Economic and Government Systems Theory - Assignment Example

Name Lecturer Course Date 1.0 Karl Marx Alienation Alienation from the product- Capitalist mode of production is done through repetitive actions that do not give a worker the psychological satisfaction by connecting a worker to the final product. Worker does not control the purpose of what they produces as their effort is only reduced to wages. The workers cannot exercise control of their labor or determine the full value they ought to receive from what they produce. Alienation from the act of production- The capitalist class determines the design and production. They then appropriate worker’s labor and intellectual capabilities to create a product in respect to consumer tastes and preferences. All the workers efforts are direct towards the benefit of the consumers and the owners of the means of production. Alienation from humankind’s species-being- the nature of human beings is that they are connected to their activity as workers. In turn, they think of about the end of their actions. However, capitalism separate make human beings discrete as they are separated from the end products. The workers are not free to control their will as external demands imposed upon them. Through the division of labor common in capitalism mode of production, workers cannot define or direct a purposeful activity. Alienation from one another – the utmost aim of the people who owns the means of production is to extract from each work as much labor as possible. In turn, capitalism does not allow work to be a socioeconomic activity done through common effort. Each worker competes with others to attain higher wages and thus, they are alienated from mutual economic interests. (Sayers 81). 2.0 Adam Smith’s- Welfare of the Nations Adam Smith “welfare of the nations” means that when people become accountable for their decisions, they can adopt a self-sustaining system to guide actions towards production. In turn, the people will reach their planned goals; exploit all their strengths without any limitation. The people become happier and productive (Wisman and Smith 977). Additionally, they can engage their highest levels of creativity and increase satisfaction from their labor. Majority of people prefer to have or engage in meaningful role rather than income and status that is common case with modern work. Ultimately, people are talented different and endowed with varying skills. In turn, division of labor will naturally arise. Unlike the modern means of production where labor and raw material are manipulated to give a firm’s products competitive advantage over the others, a healthy free market economic atmosphere can develop as people skilled in a certain area will use similar effort in production and thus lead to healthy competition. Unlike the case where modern means of production characterized by greed and overproduction due to continuous focus on new ideas and products that will bring fast profits, supply and demand will be left to create competition. Such system eliminates huge monopolies and in turn, consumers will access best goods or services at a lower price. The utmost aim of such producers is to offer high quality products as production process will not be broken into distinct activities. People with expertise in a specific field will attend to consumers' voices and incorporate consumers’ decisions to determine the products and services in demand. 3.0 Carnegie’s Economic System Carnegie’s argument that ‘Society is a beneficiary of a competitive economic system’ is an observation that the current economy has evolved to an extent that it is able to meet the needs of individuals and groups. There are various ways in which the existing economic system meets such needs like offering diverse roles and responsibilities and having hierarchical levels of productions that did not exist in primitive society. The complex economic system also allows fast access and sharing or resources across boundaries. It creates networks of talents, skills, and efficient flows of products from one point to another. The primitive stages of economic system could be unresponsive to modern needs and diversities (Colander 17). “Social Darwinism” echoes the theory of evolution where a system develops gradually from primitive modes to complex or elaborate modes. Similar to Darwin’s theory or natural evolution, the current economic system was once primitive where people could involve and direct the process of production. In turn, they would access the markets and supply to meet the demand. However, with the advancement of the economic system, people carry out a distinct activity at each level in the production process. Specialization is of essence to allow for fast production as well as incorporate different people in the production process which would not be applicable in the primitive economy. However, production process keeps changing to dynamically fit to changing times and thus, only the people who continually adopts efficient mechanisms in the production process do survive in modern economic times. 4.0 Rawls- Two principles The first principle emphasizes on the equal right of each person as basic liberty. All people afford extensive basic liberty. The country’s safeguards all these rights and prioritize on them as primary and necessary for the well-being of each citizen. Rawls uses the nature of the first principle to justify the need to safeguard the second principle of justice. It is a view that, if the first principle is applicable to all citizens, then the second principle can still be applicable with government efforts. In turn, if the government attempts to strike the right balance, then the existing social and economic inequalities can be reduced. The government has the power to re-arrange social and economic framework to ensure that just as least-advantaged members of the society enjoy extensive rights in the first principle, they can enjoy by accessing to offices and positions (Banerjee 190). The original position is used to derive the two principles. Though the original position simply responds to a certain purpose, the second principle ignores the fair choice made by fee citizens. In the second principle, Rawls did not consider how individual actions predict or lead to a certain outcome. Social and economic inequalities do not spring from government inaction to set a common standard where all members of the society benefit equally. Any citizen who is afforded the first principle basic rights can affect their status in the second. The government does not need to intervene to force circumstances, decisions and outcomes. 