Counterculture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Counterculture - Essay Example The counter-culture is the cultural counterpart of of political opposition. This is a new sociological term coined by Theodore Roszak, an American social thinker, whose writings are frequently linked with the "alternative or " "new age" movements. It is Roszak who narrated and explained the European and North American counterculture of the 1960s in his book The Making of a Counter Culture (1969). However, mentions about the term also exist in earlier times, as Stein Rokkan in his models in political science, used the expression to depict the fight of the marginal against the authoritative mainstream central state-and nation-building and that kind of cultural homogenization in 1967 (Alford et al, 1974). Loosely speaking, countercultural trends are prsent in many societies, but what Roszak et al here means is a more important and noticeable trend, reaching a significant target for a certain span of time, a movement expressing the culture, hopes and dreams of a paricular group of people during an epoch - a social expression of zeitgeist, the typical spirit of a historical epoch in its entirety (Zeit contains the sense of "era"), the idea is derived from the belief that the time has a objective meaning and is instilled with content In this sense Countercultural ambiances in 19th century Europe took in the Romantic, Bohemian and the Dandy movements (Dictionary of the History, lib.virginia.edu ). Another movement in the 1950's, Beat generation/Beatniks also had traces of counter culture in it, followed in the 1960s by the hippies. The term 'counterculture' became important in the news media as it referred to the social revolution swaying North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia a nd New Zealand during the 1960s and early 1970s (Roszak, 1969). In modern history of the western world (and for that matter, the world in its entireity) countreculture is often placed synonymouly with the turbulent decades of the 1960os and 1970's that was, accoding to Roszak, a social and political response to the pretense of the mainstream worldly culture from which it rose. In the The Making of a Counter Culture he handles rather truthfully the tensions, problems and incongruities connected with the ascent of the counterculture and the inherent problems it had with it to ultimately heralding for the worldly normal culture. History, no doubt, shows that the philosophy of the 1960s was squashed by the crushing attack of the system and the political and social values of the counterculture finally joined into the realm of private philosophies of hippies as absorbed into the mainstream. Yet while earlier studies on the sixties focus mainly on the "hippie" era, or on the sex, the drugs, and the music, Roszak focuses mostly on the political and soci al issues of the time including everything from the Vietnam War to how the effect of counter culture on lifestyles of an average American family. He assesses thoroughly the bond between the late 1960's counterculture to avant-garde intellectual ideas of the same age, discussing those of Herbert Marcuse and Norman Brown, among others, in great detail to show clearly how their ideas affected the intellectual and political movements on college campuses in both America and Europe with a remarkable insight especially considering that he wrote The Making of a Counter Culture almost on the same time while the events were still expanding. The counter culture of the 1960's and the 1970's, Roszak shows us, was

INNOVATION (Strategic alliances) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

INNOVATION (Strategic alliances) - Essay Example In business, innovation can be defined as the exploitation of new ideas that find acceptance in the market. These ideas, most often, are incorporated into new processes, technology, best practices and designs (Sarkar 2007, p.2). Some of these ideas may end up causing a complete overhaul to an organization’s operation and range of products. Most of the innovated products are based on the ideas of others or a modification of existing products. In summary, innovation process encompasses; getting a new idea or modifying an old one, reorganization of existing opportunities or those that can be promoted, choice of best alternatives and application of the process and the idea (Sarkar 2007, p.2). Innovation may be as a result of the need to meet the needs of consumers or improve the way of doing things. Companies that fail to embrace innovation have often found themselves left behind by their competitors, leading to the loss of their market niche. The focus on the theories of innovation varies because there are different views on the process of innovation and the factors that lead to the development of innovation. The theories may focus on; (a) technological development, R&D and technical research functions in a company, (b) the individual who creates and develops the new elements, and (c) issues of innovation in the market place (Sundo 1998, p.4). It involves the exchange of technology between two or more companies. Strategic alliances are characterized by risk sharing and mutual commitment in respect to the attainment of specified economic and technological goals and objectives. These alliances tend to arise from the willingness and desire of one firm to assist the other in overall development of the firm business and/or exploitation of certain technological assets portfolio. An example is when the firms in the alliance want to (a) form a joint venture in research and distribution, or (b) enter a joint development agreement, or (c) enter

The Challenges Faced By Environmental Management Systems Business Essay

The Challenges Faced By Environmental Management Systems Business Essay This research is about the Environmental Management System (ISO 14001) and does the packaging companies adopted (ISO 14001) because as we know packaging industry is one of the industry that generate massive amount of waste. Thus this waste must be managed carefully to reduce the impact to the environment. Further investigation will be carry out into the role that the packaging companies played towards the current environmental issues. Basically an Environmental Management System is a management system that can helps an organization to manage its environmental impacts and also a way which can minimize such impacts effectively in the long run. The packaging industry is an industry that responsible to enclosing or protecting certain products for distribution, longer duration of storage and also for marketing purposes to attract consumers. The environmental issue has been always the world agenda since early of 1992 when a group of international organisations for examples the United Nations Conference in Environmental and Development, World Health Organization and also the Non- Governmental Organization setting standards to maintain sustainable environment. The term sustainable environment was used by the well known Brundtland Commission which is now widely been quoted as development that meets the