. “ … including the growth of xenophobia and in-group/out-group bigotry.” (239).
Question:
What are some ways we could alter the existing social and economic structures for the benefit of the populous?
1) THESIS:
ReplyDeleteChapter 4: Economic issues are at the core of poverty, especially the disparity between the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
Chapter 5: Due to greed and economic disparity, capitalism will be a huge contributor to however the world collapses.
2) EVIDENCE:
Chapter 4:
- Poverty obviously impacts a huge amount of people, but the “Global South” experiences it on a much wider scale than the “Global North”. Joseph discusses the clear divide between the Southern hemisphere and the Northern hemisphere, as the Southern Hemisphere experiences much larger numbers of poverty, economic stagnation, and issues relating to diseases and pollution (157-161). He mainly attributes this to capitalism and greed, saying, “market logic sees no merit in bringing service to those who cannot pay for it” (195).
- Capitalism and a desire for progression leads to IGOs and countries misleading the public to the severity of poverty and public health. Jason Hickel, and author for The Guardian, explained how many researchers don’t think the poverty line is adequate, and more than 60% of the world’s population still lives on less than $7.40 a day (163-164). He explains that the standard poverty line of $1.90 a day has persisted to give the rest of the world a “happy justification” for limited action.
- Joseph takes on the view that poverty and oppression is a “condition of violence” (185). Most of our global society has huge gaps in disparity that cause groups to be left in the dust and struggle to meet their basic needs while others advance. He relates this to structural violence, explaining that most of the world’s issues are easily preventable through equality and opportunity (180).
Chapter 5:
- Joseph is a huge critic of capitalism, I would say. He explains that capitalism is a greedy institution and that our current infrastructure could allow for the production of enough food to feed every person “with at least 2,270 kilocalories per day” (Joseph, 238). He explains the western world’s culture is based around a “sense of lack”, contributing to issues like soil destruction and biodiversity loss (250, 259).
- The whole book discusses different indicators of economic poverty and human rights violations caused by the economy. Effects from one system can cause effects in another system, “generating cultural patterns, values, and customs that take on a life of their own” (Joseph, 240).
- The global economy is based around capitalism, and deviations aren’t common. Joseph explains that “countries that attempt to praise a different economic god are quickly struck down in the holy name of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’” (244). In relation to the high greediness and scarcity prevalent in the world, something needs to be addressed in order to “intelligent[ly] use… resources” (Joseph, 249).
3) QUESTION: What economic system or mix of systems would present the best opportunities for the most people internationally, and be feasible?
Chapter 4
ReplyDeleteThesis: Society is being negatively affected by the drastic difference of attitudes between economical and social structures.
"Overall, modern social science shows that an economically stratified society is fundamentally destabilized, manifesting a range of public health problems. While social dominance theory and other elitist views regarding group-based hierarchy see stratification as necessary for 'social stability,'..." (158)
"When you further consider the caustic sociology created, you realize that this market-biased mentality is not only problematic-it is dangerous. This means our normative social psychology-our mainstream values- are really public-health threats in and of themselves. To better understand this let's now review the general concept of the public health in detail."(177)
"...For example, heart disease, which is correlated to low socioeconomic status, is far more of a threat to general public health than behavioral violence. In this way, structural violence challenges our most common intuitions about what is or isn't inflicted harm." (214)
Chapter 5
ReplyDeleteThesis: Society as a whole needs to reevaluate the importance of how we organize the structures, by understanding the focus.
“We can produce enough food to provide everyone with at least 2,700 kilocalories per day. This is more than enough to maintain good health for most. Yet a substantial portion of the world is still malnourished, dying of starvation.” (238).
"..it is important to reiterate the fact that historical events can snowball, generating cultural patterns, values and customs that take on a life of their own long after their apparent point of origin. The reason systemic black oppression and race antagonism continues to this day in America is partly that the engine that created it and pushed it forward is still in place." (240)
"We may understand in principle that we have a finite amount of physical resources on the planet, but exactly how and why those resources are processes, allocated and used it really what decides the state of earthly scarcity. The degree and effects of resource and means scarcity are hence defined by a nuanced interaction, not a static state. (247)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete1) THESIS:
ReplyDeleteCh.4:
Socioeconomic inequality is the main factor in detrimental social problems such as human health, oppression, and social stability today.