5.0 Radin and Werhane- “At Will Employment” Radin and Werhane argues against ‘at will’ employment majorly by the way it violates some basic rights of employees once they are hired. Some of the most basic rights an employee forfeits include the right to privacy, certain property rights, free speech and due process. The arrangements allow the employer to fire an employee without for no cause. In case employees say something that appears objectionable to the employers and are fired, that violates the entitlement to free speech. An employee can also be searched at any time and be required to submit a random drug test which ultimately violates the rights to privacy. Even in face of certain legal restrictions that guard against some employers’ actions, fair work environment is only developed to favor the employer. A company always seeks to gain a reputation and good image to the public. In turn, fair treatment of its employees allows it to attract the highly qualified and skilled employees. On the other hand, many companies require their employees to engage in training practices that are against at will employment. An employee might be unwilling to go through such training but circumstances set by the employer means that he has to sustain the job. That way, the company ensures that it keep the best and highly qualified employees. Though training and retraining goes against at will, it is the only way employee benefit as they increase their professional skills and personal development (Capaldi 1226). 6.0 McIntosh- Hierarchical privileges McIntosh argument shows that the world has different kinds of privileges. However, the male and European Whites appear to be the privileged group that is commonly treated to determine the baseline against which the female and minority-race are compared. The social actors see this as ordinary and that has further led to establishment of social groups with distinct hierarchies in power and dominance. Socially privileged status and positions are one-sided imbalance of social power since they disregard that people are endowed with varying abilities. For instance, male-identified individuals hold a high level of privilege over those of other genders. Men are then overrepresented in leadership with their perspectives and stories continuing to be vastly overrepresented (Pratto and Stewart 32). In the West, racial privilege is highly related to white privilege. Money, power and influence are highly concentrated among the Caucasians in U.S and Europe. In turn, racial privilege exists as institutionalized racism where white are privileged over the others. There are a number of implications of imbalance of social power in the society today. For instance, the modern media race plays a lot in determining the roles and character types. The blacks and minority takes a demeaning role. The western culture that is dominant today promotes their religious privilege where their own religious observances are recognized as the standard norm. The other religions are represented as strange or overly mystical. Heterosexuals are more privileged and others are looked at as queer. Education privilege is sometimes used to confer unearned credibility to some people. 7.0 Social networking ethics Social networking ethics has emerged as a contemporary business ethic. Employees are increasingly losing their jobs due to objectionable comments made regarding an employer or a co-worker on social networking sites. The challenge has affected the business industry as whole as use of these sites has various consequences. Employers have also set policies in regard to use of such website when employees are at work and what they is accepted to be posted. The issue has gone to an extent where by employers use a program to monitor their employees’ site status, forum posts and status updates. That has blurred the between employer’s right to monitor employee and the right of privacy (Clark and Roberts 509). To me, monitoring employee social life reveals that the relationship between an employer and employee is that of mistrust. Incidences where employer monitors an employee’s updates may not only affect the employee work performance but can also damage the image of an organization. Employer-employee relationship should be driven by mutual-respect. In turn, the employer just need to state what is prohibited and allows employees to act from the point of information rather than manning their updates and comments on social websites. Having a good policy and continually engaging with the employees of the implications of their comment about their employer or the organization will help address the negative issues to be tackled and avoid such disparaging actions by the employees. The action suggested above appears to be a proactive approach rather than the reactive one where employee monitors employees. In turn, it eliminates the possibility of such comments from occurring at the first place. Works Cited Banerjee, Mahasweta M. "SOCIAL Work scholars'representation of Rawls: a critique." Journal of Social Work Education 47.2 (2011): 189-211. Capaldi, Nicholas. "Pro-market versus anti-market approaches to business ethics." Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics. Springer Netherlands, 2013. 1223-1238. Clark, Leigh A., and Sherry J. Roberts. "Employer’s use of social networking sites: A socially irresponsible practice." Journal of Business Ethics 95.4 (2010): 507-525. Colander, David. "Capitalism as a Complex Evolving System." Ekonomi-tek-International Economics Journal 3.1 (2014): 13-22. Pratto, Felicia, and Andrew L. Stewart. "Group dominance and the half‐blindness of privilege." Journal of Social Issues 68.1 (2012): 28-45. Sayers, Sean. "Marx and alienation: essays on Hegelian themes." social & political thought (2011): 81. Wisman, Jon D., and James F. Smith. "Legitimating inequality: Fooling most of the people all of the time." American Journal of Economics and Sociology 70.4 (2011): 974-1013. Read More