needs of present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The Environmental Management System (ISO 14001) is one of the standards in the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) family tree and the British Standard BS 7750 was the first standard to be created at that time. According to Krut and Gleckman (1998): This international association of national standard- setting bodies was set up to facilitate international commerce by standardizing technical specifications. It works closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). In many areas, from ATM cards to telecommunication bandwidths to plumping supplies, business and the public experience significant advantages from ISO and IEC activity. (Kurt and Gleckman, 1998, pp.2). Although the issues of environmental being a great debate from different group of people especially the environmentalist but there is still lack of awareness among the public itself. This is also due to the lack of commitment from the local government to convey this important message to the public. This topic was chosen because the researcher took the subject of Environmental Issues in Business before and found that in order to sustain in a business first we have to understand well about what is the Sustainable Environment and how does it affect a business in the long run. Research Aims Objectives The aim of this research is to examine the Environmental Management System (ISO 14001) practices in packaging companies located in North East of England. This followed by 3 objectives to fit with the aim above and there are: to identify the reasons of the adoption of the Environmental Management System, to identify the problems companies faced when getting certified to ISO 14001, and lastly to examine the companys performance before and after adopting the Environmental Management System. Literature Review In this section will discuss about the previous research has been done to this topic and also demonstrate to the reader how well does the researcher knows about this particular topic of Environmental Management System (ISO 14001). Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2007, p.57) commented that reviewing the literature critically will provide the foundation on which your research is built and also the main purpose is to help the researcher to develop a good understanding and insight into relevant previous research and the trend that have emerged. There are plenty of books, journals and articles discussing about the environmental issues, how does the industrial sector can minimize their waste by adopting the Environmental Management System and also why businesses needs to play an important role towards the sustainability of the environment. No doubt all human being living in this world today does created much of their own waste (motor cars and the consumptions of CFCs in air conditioners or refrigerators) to the environment itself but the waste and pollutions created from the industrial sector are much more severe. According to Whitelaw (1997): If we look back to the to the Industrial Revolution, we might see this as the period when the inventiveness and innovation of human beings, and the resultant mechanization of manufacturing processes began to have negative impacts upon the environment. Prior to this period, any negative environmental impacts tended to be localized for example, forest were cut down without any future regard. (Whitelaw, 1997, pp. 2). Another author does agree with the same argument above and stated that: Businesses are the core of the environmental debate and are central both to the pollution problem and to the solutionthe activities of industry provide employment, and investments drive economic growth. However, in doing so, be it because of the resources that they consumer, the processes they apply or the products that they manufacture, business activities are a major contributor to environmental destruction. (Welford, 1994, pp. 3). One of the solutions for businesses to minimize their wastage is to implement the Environmental Management System (EMS) and getting certification of ISO 14001. Jorgensen (2000) defined the EMS: An EMS is part of the enterprises overall management system. It includes the organizational structure, planning activities, responsibilities, practices, procedures, processes and resources for implementing and maintaining environmental management. It includes those aspects of management that plan, develop, implement, achieve, review, maintain and improve the enterprises environmental policy, objectives and targets. (Jorgensen, 2000, pp.75). Implementing the EMS does not only helps businesses to reduce their wastage but also will improve the environmental performance and this can lead to a better corporate image of the businesses itself. According to Jorgensen (2000): EMS offers a structured and systematic method to incorporate environmental care in all aspects of business. The aim is not only to comply with environmental regulations and minimize the (financial) risks of liabilities and costs but to improve the environmental performance continuously and through this improve corporate image and gain competitive advantage. (Jorgensen, 2000, pp. 75). There are many large organizations for example BT Group in UK which takes the environmental management very seriously into their business. According to BT Group: In 1990 the BT Board made a commitment to optimise environmental management across the company. Since then, we have made real strides towards our goal of world class environmental management. Climate change is higher than ever on the agenda for government and business. BTs response to this is a new plan which takes some ambitious steps to cut our emissions of carbon dioxide. Having already reduced our carbon footprint by 58% in the UK, we have now set a target to achieve an 80% reduction in our carbon intensity worldwide by 2020. BT consumes 0.7% of the UKs entire electricity, so we think we can make an important difference. We have pledged to reduce the amount of carbon we emit as a business and help others to do the same. We are encouraging our suppliers, customers and employees to take action. We also believe that communications technology can be harnessed to help address climate change. (http://www.btplc.com/Societyandenvironment/Environmentandclimatechange/Environmentandclimatec hange.htm, no date). Further discussion of the objectives and more detailed literature review will be covered in the later part of this research project. Methodology Research Approach Strategy The research approach that will be use to apply in this topic is the Inductive Approach. Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2007, p. 118) commented that the purpose (Inductive Approach) here would be to get a feel of what was going on, so as to understand better the nature of the problem. This approach is best to be combining with the qualitative data and is being suggested to use different kind of methods to collect the data in order to get different point of view. (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2007, p.119). Since the environmental issues can be categorized under the real life context, the Case Study Strategy is more suitable to use in this research as the case study strategy is based on a real life context investigation. Types of information required Information that is required for this research is to find out how the environmental issues affect the business sector especially the packaging companies in the north east of England (regulations that needs to be follow, government, investor and also the public pressure), did the business owners take any initiative to protect the environment, some useful data from the Environment Agency in UK, why those companies choose to adopt the EMS or get certified for ISO 14001 (corporate image, attract more investors and consumers, able to help the companies in certain way or just for the seek for adopting it) and lastly to compare the performance before and after adopting the EMS and also to create awareness to the companies that the importance of sustainable environment/business. Data collection The main data collection for this research project will be from conducting an interview with around 8 packaging companies that are located in the North East of England. The length of each interview will be approximately 15-25 minutes. Voice recording, video recording and notes taking will be acquire to form a transcript at the later part for this research. Semi- structured interviews is the type of interview to be use in this research as questions from interview can be omit or vary according to the background of the company and also the background of the interviewee. Secondary Data The secondary data collection is also one of the ways to collect data for the research project. Secondary data consists of 3 types and there are Documentary Secondary Data, Multiple Source- Secondary Data and the Survey Secondary Data. In order to meet the objectives in this research project, reports and database from the potential companies are very valuable and in addition the journals, articles, newspaper and also books publication could also be sources for this research. Documentary Secondary Data and the Multiple Source- Secondary Data will be used in the research. Methods/Strategy linked to project objectives

Technology And The Stock Market Essay -- essays research papers

The purpose of this research paper is to prove that technology has been good for the stock market. Thanks to technology, there are now more traders than ever because of the ease of trading online with firms such as Auditrade and Ameritrade. There are also more stocks that are doing well because they are in the technology field. The New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ have both benefitted from the recent technological movement.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The NYSE says they â€Å"are dedicated to maintaining the most efficient and technologically advanced marketplace in the world.† The key to that leadership has been the state-of-the-art technology and systems development. Technology serves to support and enhance the human judgement at point-of-sale.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  NASDAQ, the world’s first fully electronic stock market, started trading on February 8th, 1971. Today, it is the fastest growing stock market in the United States. It alo ranks second among the world’s securities in terms of dollar value. By constantly evolving to meet the changing needs of investors and public companies, NASDAQ has achieved more than almost any other market, in a shorter period of time.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Technology has also helped investors buy stocks in other markets. Markets used to open at standard local times. This would cause an American trader to sleep through the majority of a Japanese trading day. With more online and afterhours trading, investors have more access to markets so that American traders can still trade Japanese stocks. This is also helped by an expansion of most market times. Afterhours trading is available from most online trading firms.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  For investing specialists, technology provides operational capability for handling more stocks and greatly increased volumes of trading. Specialists can follow additional sources of market information, and multiple trading and post-trade functions, all on â€Å"one screen† at work or at home. They are also given interfaces to â€Å"upstairs† risk-management systems. They also have flexiblity to rearrange their physical workspaces, terminals and functional activities.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Floor brokers are helped with supports for an industry-wide effort to compare buy/sell contracts for accuracy shortly after the trade. They are also given flexibility in establishing w... ...e Hand-Held is a mobile, hand-held device that enables brokers to recieve orders, disseminate reports, and send market â€Å"looks† in both data and image format, from anywhere on the trading floor.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Intermarket Trading System is a display that was installed in 1978 linking all major U.S. exchanges. ITS allows NYSE and NASDAQ specialists and brokers to compare the price of a security traded on multiple exchanges in order to get the best price for the investor.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  These are the machines that have helped greatly increase the buying and selling of stocks over the past few years. There are great advantages to trading today over the situation that past traders had. The biggest beneficiaries of this new technology are investors themselves. They have all day to trade instead of trading only during market hours, they have more stocks to choose from, and the markets are very high so people are making a lot of money. In conclusion, I have discovered that the research I have done on this project has revealed what I originally thought to be true. That is that the stock market has greatly benefitted from the recent advances in technologies.

All Men Came from the Seed of Adam

