Notes on a scandle by Zoe Heller †How is the theme of obsession presented in the book? Essay

Notes on a scandal, written in the first person by Barbara Covette, a close friend and colleague of Sheba’s, is a story about Sheba Hart, a pottery teacher at St Georges school, who allows herself to become engaged in an affair with one of her fifteen year old pupils, Steven Connolly, who is one of her few pupils with an interest in her subject and not just disrupting lessons. This story is very much about obsession, and not that only of Sheba and her lover. In fact a very large proportion of the novel is devoted to showing Barbara’s loneliness and obsession with Sheba. It is done in an almost subtle way so that Barbara as the narrator is not aware how clearly she is obsessed, yet we as the audience can see it. With this the plot becomes almost as much about Barbara as it is about Sheba. From very early on in the novel we can see that Barbara has an obsession with Sheba, and that the obsession is likely to get bigger. This can be seen from the very beginning. The very fact that Barbara notes the exact clothes that Sheba is wearing and comments on them shows she has been paying a great amount of attention to Sheba from the very beginning. On the first page of chapter one Barbara says that Sheba is a fey person, she makes a point of saying this, which indicates possibly jealousy of Sheba. As we go on into chapter one Barbara’s jealousy is becoming more and more apparent, as everybody else is fussing about Sheba, Barbara chooses to stay out of the way, most likely due to her envy of Sheba. Barbara looks in on everybody fussing abut Sheba almost as a fly on the wall would, noting to herself who talks to Sheba and exactly what she does. She does not try herself in the beginning to socialise with her, but yet still seems very interested in her. This shows the beginning of obsession. When in chapter one Elaine reached out to touch Sheba’s ears, Barbara remarks in her text about not shaving her armpits, and refers to Elaine as â€Å"Reaching out like a monkey†. This shows us that Barbara is irritated by anybody else fussing over Sheba, so she instantly insults them as if to make herself feel batter and more worthy of Sheba’s attention than them. At the beginning of chapter two Barbara says that she must maintain maximum accuracy, so therefore starts to put together a time line of Sheba’s year. This itself seems obsessive. She buys gold stars to stick on at important events. It appears to us that Barbara’s life at this stage is revolving around Sheba. On page 32 Barbara writes: â€Å"Throughout the first half of the winter term, I had been building up my confidence to tackle Sheba on the matter of class discipline.† This indicates that Barbara is nervous about talking to Sheba for some reason; however we are almost certain by this stage in the novel that if it had been another one of the teachers at St George, Barbara would not have had a problem with it. Also on page 32 is the realisation on Barbara’s part that Sheba had befriended Sue Hodge. Barbara was very envious of this friendship and begins to take a lot of interest in this friendship. Barbara continuously slags off Sue Hodge and calls her, â€Å"The most awful prig.† This suggests an element of obsession is here, as if Barbara was not interested in Sheba then she would not care who she was â€Å"chumming up with.† At the beginning of chapter three, it is made very clear that Barbara was jealous of Sheba’s friendship with Sue. She writes: â€Å"The irony of my having agonized over Sheba’s friendship of fatty Hodge.† She used the word agonized which is quite a strong word, so Barbara was obviously deeply affected by this. She then goes on to say: â€Å"If Sheba had made a wiser choice of girlfriend, if she had have chosen me from the start- it is possible that she might have avoided the Connolly imbroglio.† We can see here that Barbara desperately wants Sheba as a friend, in an obsessive nature. In the beginning of chapter five, Barbara says that if it makes Sheba happy it makes her happy. This very clearly indicates that Barbara is obsessed with Sheba. On page 83, Barbara contradicts herself, she say that she does not argue with the necessity for age bars, but then goes on to defend Sheba’s actions. She seems to think that there is one rule for one person and another for Sheba. When Barbara is invited to Sheba’s house for dinner she panics very much about the way she is dressed, particularly about the heals thinking she may be too tarty. She is acting more like she is going on a date then to a friend’s house for dinner. This shows us that Barbara is very keen to impress Sheba, and doesn’t want her to think anything bad of her at all. The first sentence of chapter ten says: â€Å"By summer my connection with Sheba was well established.† The way she says this is almost like a spy trying to infiltrate the government and not as you would expect somebody to say about their friend, this seems odd and almost stalker like. In chapter thirteen Barbara decides to stay away from Sheba, and see how long Sheba can stick it. However it turns out to be Barbara who is the one who can’t stick it, she becomes rather depressed and confused. Here Barbara is acting more the way a lover would after a break up than a friend. In Barbara’s lunch date with Bangs in chapter thirteen when Barbara realises someone else is interested in Sheba, she instantly tells him about her and Connolly’s relationship. Barbara may have done this as she doesn’t want anyone to come between her and Sheba’s friendship, and she feels threatened by others in Sheba’s life. Towards the end of the book Barbara takes great joy in destroying the model of Sheba and Connolly, she begins by destroying the boy though; this shows that Barbara is trying to get rid of everything from Sheba’s life that is not centred on her. All of these things suggest that Barbara is slowly becoming more and more obsessed with Sheba throughout the novel, and that she wants to take everything that is not centred around her away. She may even have been satisfied that Sheba has lost her family and now must depend on Barbara as she is her only remaining friend.

Gary Stanley Becker

{draw:frame} THIS ASSIGNMENT IS WRITTEN FOR: PROF. ABDULLA LECTURER’S NAME VAISHNAVI GOPALAKRISHNAN STUDENTS NAME STUDENT ID 00114 MODULE * * : MANAGING ENVIRONMENT TITLE * * : INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT *HAND-OUT-DATE : 06th* SEPTEMBER 2009 LECTURER * * : PROF. ABDULLA HAND-IN-DATE : 09*th* NOVEMBER 2009 MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION COHORT 14 SEM 1 ASSIGNMENT DECLARATION FORM I hereby declare that the attached assignment is my own work and understand that if I am suspected of plagiarism or another form of cheating; my work will be referred to the programmed director who may as a result recommend to the Faculty of business that my enrolment in the programmed be discontinued. SIGNATURE: _ NAME : VAISHNAVI GOPALAKRISHNAN STUDENT NO : 00114 ADDRESS : S1-12-19, SUTRAMAS APARTMENT, PUCHONG. TEL NO : 010- 2740280 SUBJECT : MANAGING ENVIRONMENT DUE DATE : 06th NOVEMBER 2009 LECTURER : PROF. ABDULLA ASSIGNMENT TITLE : INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT DATE SUBMITTED : 09th NOVEMBER 2009 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS* * * I would like to begin this undertaking by thanking GOD, the most glorified, for providing me with all the strength and courage to complete this report successfully and on time. I am also extremely grateful to my ‘Managing Environment’ lecturer, PROF. ABDULLA for his time, patience and guidance throughout the making of this report. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. 