Ch. 5:
In order to begin making a change, our lens to how we live much change; caring about people comes first, not items and materials.
2) EVIDENCE:
Ch.4:
“Like absolute poverty, relative poverty is a socioeconomic condition that leads to a decrease in one’s well being; people in relative poverty are unable to rise to the most common, shared a standard of living in a country or the world” (Joseph 158). Inequality, lack of life-supporting resources, the stress of social comparison, and well being are then created unequally.
The “poor” have been screwed by the wealthy and then frowned uppon. “It was this violent takeover of Third World resources and markets that created wealth in the North and poverty in the South” (Joseph 162).
“Like a dormant cancer waiting for the right conditions to flourish and kill its host, the true face of the system is being revealed as our advanced technological capacity is enabling accelerated economic turnover to satisfy the market’s need for constant economic growth, clashing with natural planetary limits” (Joseph 172). The faster we produce the faster we are killing the planet as well as hurting the people that are affected by the process of the making.
Ch. 5:
“general patterns of violence, mortality, disease, crime, oppression, and other seemingly separate outcomes are found to share common roots, linked to our social system” (Joseph 237). If the social system focused on people instead of materials the world would be a much happier place.
“An appropriately designed social system is the starting point of healthy social psychology, peaceful cohabitation, positive public health, and en all-around quality to life” (Joseph 237). If the social system was created just and equal, this would lead to the start of healthy change.
“We produce enough food to provide everyone with at least 2,720 kcal per day; yet a substantial portion of the world is still malnourished, dying of starvation” (Joseph 238). This statistic shows how flawed the economic pipeline is that produces distribution inefficiencies and exceptional waste.
3) QUESTION:
Do you think that we have dug ourselves too far into this ‘thing-oriented’ society or that our generation will realize we need to wake up and start a person-oriented society?
Chapter 4
ReplyDeleteThesis: Structural violence is one of the root causes of poor public health between social classes.
Evidence:
“It isn't about inequality, with its lack of true life-supporting resources; it is also about the stress of social comparison and the sense that well-being is not shared fairly” (158). This idea of social comparison really stood out to me because there’s always something new. A new Iphone, car, clothes, etc. come out every year, sometimes twice a year. Our society craves the newest material item and is never satisfied with what they already have.
“The decision to globalize, moving industries and markets to developing regions, is not based upon goodwill or an interest in relieving poverty. It is done to exploit countries and improve profits” (161). This idea of globalization is mostly seem as a good thing, as sharing information, but underneath is all is it really all that good? Having these big corporations move to smaller underdeveloped regions may actually be exploiting individuals for the benefits of wealthier individuals.
“Structural violence is the mother of all negative economic externalities” (187). This huge idea of structural violence has been so new and interesting to me because as a whole our society emphasizes individual violence and blame more than looking at the bigger picture. It reminded me of how we are more likely to look at things through a linear idea, so it’s easier to put it on an individual level than a structural level.
Chapter 5
Thesis: In order to prevent societal failure, we need to change the why we value items over humanity.
Evidence:
“From the dawn of agriculture, our economic structure evolved with a root socioeconomic orientation based upon competition, exploitation, and scarcity” (242). Our society is driven by such competition, that we fail to remember our culture and that we all are human beings.
“The original purpose of market interaction has been lost in our technologically advanced society, distorted into abstract, economically meaningless perversions that do little more than further ensure socioeconomic inequality, social dominance, and environmental destruction” (245). With technology with are able to access information at the tip of our fingers, but not everyone has the same access to the same information. The advancement of this technology also allows for an even more wealth gap between the rich and the poor.