The Book of Genesis in the Old Testament Chapter 1 and 2 is an account of creation of man and the universe and Chapter 3 accounted on how the woman committed disobedience, the reason why with her husband they were thrown out from the Garden of Eden. And it was the beginning of knowledge between good and evil, death, and hardship that is brought by toil. Toil in which civilization has also began. The next Chapters narrate the growth of the family of Adam from Cain to the murder of his brother Abel, and from Noah to Moses until the death of Joseph in Egypt.These are just simply myths to unbelievers but some historical accounts have been proven by archeologists, scholars, and the order of creation itself. The Book which is authored by the Maker of heaven and earth is written in Hebrew, Greek Septuagint, Latin Vulgate, and the King James Version. Authentication of the Bible is being disputed by many scholars. In the Greek and Latin Versions, the Book contains the apocryphal writings whic h the King James Bible has disregarded (Marlowe).The Bible in fact, authenticates the history of man and the order of the universe explains that someone had caused it to happen. However, the Old Testament speaks of two accounts of the same situation; one version is kept sacred by older people we call Yahwist version and the other is of earlier version which can create possibilities of different interpretation. The best way to authenticate a work is to ask the author but in the case of the Holy Scripture, the one whom the Holy Books belong is of the highest authority and that’s what makes it difficult for anyone to prove.Besides, the mystery of God and creation is so great for man to grasp. The Words of God are slowly revealed from one generation to another until the â€Å"Adventus†, the coming of Christ, his birth, salvific mission and redemption. And the â€Å"Parousia† which is the awaited second coming of Christ, the coming of the new heaven and the new earth which can be read in the book of Revelations. However, the old people defend its sacredness and authenticity by the universality of the teachings found in the book.The Holy Book was backed up by Sacred Tradition that narrates the life and times of the prominent names in the Bible during that specific period, it further explains some of the old customs and traditions that was apparent in their times which explains some words that may have already changed. Latin is a helpful tool in finding meanings since it is a dead language; it enables the scholars to determine what a specific word truly means because the word in the Latin language no longer changes its meanings for example the word brethren which during the time of Jesus is interpreted as cousins and not necessarily as siblings.Chapter 1 Summarizes creation and narrates very briefly that man was created on the 6th day. 26 God said, â€Å"Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of t he fish of the sea, of heaven, †¦.. † 27 God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them, saying to them, â€Å"Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all the living creatures that move on earth. â€Å"God in the 28th verse explicitly told that man inherited the earth and heaven, the race of Adam inherits creation that made him in His image and likeness. However, verse 26 speaks in plural form (â€Å"Let us make man in our own image) but verse 27 spoke in the singular form â€Å"man in the image of himself†. Those words are a magnificent revelation on the mystery of the one triune God. And the verses explain that it is both. When God speaks in the verses He always says heaven and earth, and pondering upon those words someone will realize that Eden before the fall of man is heaven and earth at the same time whi le the portal of heaven is named a vault.In fact, reflecting on the verses reveal truths by realizing that God do not and never contradicts Him self. And by the word â€Å"Our† it further explain that God is the same as yesterday, today, and tomorrow the only one that never changes which separates Him from the created and being the Creator, the ultimate cause of all things. In saying â€Å"Ours†, it reveals the Second and the Third Persons of the Trinity. Specifically, the Creator of heaven and earth call the first man Adam and from his rib God created the woman as quoted in the Old Testament Chapter 2:7 Yahweh God shaped man from the soil of the ground and blew the breath of life into his nostrils, and man became a living being. 22 Yahweh God fashioned the rib he had taken from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man. Furthermore, in Chapter 3 very specific that man came one singular parent 20 The man named his wife â€Å"Eve† because she was the mothe r of all those who live. Again the verses signify that all mankind born came from the one set of parent that is Adam and Eve coming from the ancestral home which is called Eden being created by a Supreme Being.In the following Chapters of Genesis, the book narrates succession of offspring’s from one sets of parent from the descendant of Adam. It narrated how verse 28 of Chapter 1 came to be. God asked man to co-create with Him and gave them long life of about nine hundred years in order to procreate. Probably many have wandered through the earth and these were the Gentiles described in the New Testament. Cain on the other hand, being an outcast may have wandered too and met also another wandering sister and they were able to form the next generation.Chapter 4 and 5 named the man Adam, and the next verses gave man his genealogy. Chapter 6 continued that the earth is already populated and God decided to shorten man’s life-span to a hundred and twenty years. Verse two als o mentioned that â€Å"2 the sons of God, looking at the women, saw how beautiful they were and married as many of them as they chose. The revelation in the Old Testament clarifies that the whole of humanity came from the seed of Adam and Eve and from East the direction to which God pointed out that from Eden Adam’s flock to Cain’s have wandered the earth to cultivate the land.The beginning of man in the revelation depicts a rational man and God even asked him to name the things of creation, by reading the verses it is concise that man is immediately capable of language and trade. Adam and Eve are pristinely made just perhaps similar to the best technology when it is first invented. However, a need to test a material is important that is why there has to be a tree of life of which obedience of created beings to the Maker will be manifested. Eve allured Adam and to justify her sin came into being a new Eve.God’s work after creation continued though man, and his promised to recreate the heaven and earth because of the sin of Adam and Eve was mentioned in Verse 15 â€Å"I shall put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; it will bruise your head and you will strike its heel (God). † This verse is very much connected in the New Testament and since it is a parallel document, one way or another it shed light for logical thinking. Man history originates from one points of origin. The first man and woman are intelligent beings knowing what is good and evil.They have multiplied and may have wandered the earth when land bridges still connects the continents. No wonder there are civilization like Egypt and others which until today can be depicted by its remaining ancient architecture. Each band may have lived in different time zones of the world, and was able to adapt to its own environment. Its culture grows as the ancient people ages; imagine men living up to nine hundred years? What a vast knowledge and wealt h would one accumulates because of that long duration in time.Despite of so many relevant interpretations, the Bible is the oldest document that is ever written and really never gets outdated. It answers man’s yearning throughout history and has brought many souls to believe and search for knowledge of truths. Works Cited God, Word of. â€Å"NJB : Genesis – Chapter 3. † (1985). 17 March 2008 . Marlowe, Michael D. â€Å"The Old Testament Canon and Apocrypha. † (2007). 17 March 2008 .

Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel Essay

The Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman was praised by The Economist (2006) as â€Å"the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century†¦possibly of all of it†. In 1970, he published an essay on the social responsibility of business in the New York Times Magazine. In his article, he explains in complex detail about the notion of â€Å"social responsibility† of businessmen within a corporate environment and their goal to increase profits. Indeed, at first glance, this quote seems to capture the mentality of many of the actors in the financial sector in our era. Banks and financial institutions are accused of acting unethically and only in their self-interest to increase profits along with brokers and investment bankers who are accused of primarily aiming high incentives and bonuses by selling unconscionably high-default assets. Scholars argued that corporate governance failings and lack of ethical behaviour were significant causes of the financial crisis of autumn 2008 (Skypala, 2008). This essay discusses the question whether the above statement made by famous economist Milton Friedman is still relevant in the context of business today and to what extent it is relating to the financial sector and in particular to the financial crisis of autumn 2008. In order to address this problem, it is important to discuss the fundamental view behind Friedman’s idea since it needs to be fully understood and interpreted. He stated that the social responsibility of business was to maximize profits and to create value for stockholders within the bounds of the law. Furthermore, he thought that using corporate resources for purely altruistic purposes would be socialism. Moreover, corporations had no social responsibility other than to spend its resources to increase the profits of its investors since only investors as individuals could decide to engage in social contributions. Thus, he believed that the corporate executives, who were appointed by investors to make profits on investments, could not engage in social contributions using the corporate money. As a result, they could only do so as a private individual on their own behalf. Friedman devoted â€Å"social responsibility† to violating the interest of the manager’s employers. In other words, if managers invest in â€Å"social responsible† projects, they will harm the business since these investments will result in inefficiency and lost production leading to a reduction in shareholder’s wealth. His idea and the logic behind it have proven unconvincing to many scholars (Mulligan, 1986; Feldman, 2007; Wilcke, 2004). Indeed, several arguments can be shown which offset his idea. Firstly, his theory does not allow for the possibility that profits and social responsibility can ever exist together. It is necessary to consider the constraint noted by Jensen (2002) who indicated that it is â€Å"logically impossible to maximize in more than one dimension at the same time unless the dimensions are monotone transformations of one another†. This constraint implies that profits and social performance cannot be maximized simultaneously. That is why there is a trade-off between profits and social performance. Still, it does not mean that profit maximization and social performance cannot be congruent. In reality, there are many examples which show that both can coexist. Several reasons are to be mentioned here. Nowadays, banks and financial institutions are more aware of their role towards the society since they realize that they are an integral part of it. Furthermore, they notice that they can contribute positively to the environment and society with a positive effect on their reputation, creating a higher firm value. Furthermore, since numerous scandals of firms violating morality and ethics in the late 1990s and early 2000s (e. g. WorldCom and Enron) the significance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is increasing tremendously and included in the business culture of most of the financial institutions today. The concept of CSR means that â€Å"corporations have ethical and moral responsibilities in addition to their responsibilities to earn a fair return for investors and comply with the law† (Munstermann, 2007). So, almost every large corporation is increasingly investing to improve its performance on sustainability assets. Banks and financial institutions know that society is always enlightened when it sees that a firm is engaged in charity and donating projects. While it is true that engagement in â€Å"social responsible† projects, for example donating for orphans of the developing countries means explicitly higher expenses and hence, reducing the profit, it has a long term profit as well. Engagement in donating projects has a positive effect on the reputation of firms, thus, affecting positively the consumer behavior of customers who will buy more products of firm, thus creating profit. Friedman also never considers the very real possibility that companies engaging in â€Å"social responsible† projects gain the support from the community and polity that might, otherwise, eventually turn against them. Nowadays, almost all companies working in the financial sector are in some kind of way socially engaged. Looking at websites of famous big banks like Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley, one can find headings of Corporate Social Responsibility throughout the pages. Deutsche Bank has its own report on CSR for each year which reports engagement in AIDS projects in South Africa and support of education for children in India. JP Morgan reported an annual donation amount of $110 million for organization in 33 different countries and Goldman Sachs is actively involved in environmental projects. This shows that almost 4 decades after the famous essay of Friedman, companies do not follow his sole idea anymore but are – or are forced to – act socially responsible. On the other hand, a business should try to make profit since it is inherent in its nature and by definition (except for non-profit organization). According to the Business Dictionary, a business is an â€Å"economic system in which goods and services are exchanged for one another or money. Every business requires some form of investment and a sufficient number of customers to whom its output can be sold at profit on a consistent basis. † If a company does not make profit on a consistent and long-term basis, it will face financial distress and bankruptcy. Then, employees and workers will become unemployed which will affect the society negatively. For example, all the employees of banks going bankrupt in the financial crisis like Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae and Lehman Brothers were facing hardship. Hence, it is true that businesses are to a certain extent socially responsible to make profit in order to ensure job security and to create more jobs. This helps the society and improves the economy of the society. But Friedman does not consider the fact that if companies’ sole interest would be profit making, they can harm people and the surrounding environment. What if firms poison the water by disposing chemicals in rivers and sea – disposing toxic that leads to illnesses and death of animals and human beings? Friedman also fails to argue whether profit-generating actions like selling nuclear bombs to terror organizations, or knowingly manufacturing and selling defective, health-threatening products count as social responsibility as long as the company makes profit. Evidently, in the financial sector there are not activities such as