0 BIOGR APHY OF GARY STANLEY BECKER-ECONOMIC NOBLE LAUREATE: {draw:frame} BIRTH OF GARY STANLEY AND HIS EARLY STAGES IN LIFE: Gary Stanley Becker is an American economist and a Nobel laureate. He was born on December 2, 1930 in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. He did his elementary school and high school in Brooklyn. Until age sixteen he was more interested in sports than intellectual activities, but he had to choose one among them and finally decided to choose education, although he was better at sports. BECKER’S FAMILY: His father is a business man. His father had left school in Montreal after the 8th grade because he was eager to make money. His mother also left after the 8th grade because girls were not expected to get much education. He has two sisters, Wendy and Natalie, and one brother, Marvin. He married for the first time in 1954, and has two daughters from that marriage, Judy and Catherine He married for the second time in 1980 to Guity Nashat as his first wife died in 1970. This gave him two stepsons, Michael and Cyrus, to go with two daughters. Guity is the one who overcame his reluctance to do the Business Week columns. She is an historian of the Middle East with professional interests that overlap his own: on the role of women in economic and social life, and the causes of economic growth. The personal and professional compatibility she provided has made his life so much better. ROOT CAUSE OF THE REASON WHY BECKER ENTERED INTO THE ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT: His father encouraged him with political and financial news. After his father lost most of his sight, he had the task of reading him stock quotations and other reports on financial developments. Perhaps that stimulated his interest in economics, although he was rather bored by it. He had many lively discussions in the house about politics and justice. This explains why by the time he finished high school, his interest in mathematics was beginning to compete with a desire to do something useful for society. These two interests came together during his freshman year at Princeton, when he accidentally took a course in economics, and was greatly attracted by the mathematical rigor of a subject that dealt with social organization. HIS ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE: Becker completed his B. A in economics at Princeton University in the year 1953. He took a few extra courses during degree, and he chose reading courses in modern algebra and differential equations. He completed a Ph. D. at The University of Chicago in 1955. HOW THE INVOLVEMENT IN MATHEMETHICS HELPED IN HIS PROFESSION: Till now, his heavy investment in mathematics at Princeton prepared him well for the increasing use of mathematics in economics. He began to lose interest in economics during his senior (third) year because it did not seem to deal with important social problems. He contemplated transferring to sociology, but found that subject too difficult. Fortunately, he decided to go to the University of Chicago for graduate work in economics. HIS WORK WITH MILTON FRIEDMAN: He worked with Milton Friedman in 1951 on microeconomics which was the root cause of the excitement about economics. He came to know that economic theory was not a game played by clever academicians, but was a powerful tool to analyze the real world. His course was filled with insights both into the structure of economic theory and its application to practical and significant questions. That course and subsequent contacts with Friedman had a profound effect on the direction taken by his research. He used many of the economist’s theories in his various branch of research work. BECKER’S ACHIEVEMENTS: He published two articles in 1952, based on his research at Princeton. He published an article in 1957, which was written along with Friedman and a book based on his Ph. D. dissertation. He wrote a book on human capital which was his first research project for the National Bureau of Economic Research. He also wrote frequently cited articles on the allocation of time, crime and punishment, and irrational behavior. He began a workshop at Columbia on labor economics and related subjects. Becker along with George Stigler wrote two influential papers together: a controversial one on the stability of tastes, and an early treatment of the principle-agent problem. He had published a short paper on economics of politics in 1958. In the 1980s he published two articles that developed a theoretical model of the role of special interest groups in the political process. A series of articles in the 1970s culminated in 1981 in A Treatise on the Family, and a greatly expanded edition was published in 1991. Until 1985, he had published only technical books and technical articles in professional journals. He was asked to write a monthly column for Business Week magazine in about 800 words per column without using any technical jargons which interested the business and professional readers of the magazine. BECKER’S HONOURS: He has won the Seidman Award from presidency of the American Economic Association. He has won the first social science Award of Merit from the National Institute of Health. Becker won the John Bates Clark Award of the American Economic Association in 1967 and was president of that association in 1987. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1992 He received the United States' Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007. HOW DID HE APPLY ECONOMICS TO THE SOCIAL ISSUES? The book which was published in 1957 contains the first systematic effort to use economic theory to analyze the effects of prejudice on the earnings, employment and occupations of minorities. It started him the path of applying economics to social issues, a path that he has continued to follow. The book was very favorably reviewed in a few major journals, but for several years it had no visible impact on anything. Most economists did not think racial discrimination was economics, and sociologists and psychologists generally did not believe he was contributing to their fields. However, Friedman, Lewis, Schultz, and others at Chicago were confident that he had written an important book. The reason for him to continue in economics was the people who supported him with willingness. HIS FIRST STEP IN TO THE PROFESSIONAL LIFE: After his third year of graduate study he became an Assistant Professor at Chicago. He had only few classes of teaching, so he could concentrate mainly on research. However, he felt that he would become more independent if he left the institution and concentrate only on the research. After three years in that position, he withdrew much larger salary from Chicago to take a similar appointment at Columbia combined with one at the National Bureau of Economic Research. For twelve years he divided his time between teaching at Columbia and doing research at the Bureau. HIS EXPERIENCE DURING THE DOCTORATE DEGREE IN CHICAGO UNIVERSITY: The workshop on labor economics and related subjects involved transplanting the workshop system of supervising doctoral research from Chicago – where it originated. After a few years, Jacob Mincer joined the Columbia department and became co-director of the workshop. They had a very exciting atmosphere and attracted most of the best students at Columbia. Both Mincer and Becker were doing research on human capital before this subject was adequately appreciated in the profession at large, and the students found it fascinating. They were also working on the allocation of time, and other subjects in the forefront of research. HIS FOCOUSED AREA OF WORK: Mainly he worked on the family after returning to Chicago. He had much earlier used economic theory to try to understand birth rates and family size. He now began to consider the whole range of family issues: marriage, divorce, altruism