¶ … paradoxically while the United States has the potential to alleviate poverty and increase the likelihood of even those families who are fatherless to gain an economic foothold, the politics of egalitarianism in effect stop even the best-intentioned programs. The chapter goes on to analyze why such a prosperous nation cannot consistently excel at the tasks of lifting its poorest citizen s out of poverty and into the higher levels of the socio-economic layers of the nation. Analyzing the tensions between purely an efficiency-based strategy to economic and personal income growth relative to one that focuses on equality and egalitarianism, the chapter builds a foundation for even further debate relative to efficiency vs. equality and its muted affects on the economic futures of lower-income Americans.
What is most troubling about this chapter is the structure of moving from the dichotomy of efficiency vs. equality, and the transition to how, by what approach, and through what series of philosophies the challenges of poverty can be met. The author would do better to stay focused more on the causes and effects from previous research vs. searching for the perfect solution of the tensions between efficiency and equality. Dogmatism towards economic self-determination and the tendency to look at poverty as a function of a lack of initiative does occasionally comes into the discussion, which creates more of the fallacy that for some, poverty is a choice. From the position the author seems tempted to create straw men and use them to hold up the concept of poverty as a reason why the U.S. should move more towards equality. Ultimately the chapter raises more questions and issues than it resolves, including the raising of several false dilemmas in the area of equality and the pursuit of egalitarianism in an economy that rewards competitiveness and value over social need. The author leans towards a social judgement on this issue and emerges with a series of ambiguous yet at times politically correct messages without being too polarized on either side of efficiency vs. equality, and that is the most glaring issue of all in this chapter.
But a better model for examining the public perception of police would be through "neighborhood assessments" the authors assert. An example of this is a study the authors allude to which shows youth in Philadelphia's Village-Northton district view "downtown police" as "distant, impersonal, and often actively looking for trouble"; but local police in their neighborhood are seen as friendly, working for peaceful resolutions, taking time to get to know
If consumers robotically obeyed advertising messages, then 80% of all new products would not be destined for failure, despite the over 200 billion dollars (in 1997 figures) spent by producers to bombard the senses of the consumer through every possible venue, from television to the Internet. (45; 50) Twitchell concludes that the presence of consumer culture paradoxically gives consumers the tools of empowerment by offering them new tools of self-fashioning.
If there is one certain insight gained from reading Mr. Carr's essay, it is his frameworks and taxonomies of reference are galvanized to see detrimental aspects of even the most positive, powerful innovations propelling economies forward. The ethicacy of technology cannot be judged by a lack of discernment, discipline or judgment on the part of those consuming it. Ethically Google has the responsibility to be egalitarian in their data capture,
Google is the catalyst of knowledge sharing in these industries struggling to survive. Without Google, the business processes of mass customization would not have permeated industries that need an injection of innovation to survive. An extreme example but powerful one, this revolution in the most asset-intensive industries globally puts into hard facts what Google does very well, and that is accelerate knowledge transfer. Nicholas Carr's analysis of Google dumbing us
Org Crime Organized crime underwrites the bulk of political, social, and economic history in America. What has often been mentioned in passing as legitimate business activities can and often should be reframed as organized crime, such as the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the colonial mercantilism that it supported (Woodiwiss, 2003). When organized crime is taken out of its Hollywood context, which portrays organized crime as an immigrant problem, some patterns emerge
John Locke, whose views helped to shape the values of the early American nation, equality is not just necessary in the establishment of government but is also a requisite in maintaining a safe and stable nation," (Broers, 2009). Locke based his ideas on two general observations: one is that nature exhibits ideal equality of opportunity even when there are differences between species or between individuals in each species. Equality
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