producing bombs or life-threatening drugs. Even though this sector cannot produce life-threatening products, it can create a value chain of unethical and careless activities that can damage the whole world as well. One example is the Asian financial crisis in 1997 where moral hazards were mentioned as a major cause. Moral hazards are â€Å"negligent and fraudulent insureds† (Baker, 2000). It also refers to situation that tempted otherwise good people. The problem with moral hazards in the Asian financial crisis was that Asian banks thought that they would receive implicit guarantees that they would be bailed out if they encountered financial distress. Hence, these banks and companies were much more speculative in their investments and kept investing increasingly. If the investments fail, they will not have to bear the cost since it will be picked up by the government. They were playing with people’s money and did not act in the social interest of their customers. Instead, they were only focussing on making as much profit as possible. The result is known to everybody: In 1997 the nations of East Asia experienced the worst economic crisis they have never seen before. Obviously, the latest and most discussed topic on morality in the two recent years has been the culpability of shareholders and banks along with board directors for failings that led to the financial crisis of 2008. On the one hand, the crisis can be blamed on mortgage brokers, investment bankers and banks’ executives. Skewed incentives and greed contributed too much of the crisis. For example, mortgage brokers generate sub-prime mortgages but were paid regardless of the outcome. That is why they were selling unscrupulously assets with high default risk to clueless customers in order to receive high commissions. Not to mention â€Å"Wall Street Executives† who were focusing solely on how to increase their bonuses and remuneration packages. Also, Banks who took on these mortgages were accused of shoddy risk management and unethical behaviour, since they knew from the beginning that these subprime mortgages would eventually be securitized and removed from the bank’s balance sheet. Again, the originating banks got paid up front for processing the mortgages without having to retain part of the risk. Another factor is the misleading ratings of financial instruments credit agencies that were by far from independent. Arrangers of the secured assets were allowed to manipulate the creation of secured assets by mixing good assets with high risk assets to the point of getting a triple A-rating. If they did not get this rating, the assets were withdrawn, reconfigured and resubmitted. Since agencies are owned by banks, they were subjected to give best ratings to these dangerous assets and mortgage brokers knowing the risky idea behind those assets sold them to unsuspecting investors. According to Friedman, every party involved in the actions mentioned above showed â€Å"social responsibility† since they did not care about their social responsibility to the world but only about maximizing their profits. Evidently, the aftermath of the American financial crisis has shown that the social responsibility of business is definitely not only to increase their profits. If banks, brokers and lenders, accountants, the government and important financial organization did not incorrectly assessed or even ignored the magnitude of the risks mentioned above, if managers and investment bankers were not greedy and showed herd investment behavior, it can be argued that the crisis could have been prevented. But the various parties acted immorally and socially irresponsible not caring about the social consequences of their actions. Consequently, the Asian crisis of 1997 and the global financial crisis of 2008 are two memorable examples that offset Friedman’s idea. In conclusion, this paper has shown that Friedman’s request of being socially responsible by focusing solely on increasing profits is nowadays theoretically not accepted by banks and financial institutions. In contrast, in the 21st century social responsible corresponds to the alignment of business operations with social and ethical values. It is seen as the key to beat the competitor and to ensure sustainable growth. But the latest financial crisis has shown that even though CSR is part of the business culture of the large corporations, the key players in the large corporations do not practice social responsibility in a proper manner. It seems that CSR and corporate governance are a compilation of words and rules that adds only little value to the everyday businesses. Money has made everybody blind. Everybody wanted to have a piece of the big cake leading them to lower their inhibition threshold. The â€Å"social responsibility† of businesses should not be increasing profit but focusing on what it really means in practice to encourage stewardship. As a matter of fact, banks and financial institutions first need to show social and ethical manner in order to prevent another disaster like the financial crisis of 2008. All in all, businesses need to focus on environmental and social issues in the arena of corporate responsibility since the society expects and demands responsibility of organizations. In fact, the law expects it as well. Banks and financial institutions are challenged after the aftermath of the financial crisis – they have to find a way how to act in the best interest of stakeholders, society, the government and the environment, still being able to make sustainable profit. It is now a request from the society. ? References Baker, T. (2000). Insuring Morality. Business Dictionary. Definition of business. Homepage: http://www. businessdictionary. com/definition/business. html [1. 2. 2010]. Feldman, G. (2007). Putting Uncle Milton Friedman To Bed: Reexamining Milton Friedman’s Essay on the Social Responsibility of Business. Labor Studies Journal (32), 125-141. Jensen, M. C. (2002). Value maximization, stakeholder theory, and the corporate objective function. Business Ethics Quarterly, 2002 (12), 404-437. Milton Friedman, a giant among economist. The Economist. Verfugbar unter: http://www. economist. com/business/displaystory. cfm? story_id=8313925 [28. 1. 2010]. Mulligan, T. (1986). A Critique of Milton Friedman’s Essay â€Å"The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits†. Journal of Business Ethics (5), 265-269. Munstermann, T. (2007). Corporate Social Responsibility: Gabler. Skypala, P. (2008, 17. November). Time to reward good corporate governance. Financial Times, S. 6. [28. 1. 