toward other members, investments by parents in children, and long term changes in what families do. He has tried not only to understand the determinants of divorce, family size, and the like, but also the effects of changes in family composition and structure on inequality and economic growth. Most of his research on the family, and that by students and faculty at Chicago and elsewhere was presented at the Workshop in Applications of Economics that Sherwin Rosen and Becker run. WAS HIS WORK BEEN RECOGNISED BY OTHER ECONOMISTS? For a long time his type of work was either ignored or strongly disliked by most of the leading economists. He was considered way out and perhaps not really an economist. But younger economists were more sympathetic. They may disagree with his analysis, but accept the kind of problems, studied as perfectly legitimate. HIS SECOND STEP IN TO THE PROFESSIONAL LIFE: In 1983, the Sociology Department at Chicago offered him a joint appointment. He was happy to accept because this was an outstanding department. James Coleman and Becker shortly thereafter began an interdisciplinary faculty seminar on rational choice in the social sciences that has been far more successful than they anticipated. 2. 0 * *BECKER’S CONTRIBUTION TO ECONOMICS: MAJOR APPLICATION OF BECKER’S MODEL TO DIFFERENR TYPES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOUR: Investments in human capital; Behavior of the family (or household), including distribution of work and allocation of time in the family; Crime and punishment; and Discrimination on the markets for labor and goods. INVESTMENTS IN HUMAN CAPITAL: Gary Becker's most noteworthy contribution is perhaps to be found in the area of human capital, i. e. , human competence, and the consequences of investments in human competence. The theory of human capital is considerably older than Becker's work in this field. His foremost achievement is to have formulated and formalized the microeconomic foundations of the theory. In doing so, he has developed the human-capital approach into a general theory for determining the distribution of labor income. The predictions of the theory with respect to the wage structure have been formulated in so-called human-capital- earnings functions, which specify the relation between earnings and human capital. These contributions were first presented in some articles in the early 1960s and were developed further, both theoretically and empirically, in his book, Human Capital, written in 1964. The theory of human capital has created a uniform and generally applicable analytical framework for studying not only the return on education and on-the-job training, but also wages differentials and wage profiles over time. Other important applications, pursued by various economists, include a breakdown into components of the factors underlying economic growth, migration, as well as investments and earnings in the health sector. The human-capital approach also helps explain trade patterns across countries; in fact, differences in the supply of human capital among countries have been shown to have more explanatory power than differences in the supply of real capital. HOUSEHOLD AND FAMILY: Gary Becker has carried out an even more radical extension of the applicability of economic theory in his analysis of relations among individuals outside of the market system. The most notable example is his analysis of the functions of the family. These studies are summarized in his book, A Treatise on the Family, written in 1981. A basic idea in Becker's analysis is that a household can be regarded as a â€Å"small factory† which produces what he calls basic goods, such as meals, a residence, entertainment, etc. , using time and input of ordinary market goods, â€Å"semi-manufactures†, which the household purchases on the market. In this type of analysis, prices of basic goods have two components. st is comprised of the direct costs of purchasing intermediate goods on the market. 2nd is the time expenditure for production and consumption of the good in question for a specific good, Time expenditure ? wages ? time spent per unit of the good produced in the household. This implies that an increase in the wage of one member of the household gives rise not only to changed incentives for work on the market, but also to a shift from more to less time-intensive product on and consumption of goods produced by the household, i. e. , basic goods. Instead of an analysis in terms of the traditional dichotomy between work and leisure, Becker's model provides a general theory for the household's allocation of time, as exemplified in the essay, A Theory of the Allocation of Time, from 1965. This approach has turned out to be a highly useful foundation for examining many different issues associated with household behavior. Becker has gone even further. He has formulated a general theory for behavior of the family – including not only the distribution of work and the allocation of time in the family, but also decisions regarding marriage, divorce and children. As real wages increase, along with the possibilities of substituting capital for labor in housework, labor is released in the household, so that it becomes more and more uneconomical to let one member of the household specialize wholly in household production (for instance, child care). As a result, some of the family's previous social and economic functions are shifted to other institutions such as firms, schools and other public agencies. Becker has argued that these processes explain not only the increase in married women's job participation outside the home, but also the rising tendency toward divorce. Alongside Becker's analysis of the distribution of labor and allocation of time in the household, his most influential contribution in the context of the household and the family is probably his studies on fertility, which were initiated in an essay entitled, An Economic Analysis of Fertility, 1960. Parents are assumed to have preferences regarding both the number and educational level of their children, where the educational level is affected by the amount of time and other resources that parents spend on their children. Investments in children's human capital may then be derived as a function of income and prices. As wages rise, parents increase their investments in human capital, combined with a decrease in the number of children. Becker uses this theory to explain, for example, the historical decline in fertility in industrialized countries, as well as the variations in fertility among different countries and between urban and rural areas. In particular, the highly extensive family policy in Sweden, to which Becker often refers, suggests the merits of an economic approach to the analysis of these issues. Gary Becker's ideas have dominated research in the economics of the family, shaping the tools we use, the questions we ask, and the answers we give. The foundational assumptions of Becker's economic approach to the family — maximizing behavior and equilibrium — as well as such primary auxiliary assumptions as household production and interdependent preferences, are now widely accepted not only by economists but also by family sociologists, demographers, and others who study the family. Yet the interesting and provocative implications of Becker's economic approach to the family do not follow from the foundational assumptions or from the primary auxiliary assumptions. Instead they depend on contested auxiliary assumptions to which neoclassical economics has no commitment and which lack empirical support. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: The third area where Gary Becker has applied the theory of rational behavior and human capital is â€Å"crime and punishment†. A criminal, with the exception of a limited number of psychopaths, is assumed to react to different stimuli in a predictable (â€Å"rational†) way, both with respect to returns and costs, such as in the form of expected punishment. Instead of regarding criminal activity as irrational behavior associated with the specific psychological and social status of an offender, criminality is analyzed as rational behavior under uncertainty. These ideas are set forth, for example, in Becker's essay, Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach, 1968, and in Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, 1974. Empirical studies related to this approach indicate that the type of crime committed by a certain group of individuals may to a large extent be explained by an individual's human capital (and hence, education). These empirical studies have also shown that the probability of getting caught has a more deterrent effect on criminality than the term of the punishment. Becker's analysis of time allocation is by no means confined to legal activities; it includes various forms of crime. In a seminal paper (Becker, 1968) it was argued that crime is not an aberration outside the scope of rational analysis, but rather the predictable outcome of opportunities for gain. He argues that a decision to engage in illegal activity is the outcome of an individualistic calculus; benefits and costs (both monetary and non-monetary) are weighed up, and the individual makes a decision which reflects the expected balance of them. One way to conceptualize decisions of this kind is as a rather special kind of investment activity. Many of the crucial decision variables-probability of apprehension and conviction, likely punishment, alternative earnings possibilities in legitimate occupations – are empirically observable, and hence their effect on observed crime rates can in principle be tested. As usual Becker's contribution has mainly been to analyze and suggest possibilities for hypothesis testing, but his graduate students and other interested economists have been quick to pick up the challenge. In the last decade a good deal of evidence has been accumulated to support the plausibility of Becker's contention that criminal behavior responds to changes in costs and benefits. Unusually for Becker, the argument is couched throughout in normative terms. The model of criminal behavior put forward is devised to be used in conjunction with cost functions for law enforcement and a simple social welfare function in order to generate conclusions about the optimal levels of policy variables such as the extent of enforcement, type of punishment and perhaps even what should e a crime. Becker is not, however, arguing for major policy changes. Given the behavioral responses to legal and illegal incentives which he discerns, and given the costs and benefits of enforcement and punishment programs, he suspects that the authorities, at least in the USA, get things roughly right – perhaps a surprising conclusion, given his scepticism of the efficacy of the government action in other spher es. There seem to be two main weaknesses to Becker's arguments. The first is the assumption of social homogeneity implicit in the notion of a social welfare function, when it is widely held (not least among economists) that some groups of the population have greater political power than others, leading to legislation and enforcement patterns which reflect the influence of sectional interests. Secondly, it is difficult not to feel that Becker's enthusiasm for the economic approach does tend at times to run away with him. Although differences in incomes and assets, alternative earnings possibilities, probabilities of conviction and so forth are much more important in determining behavior than they are often given credit for, there are surely variations in attitudes and degrees of honesty which affect the propensity to commit crimes even among individuals facing similar economic circumstances. While Becker would accept this, by implication he regards them as not particularly significant, possibly assuming that such variations in ‘tastes' are randomly distributed. ECONOMIC DISCRIMINATION: Another example of Becker's unconventional application of the theory of rational, optimizing behavior is his analysis of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, etc. This was Becker's first significant research contribution, published in his book entitled, The Economics of Discrimination, 1957. Discrimination is defined as a situation where an economic agent is prepared to incur a cost in order to refrain from an economic transaction, or from entering into an economic contract, with someone who is characterized by traits other than his/her own with respect to race or sex. Becker demonstrates that such behavior, in purely analytical terms, acts as a â€Å"tax wedge† between social and private economic rates of return. The explanation is that the discriminating agent behaves as if the price of the good or service purchased from the discriminated agent were higher than the price actually paid, and the selling price to the discriminated agent is lower than the price actually obtained. Discrimination thus tends to be economically detrimental not only to those who are discriminated against, but also to those who practice discrimination. Although Becker's writings range far and wide; we can trace a logical development and a methodological consistency in his work. The signs are there in his first major publication, The Economics of Discrimination (Becker, 1957, 1971). This monograph, based on his doctoral thesis, appeared when Becker was 27. By his own account, it was ‘greeted with indifference or hostility' by fellow economists. Given the intellectual atmosphere of the mid-1950s this is probably explicable. The book starts from the position that economic inequality between two groups – blacks and whites, women and men or whatever -is not of itself evidence of discrimination in a market economy. In such an economy, variations in earnings, for instance, can be expected to occur between individuals or groups on a systematic basis, reflecting variations in marginal productivity and hours worked. What is needed is to separate out differentials due to variations in such factors as education, skills and job experience, in order to leave a residual due to ‘pure' discrimination, Becker's primary concern. To this end, Becker defines a ‘market discrimination coefficient', Which in principle would measure the extent of this residual? What Becker is attempting to show is that ‘pure' discrimination is simply a special kind of taste which, like the taste for apples or (Becker's pre-Women's Lib example) Hollywood actresses, can be analyzed in economic terms. As with these other commodities, ‘pure' discrimination's consumption is conditional upon variables such as income and price. The – highly controversial – point that Becker is making is that discrimination in this sense is not, as is usually assumed, a means of raising the discriminator's money income, but actually imposes costs on the discriminator as well as the party discriminated against. Where discrimination exists, then, the discriminator is evidently willing to pay these costs in exchange for the benefit of indulging a taste. The argument rests on a clever analogy with international trade. Suppose there are two economies, Whiteland and Backland, which initially do not engage in trade. Within each country, however, perfect competition is the rule. This means, as the neoclassical textbooks tell us, that the incomes of owners of factors of production will reflect relative factor scarcities. Thus in Whiteland, where labor is assumed to be scarce and capital abundant, wages will be relatively high and rates of profit will be relatively