“Either destruction through environmental forces will create mass social instability or the more desperate deprivation victims of unequal economic conditions will ensure deprivation-sparked backlash” (288). It really stood out to me to realize if as a society we continue down this path of materialistic want, that we could destroy our society. Or will we even have a true society if all we care about is materialistic, wealth?
Question: Are reality televisions shows a prime driver of our societies material wants? Is it possible to move our entertainment from reality television shows?
Well done, HRR team!
ReplyDeleteAll posts below this line = C/LATE.
Dr. Rob
THESIS)
ReplyDeleteChapter 4: the economic system we live in doesn't reward the idea of morality, and that lack of “maintenance” to our moral compasses has caused severe damage to our society as a whole.
Chapter 5:our social system should focus on the proper allocation of resources to ensure everyone gets the same opportunities.
EVIDENCE)
Chapter 4:
- an economically stratified society is fundamentally destabilized, manifesting a range of public-health problems.(Joseph) this is just pointing out that an economy broken into layers is fundamentally unequal, and that inequality can have side effects on public health.
- that an ideal moral compass can be fostered or perpetuated in a socioeconomic condition that doesn’t reward it.(Joseph) here he is stating how if the society you live in does not reward good behavior then you can't expect people to act good.
- economic growth or development results in inequality as a side effect. This is due to the inherently exploitative and imbalanced procedural dynamics of market economics.(Joseph) again he states how the market abuses those at the bottom.
Chapter 5:
- When the current state of productive capacity and efficiency is examined overall, we discover underutilized and potential methods that are far superior to what is being applied.(Joseph) here he is saying that we are not in the most effective system for our society
- Proper strategic management ideally mitigates scarcity to such a degree that we barely see its negative effects. (Joseph) he believes that there is enough for everyone, and if we focused on how to utilize our resources effectively instead of clamoring over what belongs to who we could solve most of our problems related to scarcity.
- there is no technical reason for any human being to be without a generally high standard of living in modern terms. (Joseph) just pointing out that inequality is entirely a product of the system we live in.
QUESTION)
What would it take for a systemic change to our society, is it even possible?
Thesis
ReplyDeleteChapter 4:Economic and social structures is something that we struggle to balance as a society.
Chapter 5:We as a society need to make a shift from valuing economics over our own people.
Evidence
Chapter 4
“We would see that about 4.2 billion people live in poverty today.That’s more than four times what the World Bank would have us believe, and more than 60% of humanity”(Pg 163 Joseph). Over 60% if our worlds population lives in poverty that is over half the world's population. We need to find away to equal out our economic system so there is more of a balance in our society.
“As corroborated by others in epidemiological research, socioeconomic inequality appears to be the greatest driver of behavioral violence in general. Gilligan states, ‘Worldwide, the most powerful predictor of the murder rate is the size of the gap in income and wealth between the rich and the poor”(Pg 179 Joseph). If there wasnt such a gad in economic power there wouldn’t be as much murder. People in poverty might feel they need to kill inorder to get their basic needs to serve, and people who are above the poverty line might feel as though they have a sense of power because of the amount of money they have and they might become violent to people who are less than themselves.
“Socioeconomic inequality is also correlated to a gradient of health and well-being such that those with higher socioeconomic status have better health than those with lower status”(Pg 180 Joseph). Individuals with more money have more access to health care and medical treatment. Individuals who live well below the poverty line struggle to afford health insurance and the coasts of out of pocket treatments are almost undoable. This is why people who have money get the treatments they need resulting in living longer and why people who can't afford to get treated typically have a shorter life span.
Chapter 5
“Yet a substantial portion of the world is still malnourished, dying of starvation. This simple fact shows that there are flaws in the economic pipeline that are producing distribution inefficiencies and exceptional waste”(Pg 238 Joseph). Because big companies are so worried about how much money they can make they will actually throw away food instead of giving it to the people who have none. This is a waste of food and people are starving everyday just because we are so worried about the concept of money.