2010]. Wilcke, R. W. (2004). An Appropriate Ethical Model for Business and a Critique of Milton Friedman’s Thesis. The Independent Review (2), 187-209. The Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman was praised by The Economist (2006) as â€Å"the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century†¦possibly of all of it†. In 1970, he published an essay on the social responsibility of business in the New York Times Magazine. In his article, he explains in complex detail about the notion of â€Å"social responsibility† of businessmen within a corporate environment and their goal to increase profits. Indeed, at first glance, this quote seems to capture the mentality of many of the actors in the financial sector in our era. Banks and financial institutions are accused of acting unethically and only in their self-interest to increase profits along with brokers and investment bankers who are accused of primarily aiming high incentives and bonuses by selling unconscionably high-default assets. Scholars argued that corporate governance failings and lack of ethical behaviour were significant causes of the financial crisis of autumn 2008 (Skypala, 2008). This essay discusses the question whether the above statement made by famous economist Milton Friedman is still relevant in the context of business today and to what extent it is relating to the financial sector and in particular to the financial crisis of autumn 2008. In order to address this problem, it is important to discuss the fundamental view behind Friedman’s idea since it needs to be fully understood and interpreted. He stated that the social responsibility of business was to maximize profits and to create value for stockholders within the bounds of the law. Furthermore, he thought that using corporate resources for purely altruistic purposes would be socialism. Moreover, corporations had no social responsibility other than to spend its resources to increase the profits of its investors since only investors as individuals could decide to engage in social contributions. Thus, he believed that the corporate executives, who were appointed by investors to make profits on investments, could not engage in social contributions using the corporate money. As a result, they could only do so as a private individual on their own behalf. Friedman devoted â€Å"social responsibility† to violating the interest of the manager’s employers. In other words, if managers invest in â€Å"social responsible† projects, they will harm the business since these investments will result in inefficiency and lost production leading to a reduction in shareholder’s wealth. His idea and the logic behind it have proven unconvincing to many scholars (Mulligan, 1986; Feldman, 2007; Wilcke, 2004). Indeed, several arguments can be shown which offset his idea. Firstly, his theory does not allow for the possibility that profits and social responsibility can ever exist together. It is necessary to consider the constraint noted by Jensen (2002) who indicated that it is â€Å"logically impossible to maximize in more than one dimension at the same time unless the dimensions are monotone transformations of one another†. This constraint implies that profits and social performance cannot be maximized simultaneously. That is why there is a trade-off between profits and social performance. Still, it does not mean that profit maximization and social performance cannot be congruent. In reality, there are many examples which show that both can coexist. Several reasons are to be mentioned here. Nowadays, banks and financial institutions are more aware of their role towards the society since they realize that they are an integral part of it. Furthermore, they notice that they can contribute positively to the environment and society with a positive effect on their reputation, creating a higher firm value. Furthermore, since numerous scandals of firms violating morality and ethics in the late 1990s and early 2000s (e. g. WorldCom and Enron) the significance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is increasing tremendously and included in the business culture of most of the financial institutions today. The concept of CSR means that â€Å"corporations have ethical and moral responsibilities in addition to their responsibilities to earn a fair return for investors and comply with the law† (Munstermann, 2007). So, almost every large corporation is increasingly investing to improve its performance on sustainability assets. Banks and financial institutions know that society is always enlightened when it sees that a firm is engaged in charity and donating projects. While it is true that engagement in â€Å"social responsible† projects, for example donating for orphans of the developing countries means explicitly higher expenses and hence, reducing the profit, it has a long term profit as well. Engagement in donating projects has a positive effect on the reputation of firms, thus, affecting positively the consumer behavior of customers who will buy more products of firm, thus creating profit. Friedman also never considers the very real possibility that companies engaging in â€Å"social responsible† projects gain the support from the community and polity that might, otherwise, eventually turn against them. Nowadays, almost all companies working in the financial sector are in some kind of way socially engaged. Looking at websites of famous big banks like Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley, one can find headings of Corporate Social Responsibility throughout the pages. Deutsche Bank has its own report on CSR for each year which reports engagement in AIDS projects in South Africa and support of education for children in India. JP Morgan reported an annual donation amount of $110 million for organization in 33 different countries and Goldman Sachs is actively involved in environmental projects. This shows that almost 4 decades after the famous essay of Friedman, companies do not follow his sole idea anymore but are – or are forced to – act socially responsible. On the other hand, a business should try to make profit since it is inherent in its nature and by definition (except for non-profit organization). According to the Business Dictionary, a business is an â€Å"economic system in which goods and services are exchanged for one another or money. Every business requires some form of investment and a sufficient number of customers to whom its output can be sold at profit on a consistent basis. † If a company does not make profit on a consistent and long-term basis, it will face financial distress and bankruptcy. Then, employees and workers will become unemployed which will affect the society negatively. For example, all the employees of banks going bankrupt in the financial crisis like Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae and Lehman Brothers were facing hardship. Hence, it is true that businesses are to a certain extent socially responsible to make profit in order to ensure job security and to create more jobs. This helps the society and improves the economy of the society. But Friedman does not consider the fact that if companies’ sole interest would be profit making, they can harm people and the surrounding environment. What if firms poison the water by disposing chemicals in rivers and sea – disposing toxic that leads to illnesses and death of animals and human beings? Friedman also fails to argue whether profit-generating actions like selling nuclear bombs to terror organizations, or knowingly manufacturing and selling defective, health-threatening products count as social responsibility as long as the company makes profit. Evidently, in the financial sector there are not activities such as producing bombs or life-threatening drugs. Even though this sector cannot produce life-threatening products, it can create a value chain of unethical and careless activities that can damage the whole world as well. One example is the Asian financial crisis in 1997 where moral hazards were mentioned as a major cause. Moral hazards are â€Å"negligent and fraudulent insureds† (Baker, 2000). It also refers to situation that tempted otherwise good people. The problem with moral hazards in the Asian financial crisis was that Asian banks thought that they would receive implicit guarantees that they would be bailed out if they encountered financial distress. Hence, these banks and companies were much more speculative in their investments and kept investing increasingly. If the investments fail, they will not have to bear the cost since it will be picked up by the government. They were playing with people’s money and did not act in the social interest of their customers. Instead, they were only