low. By contrast, Backland (where labor is abundant and capital scarce) is characterized by low wages and high rates of profit. If trade and factor mobility are now permitted, theory predicts that labor and capital movements will occur, so that the long-run result is that profit rates and wage rates will each be equalized in the two economies. As a result of resources moving from areas where their marginal productivity is low to those where it is high, total ‘world’ output is increased. The analogy is obvious, and the conclusion important: just as both of these ‘countries' can in principle gain from trade and mobility, so can both blacks and whites in an economy gain from the absence of discrimination, which in this context seems equivalent to some form of trade barrier, 3 or, to put it differently, both blacks and white can lose from discrimination. Lack of space precludes the detailed examination of the implications of Becker's argument, and indeed of the many objections which have been raised to it. Most of these objections have centered on the assumption of perfect competition in his model: if such a condition is dropped, optimal tariff theory suggests that in some cases discrimination (while reducing total output) could increase the income of the discriminating group, which would undermine Becker's whole analysis. Becker, however, is clearly aware of this criticism, and it is instructive to see why he must reject it. He believes that so pervasive a phenomenon as discrimination cannot be adequately explained by market imperfections – for market imperfections, most Chicago economists agree, disappear in the long run. In Becker's first important publication, two central features of his work: the insistence on using given preferences, costs and incomes to define a situation where individuals make decisions, and the concern with long-run equilibrium. THE ECONOMIST AS EMPIRE-BUILDER: Few contemporary economists have done as much to extend the generality and range of economic theorizing as Professor Gary S. Becker of the University of Chicago. With the exception of one or two papers written as a graduate student, all Becker's publications have applied economic reasoning to aspects of human behavior which have usually been classified as outside the scope of economics, at least since the discipline started to give itself scientific airs in the latter years of the nineteenth century. These scientific pretensions were associated with the introduction of mathematical techniques from the fields of physics and mechanics, often by professionals trained in those disciplines; many economists then, and not a few since, resented the intrusion of these alien elements. Similarly, Becker's intrepid expeditions into the jealously-guarded territories of sociology, political science, demography, criminology and biology have encountered considerable resistance. While it is too early to forecast the ultimate outcome of these imperialistic excursions, the increasing numbers of economists eager to join Becker in search of plunder have already forced some of the initially-scandalized natives to come to a modus Vivendi with the intruding barbarians. Areas for co-operation rather than conflict are earnestly being sought, as we shall note later. FERTILITY: Becker's next important foray into sociological country was to be a paper on the economics of fertility written for the National Bureau of Economic Research (1960b). Although political economy was once closely involved with demography (witness Malthus's famous essay), for much of this century the study of population was firmly in the hands of sociologists and un-theoretical number-crunchers. A few tentative attempts had been made to relate birth rates to economic variables, but Becker's paper went way beyond this. Here the decision to have children is firmly incorporated within the familiar framework of neoclassical economics. More particularly, Becker adopts the startling and controversial position that children are in important respects analogous to consumer durables such as automobiles, TV sets and dishwashers; thus the economic theory which has proved fruitful in relation to these commodities can be applied equally to human beings. He argues that, at least under modern conditions, the raising of children involves a net cost to their parents. Yet people do continue to have children, despite the availability of effective contraception. Thus if people choose to have children it is because they obtain sufficient utility to compensate for the costs involved. These costs include such obvious things as food, clothing and schooling. Perhaps more importantly, however, they also include costs in terms of parental time, a scarce commodity which has alternative uses. Indeed, if one alternative is to use this time in the labor market, a value (its ‘opportunity cost' in the jargon) can be put on it which will indicate that a very large proportion of the total costs of childrearing is accounted for by parental time. The existence of these net costs indicates that children are some form of consumer good; their spread over time indicates we are dealing with a consumer durable. They therefore have to compete with other consumer durables for a limited share of the household budget: more children means less hi-fi equipment or a smaller car. Once this rather bizarre comparison is admitted, it opens up the likelihood that decisions to have children will be affected by such variables as their ‘price' (in terms of alternatives foregone) and the size of the household budget. As we have indicated, Becker accepts Friedman's view that the usefulness of a hypothesis depends on its ability to explain or predict. So how does Becker's approach fare in this respect? Straightaway we are confronted with a problem. Broadly speaking, the demand for consumer durables tends to rise with income; on Becker's reasoning we might expect the demand for children to follow a similar pattern. Yet there is much evidence to suggest that family size declines with income. How does Becker handle this apparent refutation of his approach? Are babies’ inferior goods? One argument Becker offers in order to resolve this difficulty is interesting in the light of his later work. This is the argument that the cost of rearing children tends to rise with family income, largely as a result of the higher opportunity cost of parental time. At any particular moment better-off families tend to be better educated and thus to have greater earning power; over time, all earnings tend to rise as income rises. The argument can be illustrated diagrammatically. In Figure 1, an increase in income-illustrated by a parallel outward shift of the budget constraint -leads to increases in the ‘consumption' of both competing consumer durables and babies, if the relative price of these commodities remains constant. At the point of tangency between a new (higher) indifference curve and the new budget constraint, more babies (B2) are chosen. If, however, the increased income results largely from higher wages paid to family members (a highly plausible assumption), this will raise the opportunity cost of time spent on rearing children, and thus increase their relative price. The budget constraint pivots, as in Figure 2, and the new preferred combination of babies and other consumer durables may involve a smaller desired family size. draw:frame} It is ingenious, if not altogether convincing There is a suspicion that evidence Becker uses to support his arguments is highly selective, and moreover some of the generalizations he makes are amenable to alternative interpretations: for instance the observed inverse relation between education and family size could have nothing to do with the opportunity cost of parental time, but a lot to do with the different values