“While one may argue that the modern wage gap between men and women is a consequence of cultural disrespect of women, we can’t forget that underpayment is a basic feature of labor exploitation, hence driven by economic motivations rather than just sexist ones”(Pg240 Joseph). The cost of living is extremely high compared to the salary average people make. It makes things even more difficult when we are not all given the same opportunities. If men make more than women it makes many families suffer. Alot of woman of single mothers, they make less than men while having to support their family, on the other hand many men are single and make more than women so they are better off and only are responsible for supporting themselves. Just because our society does not execot people of diffrent sex then what they were born with they also get paid less making it hard for them to support themselves.
“Today, people buy and sell and employ for no other reason than the pursuit of income, with no true concern over what is being bought and sold”(Pg 245 Joseph). Big companies have no remorse for the items they are producing and how it affects the world we live in and where their product is going. They also don't care about who they are hiring and firing and how that might impact people. This is all because the only thing they care about is making more and more money. They want to know what they can do to make even more money.
Question: How do we get bigger companies to think about how their business and actions are impacting lives.
Chapter #4:
ReplyDelete1) Societies are being negatively impacted by our current social and economic structures.
2)(a) The negative effects of relative poverty is only recently being realized. “Like absolute poverty, relative poverty is a socioeconomic condition that leads to a decrease in one’s well-being; people in relative poverty are unable to rise to the most common, shared standard of living in a country or the world (Joseph 158).
(b) Economic inequality between the Global North and the Global South has negatively impacted the Global South in many ways including, internal corruption, regional fracturing and destabilizing tribal warfare. “The United States, which is home to 5 percent of the world’s population, consumes 25 percent of the world’s energy production and 50 percent of the world’s waste” (Joseph 161).
(c) Consumerism is a major contributor to poverty and the class inequality issue in the United States. “In the end, this poverty of the spirit, manifested in the form of mindless consumerism, has led not only America but also the world to embrace what is a profoundly unsustainable and dehumanizing ethic. It distracts society from the source of true happiness and satisfaction, which is cultivated through social bonds, task accomplishment, and the increase of knowledge and wisdom” (Joseph 176).
Chapter #5:
ReplyDelete1) The numerous problems caused by the current socioeconomic structure can only hope to be fixed by shifting society’s focus from profit and materialistic things to the people within the society itself.
2)(a) Our society is more concerned with making a profit then the general well-being of the populace and as a result the planet’s resources are a allocated unfairly leaving millions in poverty. “What we have today isn’t really an economic system at all. It is an anti-economic system. Its focus on trade and profit translates into the system preference for general privation and conflict. It is grossly unfair in its allocation of resources, and by inherent design concentrates wealth among a few, dividing the rest of humanity into subclasses of varying relative insecurity” (Joseph 249).
(b) In today’s society, people work to make money rather than because they enjoy what they are doing and are fulfilled by the fruits of their labor. This often leads to many problems because people who enjoy doing something do a better job at what they are doing. “As philosophers have argued, work, in its truest state, is the creative act of inquiry, invention, and development. The drive to solve problems is inherent in us; our minds are simply wired that way. People have no problem working hard on what they enjoy. Unfortunately, the exploitative drudgery of our historical existence, coupled with an economic system that requires work for income, has distorted this inherent drive through arduous and monotonous labor. “Jobs” are not vocations. Jobs are structural prerequisites for survival in an economic system based upon labor-for-income. At the same time, some (rightly) see the “earn a living” reality as a mechanism of social control” (Joseph 269).
(c) Socioeconomic inequality can lead to both people in the lower classes to do unethical things because they are frustrated or so desperate to survive and people in upper classes doing unethical things to keep their status. “We cannot sustain ourselves in the long run without resolving socioeconomic inequality and the undercurrent of environment incompatibility. Either destruction through environmental forces will create mass social instability or the more desperate victims of unequal economic conditions will ensure deprivation-sparked backlash. The creation of the atomic bomb and the rise of terrorism are two diverse examples of how insecurity, competition, and fear lead to broad dangers” (Joseph 288).
3) Is any competition to succeed in the market or improve/keep one’s social status a good thing or does it all lead to issues among the classes? (i.e.; the space race, weapons race, etc.