Unlike the case where modern means of production characterized by greed and overproduction due to continuous focus on new ideas and products that will bring fast profits, supply and demand will be left to create competition. Such system eliminates huge monopolies and in turn, consumers will access best goods or services at a lower price. The utmost aim of such producers is to offer high quality products as production process will not be broken into distinct activities. People with expertise in a specific field will attend to consumers' voices and incorporate consumers’ decisions to determine the products and services in demand. 3.0 Carnegie’s Economic System Carnegie’s argument that ‘Society is a beneficiary of a competitive economic system’ is an observation that the current economy has evolved to an extent that it is able to meet the needs of individuals and groups.

There are various ways in which the existing economic system meets such needs like offering diverse roles and responsibilities and having hierarchical levels of productions that did not exist in primitive society. The complex economic system also allows fast access and sharing or resources across boundaries. It creates networks of talents, skills, and efficient flows of products from one point to another. The primitive stages of economic system could be unresponsive to modern needs and diversities (Colander 17).

“Social Darwinism” echoes the theory of evolution where a system develops gradually from primitive modes to complex or elaborate modes. Similar to Darwin’s theory or natural evolution, the current economic system was once primitive where people could involve and direct the process of production. In turn, they would access the markets and supply to meet the demand. However, with the advancement of the economic system, people carry out a distinct activity at each level in the production process.

Specialization is of essence to allow for fast production as well as incorporate different people in the production process which would not be applicable in the primitive economy. However, production process keeps changing to dynamically fit to changing times and thus, only the people who continually adopts efficient mechanisms in the production process do survive in modern economic times. 4.0 Rawls- Two principles The first principle emphasizes on the equal right of each person as basic liberty.

All people afford extensive basic liberty. The country’s safeguards all these rights and prioritize on them as primary and necessary for the well-being of each citizen. Rawls uses the nature of the first principle to justify the need to safeguard the second principle of justice. It is a view that, if the first principle is applicable to all citizens, then the second principle can still be applicable with government efforts. In turn, if the government attempts to strike the right balance, then the existing social and economic inequalities can be reduced.

The government has the power to re-arrange social and economic framework to ensure that just as least-advantaged members of the society enjoy extensive rights in the first principle, they can enjoy by accessing to offices and positions (Banerjee 190). The original position is used to derive the two principles. Though the original position simply responds to a certain purpose, the second principle ignores the fair choice made by fee citizens. In the second principle, Rawls did not consider how individual actions predict or lead to a certain outcome.

Social and economic inequalities do not spring from government inaction to set a common standard where all members of the society benefit equally. Any citizen who is afforded the first principle basic rights can affect their status in the second. The government does not need to intervene to force circumstances, decisions and outcomes. 5.0 Radin and Werhane- “At Will Employment” Radin and Werhane argues against ‘at will’ employment majorly by the way it violates some basic rights of employees once they are hired.

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