and attitudes education might be expecte d to inculcate. However Becker's approach is more plausible in relation to short-term variations in fertility; economic factors seem far more significant here than ad hoc changes of tastes. In his approach empirical generalizations are linked to a broader theoretical framework; this is why, like it or not, it has stimulated so much further work in this field. THE ALLOCATION OF TIME: We have seen something of the emphasis which Becker places on the value of time in his analysis of economic behavior. This concern led to an important article which generalized the question of time allocation and simultaneously provided a basis for the reformulation of standard Consumer theory (Becker 1965). Before Becker, the established way to deal with time in the context of consumer theory was to concentrate on a simple dichotomy between work and leisure. Work meant paid work in the labor market, by means of which individuals were able to obtain market-produced goods and services, which were the objectives of economic activity. In this context, leisure clearly has an opportunity cost, the goods and services foregone by not working. If individuals choose not to work all the hours they could, this must be because leisure itself is a ‘good', some of which is consumed in preference to other goods. Thus leisure can be incorporated into standard analysis very easily, and from the time spent on leisure, we can deduce its complement, the time spent working. Thus the supply of labor is linked to the demand for goods. Becker however takes the view that time has more than two uses. Certainly, as in the traditional approach, time can be used in the labor market. It can also, however, be used in many types of non-paid work (housework, do-it-yourself etc. . Furthermore all consumption takes time too. He suggests therefore that we abandon leisure as a separate category: all ‘leisure' involves some ‘consumption' and all ‘consumption' involves some ‘leisure'. Instead of a choice between consumer goods and leisure, the relevant choice is taken to be that between various ‘consumption activities ' which use different combinations of market-produced goods and services (which have to be purchased with funds largely acquired through the sale of labor time in the market) and time spent in â€Å"household production†. Becker argues that instead of a choice between paid work and leisure we should analyze a choice between ‘high time' activities (like a home-prepared meal) and ‘low time' activities (like the purchase and consumption of a hamburger). The choice set is ultimately constrained by the limited time we have available, and the productivity of this time in its various uses. If all our available time were to be allocated to paid work, the value of the time in this use is termed (on Friedman's suggestion) ‘full income'. Some of the ‘full income', however, will normally be used for consumption and domestic production, using as complementary inputs in the domestic production process goods which are purchased with the proceeds of paid work. All the predictions obtained from the standard theory can be obtained in this framework as well; for instance changes in the wage rate alter the slope of the full income budget constraint, while increases in non-work income shift the constraint outwards – in each case we would expect the allocation of time to be affected whether we apply the Becker analysis or the traditional approach. But in addition Becker's method allows further influences to be incorporated. Thus a change in the technology of household production – the development of labor-saving gadgets -economizes on time spent in domestic work. People buy more gadgets and ‘spend' less time on housework; the gadgets can of course be purchased by ‘spending' some of the time saved working in the labor market. The relevance of this analysis to such phenomena as the rising labor-force participation of married women should be clear. Similarly transport improvements economize on time and can be expected to affect labor supply. The approach also has the incidental benefit of providing a theoretical basis for the classification of goods as substitutes or complements: when goods are no longer seen as the final sources of utility but rather as inputs in a household production process, it is rather easier to see why the consumption of certain commodities is linked. {draw:frame} Figure 2: The ends-means spectrum reflected by Becker’s work Becker’s theory of time and consumption does establish new theory, in that it proposes an alternate model to the then-accepted economic model of consumption (Becker proposes consumption be treated as a form of production). In this regard, Becker breaks the ground for new theory. MARRIAGE: Another of Becker's path breaking ventures is his development of an economic theory of marriage (1973, 1974), part of a growing literature on the economics of the family stimulated by his work and that of Theodore Schultz-on fertility and human capital. Once Becker's method is understood, the relevance of his approach to the institution of marriage becomes apparent. Here is a major and persistent phenomenon with ramifications in every economy. Whatever the precise legal arrangements, the majority of adult humans have ‘married' throughout recorded history. Individuals (or their parents in some cultures) choose amongst competing potential spouses in an attempt to maximize utility, measured in Becker's terms by the consumption of household-produced commodities of the kind discussed earlier. The ubiquity of marriage suggests to Becker that male and female labor is complementary in certain types of household production, notably the rearing of the partners’ own children. An individual marries when the expected gain from a partnership exceeds the expected cost of marriage in terms of the alternatives foregone (staying single or marrying the next best alternative spouse). Because of imperfect information, individuals engage in search. This is costly, and therefore individuals may eventually settle for spouses with less than ideal characteristics. Or they may engage in bargaining to achieve compensatory concessions; these may include sums of money (dowries etc. ) or behavioral commitments (promises to give up fishing). In Becker's view, however, there is sufficient freedom of choice and sufficient information to ensure an equilibrium where there is a Pareto-optimal sorting of partners (any rearrangement of couples could only increase some individuals' utility at the cost of reducing that of other individuals). The use of the household production approach as an analytical framework may seem simply an economist's joke, an intellectual game; certainly some of its conclusions seem banal. But it does throw up interesting predictions which other methodologies do not. For instance the approach predicts that gains from marriage-and therefore, presumably, the probability of marriage -will be greater for couples between whom there is a considerable variation in earning power, basically because there are greater ‘gains from trade' within such a marriage if one partner specializes in paid work and the other in household production. The analysis is developed further to incorporate non-selfish motives for entering marriage. ‘Caring' for the partner is introduced: in the model this means that the individual's utility function includes the partner's consumption as well as his or her own. This is shown to affect the allocation of output produced by the marriage and increase the potential gains from it. The analysis is also linked to earlier work Becker produced on charity and social interaction. Again the model is not tested in a systematic way and we occasionally get the impression that the anecdotal ‘evidence' adduced