focussing on making as much profit as possible. The result is known to everybody: In 1997 the nations of East Asia experienced the worst economic crisis they have never seen before. Obviously, the latest and most discussed topic on morality in the two recent years has been the culpability of shareholders and banks along with board directors for failings that led to the financial crisis of 2008. On the one hand, the crisis can be blamed on mortgage brokers, investment bankers and banks’ executives. Skewed incentives and greed contributed too much of the crisis. For example, mortgage brokers generate sub-prime mortgages but were paid regardless of the outcome. That is why they were selling unscrupulously assets with high default risk to clueless customers in order to receive high commissions. Not to mention â€Å"Wall Street Executives† who were focusing solely on how to increase their bonuses and remuneration packages. Also, Banks who took on these mortgages were accused of shoddy risk management and unethical behaviour, since they knew from the beginning that these subprime mortgages would eventually be securitized and removed from the bank’s balance sheet. Again, the originating banks got paid up front for processing the mortgages without having to retain part of the risk. Another factor is the misleading ratings of financial instruments credit agencies that were by far from independent. Arrangers of the secured assets were allowed to manipulate the creation of secured assets by mixing good assets with high risk assets to the point of getting a triple A-rating. If they did not get this rating, the assets were withdrawn, reconfigured and resubmitted. Since agencies are owned by banks, they were subjected to give best ratings to these dangerous assets and mortgage brokers knowing the risky idea behind those assets sold them to unsuspecting investors. According to Friedman, every party involved in the actions mentioned above showed â€Å"social responsibility† since they did not care about their social responsibility to the world but only about maximizing their profits. Evidently, the aftermath of the American financial crisis has shown that the social responsibility of business is definitely not only to increase their profits. If banks, brokers and lenders, accountants, the government and important financial organization did not incorrectly assessed or even ignored the magnitude of the risks mentioned above, if managers and investment bankers were not greedy and showed herd investment behavior, it can be argued that the crisis could have been prevented. But the various parties acted immorally and socially irresponsible not caring about the social consequences of their actions. Consequently, the Asian crisis of 1997 and the global financial crisis of 2008 are two memorable examples that offset Friedman’s idea. In conclusion, this paper has shown that Friedman’s request of being socially responsible by focusing solely on increasing profits is nowadays theoretically not accepted by banks and financial institutions. In contrast, in the 21st century social responsible corresponds to the alignment of business operations with social and ethical values. It is seen as the key to beat the competitor and to ensure sustainable growth. But the latest financial crisis has shown that even though CSR is part of the business culture of the large corporations, the key players in the large corporations do not practice social responsibility in a proper manner. It seems that CSR and corporate governance are a compilation of words and rules that adds only little value to the everyday businesses. Money has made everybody blind. Everybody wanted to have a piece of the big cake leading them to lower their inhibition threshold. The â€Å"social responsibility† of businesses should not be increasing profit but focusing on what it really means in practice to encourage stewardship. As a matter of fact, banks and financial institutions first need to show social and ethical manner in order to prevent another disaster like the financial crisis of 2008. All in all, businesses need to focus on environmental and social issues in the arena of corporate responsibility since the society expects and demands responsibility of organizations. In fact, the law expects it as well. Banks and financial institutions are challenged after the aftermath of the financial crisis – they have to find a way how to act in the best interest of stakeholders, society, the government and the environment, still being able to make sustainable profit. It is now a request from the society. ? References Baker, T. (2000). Insuring Morality.Business Dictionary. Definition of business. Homepage: http://www. businessdictionary. com/definition/business. html [1. 2. 2010]. Feldman, G. (2007). Putting Uncle Milton Friedman To Bed: Reexamining Milton Friedman’s Essay on the Social Responsibility of Business. Labor Studies Journal (32), 125-141. Jensen, M. C. (2002). Value maximization, stakeholder theory, and the corporate objective function. Business Ethics Quarterly, 2002 (12), 404-437. Milton Friedman, a giant among economist. The Economist. Verfugbar unter: http://www. economist. com/business/displaystory. cfm? story_id=8313925 [28. 1. 2010]. Mulligan, T. (1986). A Critique of Milton Friedman’s Essay â€Å"The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits†. Journal of Business Ethics (5), 265-269. Munstermann, T. (2007). Corporate Social Responsibility: Gabler. Skypala, P. (2008, 17. November). Time to reward good corporate governance. Financial Times, S. 6. [28. 1. 2010]. Wilcke, R. W. (2004). An Appropriate Ethical Model for Business and a Critique of Milton Friedman’s Thesis. The Independent Review (2), 187-209.

Characters and Symbolism in Cabaret essays

Characters and Symbolism in Cabaret essays Cabaret shows an interesting and tragic way that society can pay for an individuals escape from reality. The characters from the film demonstrate to the viewer how the people of Berlin suffer greatly from their attempt to escape reality. For through their own disillusions they allow the Nazi regime to come into power. As a consequence of this, society pays a price through suffering through the turmoil of the rule of the Nazi party. Sally Bowles is both an interesting and complex character. Her continuous illusion of wanting to be a big movie star demonstrates to the audience that she attempts to escape reality on a regular basis. Sally is so wrapped up in her own world that nothing seems to affect her. A key scene demonstrating this is when Maxs limo drives pass the Nazi bashing in the street. Bob Fosse has enhanced this seen by using freeze framing to give it a more dramatic effect and also create resent towards the Nazis. This seen also provides the viewer with an insight on Sallys unawareness of the outside world by showing her interrupting Maxs and Brians conversation, by saying Hey Max, can we go to the Bristol Bar...Im dying to show off my new fur coat. Whether Sally is just trying to be insular or ignore the facts it is clear that she is attempting to escape from reality. Sally distances herself from the problems of society through out the film. At the end this is made clear by her singing Life is a Cabaret to a packed audience of Nazis, without commenting or noticing. Clearly Sally is living the life of the Cabaret, constantly making her life to be something its not. She proclaims her father to be practically an ambassador when in reality the real truth is that he just doesnt care. Nothing affects her state of mind because she is constantly living in this dream world were a movie producer will whisk her...