is of slight value. However Becker has produced another paper which tests some of the ancillary predictions of the theory with reference to data on marital instability. For instance, the approach suggests that major changes in the variables on which potential spouses make their decisions to marry will make them reconsider their decisions; if divorce is cheap, marital dissolution may follow. This appears to be the case. For example, where earnings are unexpectedly higher or lower than originally anticipated, the probability of divorce increases. The amount of time spent in search is also related to marital instability; those marrying young, on the basis of limited information about the characteristics of their partner and available alternatives are particularly liable to divorce. There is, then, something to be said for the approach. While it cannot explain all aspects of marriage, it does at least suggest that human mating behavior is less tightly constrained by biological and institutional factors than is often suggested. THE METHODOLOGY: From the material surveyed so far it is possible to infer the common elements of Becker's methodological program. He has however provided us with an essay (Becker, 1976b) which spells out his approach and offers a vigorous defense of it. In his view, his method is applicable to all human behavior; its core is ‘the combined assumptions of maximizing behavior, market equilibrium and stable preferences, used relentlessly and unflinchingly' (Becker, 1976b, p. 5). Consider these assumptions in turn. MAXIMISATION: The individual, we have seen, is assumed to maximize utility subject to a budget constraint which, although taking a different form to the traditional one, is nevertheless closely related to it -indeed, subsumes it as a special case. It is important to note that this is not necessarily ‘rationality' in the everyday sense of the term: it is not necessarily self-interest, nor are the sources of utility necessarily market goods and services. Becker has suggested that social distinction can be a source of utility, and he has gone so far as to claim (Becker, 1962) that even apparently random behavior by individuals can lead to the basic prediction of downward-sloping demand curve which is at the heart of economic reasoning. Behind the maximizing impulse, Becker has suggested, there ultimately lies the principle of natural selection. In a paper (Becker, 1976a) concerned with the origins of altruism he has expressed approval of the new science of sociobiology, arguing that a synthesis of economic reasoning and natural selection can explain the dominance of maximizing behavior. He also suggests that the basic tastes which determine preference patterns can be attributed to natural selection. The principle of maximization must be maintained as a central analytical device. ‘When an apparently profitable opportunity †¦ is not exploited' we should not ‘take refuge in assertions about irrationality, contentment †¦ r convenient ad hoc shifts in values' (Becker, 1976b, p. 7). Instead we should look for hidden costs -such as transaction costs, or costs of acquiring information-which render such opportunities unprofitable. This seems dangerously close to tautology, but the test, as good Chicago economists always tell us, is the predictive power of the hypotheses generated and Becker is optimistic on thi s score. _MARKET EQUILIBIRIUM: _we have already seen the importance of this in Becker's approach. Even where explicit markets do not exist-as in the case of marriage – Becker insists that we operate on Chicago ‘as if principles. Note that Becker's approach throughout is to use partial equilibrium analysis. He has written with approval of Marshall's development of this apparatus for taking one problem at a time for analysis. This is revealing when we consider his usual reluctance to enter the arena of normative economics. The tradition of general equilibrium analysis instigated by Walras is associated with the normative position that unfettered competitive capitalism tends to produce an optimal allocation of resources. To do this it paints a grossly oversimplified picture of an economy without any of the subtleties of Becker's approach. Once we admit Becker's contention that preferences are based on home-produced commodities which are not sold in a market of the normal kind, it is less obvious that the traditional prescription of generalized laissez-faire is the appropriate one. The implications of Becker's approach for general equilibrium remain to be determined. STABLE-PREFERENCES: We have seen how fixed ‘tastes' play an important role in Becker's analysis. Such tastes are tastes for consumption activities rather than goods themselves, however, and this is a considerable step forward from the traditional view. Becker has, though, gone further than this, and in a paper written with George Stigler (Becker and Stigler, 1977) has tentatively sketched a theory of taste formation. As already suggested, some basic ‘tastes' are probably biologically determined, but the behavioral form they take in a complex society needs further explanation. Becker and Stigler introduce an interesting model where tastes are learnt by exposure to new xperiences – a special form of ‘learning by doing'. Individuals repeatedly exposed to a stimulus acquire, as it were, ‘consumption capital', a body of knowledge and attitudes which raises the ‘marginal productivity' of consumption of the good in question, thus increasing demand for it. Within this framework the success of advertising can be rationalized and some kind of explanation can be offered for the increasing stability of tastes as people get older -they are ‘locked into' their accumulated consumption capital, and their reduced ‘pay-off period' (life expectancy) discourages further ‘investment'. Again, this is all rather fanciful, but it illustrates once more the tenacity of Becker's commitment to the economic approach and his refusal to concede that economics might not have anything to say about some social phenomenon. ROTTEN KID THEOREM: Gary Becker’s rotten kid theorem suggests that family members, even if they are selfish, will act to help one another if their financial incentives are properly linked. Gary Stanley Becker (born December 2, 1930) is an American economist. †¦ Becker creates a hypothetical situation in which children will receive gifts of money income from a wealthy, altruistic parent in order to make them happy. One of the kids is a selfish, â€Å"rotten† kid who would take pleasure in harming his sibling. The theorem posits that the rotten kid has an incentive to avoid hurting his sibling, and will in fact behave in such a way as to increase her happiness, because her happiness has a direct effect on the amount of money he will receive. Without creating any formal incentive structure, the altruistic parent can induce the rotten child to behave benevolently by making his welfare contingent upon the welfare of his sibling. Altruism is alternately a belief, a practice, a habit, or an ethical doctrine. †¦ The theorem suggests that parents should delay gifts of money to their children until they are older, or possibly until after they die. If parents plan to will their children money in accordance with their needs, each child will have an incentive to help his siblings maximize their income, because higher earnings by the other siblings will mean that more of the money will be given to the rotten sibling. ORGAN MARKETS: An article by Gary Becker and Julio Elias on â€Å"Introducing Incentives in the market for Live and Cadaveric Organ Donations† said that a free market could help solve the problem of a scarcity in organ transplants. Their economic modeling was able to estimate the price tag for human kidneys ($15,000) and human livers ($32,000). It is argued by critics, that this particular market would exploit the underprivileged donors from the developing world. This view was endorsed by the National Kidney Foundation in a testimony to the US Congress where Dr Francis Delmonico argued that â€Å"†¦ a US congressional endorsement for payment would propel other countries to sanction unethical and unjust standards†¦ Another concern is that, if a market for organ donations were introduced, then organs would oftentimes go to the patients most able to afford them, rather than patients who may have more need for them medically. POLITICAL VIEWS: Successful social economy organizations can play an important role in helping deliver many key governmental policy objectives by: helping to drive up productivity and competitiveness; contributing to socially inclusive wealth creation; enabling individuals and commu nities to work towards regenerating their local neighborhoods; showing new ways to deliver public services; and Helping to develop an inclusive society and active citizenship. CONTROVERSY: The horizontal axis: On the horizontal axis each enterprise / organization is categorized by its ownership. On the left side the ownership lies with the public authorities whereas on the right side the ownership lies with private people. So the distinctive feature is the ownership of the enterprise. Is it private? Def. : The term â€Å"private industry† contains all economic activity that deals with the capital of one or many private owners with a view to making profits. The capital owners bear the risk. Or is it public? Def. The term â€Å"public authorities† contains all economic activity where the public authorities possess the capital on either European, federal, regional or local level. That includes all nationalized and public industries. The vertical axis On the vertical axis, each enterprise / organization is categorized by the primary objective of the enterprise. The dimensions range b etween social purpose on the top and commercial purpose at the bottom of the axis. On the vertical axis an organization reaches the top, i. e. the social purpose is the primary objective of the enterprise, if you fulfill the following criteria: A Ethical concept** core definition for enterprises / organizations of the social economy) This core definition is the ideal of an enterprise / organization. Only these enterprises / organizations belong to the social economy whose ideal is a clearly defined ethical concept. B Mission The primary objective of the enterprise is the improvement of the life situation and the chances of disadvantaged people as well as social cohesion and support. C Social economic creation of value and appropriation of earnings the profits and the resources are verifiably reinvested for the benefit of disadvantaged people. If the criteria A, B and C are totally fulfilled, an organization can locate itself on top of the vertical axis. There is one last criterion which is not definitional but a describing feature: D Intermediary function Social economical enterprises / organizations have an intermediary function between public and private. If none of the criteria above is fulfilled or the primary object of the enterprise is the commercial purpose then an enterprise / organization is located on the bottom of the vertical axis. Location between social and commercial purpose If the criteria above are only partly fulfilled the enterprise is located between the top and the bottom of the vertical axis according to its self-definition. 3. 0 EFFECT OF GARY BECKER’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE PAST AND CURRENT WORLD ECONOMY: An important step in extending the traditional analysis of individual rational choice is to incorporate into the theory a much richer class of attitudes, preferences, and calculations. This step is prominent in all the examples that Gary Becker consider. The analysis of discrimination includes in preferences a dislike of – prejudice against – members of particular groups, such as blacks or women. In deciding whether to engage in illegal activities, potential criminals are assumed to act as if they consider both the gains and the risks – including the likelihood they will be caught and severity of punishments. In human capital theory, people rationally evaluate the benefits and costs of activities, such as education, training, and expenditures on health, migration, and formation of habits that radically alter the way they are. The economic approach to the family assumes that even intimate decisions like marriage, divorce, and family size are reached through weighing the advantages and disadvantages of alternative actions. The weights are determined by preferences that critically depend on the altruism and feelings of duty and obligation toward family members. Since the economic, or rational choice, approach to behavior builds on a theory of individual decisions, criticisms of this theory usually concentrate on particular assumptions about how these decisions are made. Among other things, critics deny that individuals act consistently over time and question whether behavior is forward-looking, particularly in situations that 52 Economic Sciences 1992 differ significantly from those usually considered by economists – such as those involving criminal, addictive, family, or political behavior. This is not the place to go into a detailed response to the criticisms, so Gary Becker simply assert that no approach of comparable generality has yet been developed that offers serious competition to rational choice theory. While the economic approach to behavior builds on a theory of individual choice, it is not mainly concerned with individuals. It uses theory at the micro level as a powerful tool to derive implications at the group or macro level. Rational individual choice is combined with assumptions about technologies and other determinants of opportunities, equilibrium in market and nonmarket situations, and laws, norms, and traditions to obtain results concerning the behavior of groups. It is mainly because the theory derives implications at the macro level that it is of interest to policymakers and those studying differences among countries and cultures. None of the theories considered in Gary Becker’s lecture aims for the greatest generality; instead, each tries to derive concrete mplications about behavior that can be tested with survey and other data. Disputes over whether punishments deter crime, whether the lower earnings of women compared to men are mainly due to discrimination or lesser human capital, or whether no-fault divorce laws increase divorce rates all raise questions about the empirical relevance of predictions derived from a theory based on individual rationality. A close relation between theory a nd empirical testing helps prevent both the theoretical analysis and the empirical research from becoming sterile. Empirically oriented theories encourage the development of new sources and types of data, the way human capital theory stimulated the use of survey data, especially panels. At the same time, puzzling empirical results force changes in theory, as models of altruism and family preferences have been enriched to cope with the finding that parents in Western countries tend to bequeath equal amounts to different children. Gary Becker has been impressed by how many economists want to work on social issues rather than issues forming the traditional core of economics. At the same time, specialists from fields that do consider social questions are often attracted to the economic way of modeling behavior because of the analytical power provided by the assumption of individual rationality. Thriving schools of rational choice theorists and empirical researchers are active in sociology, law, political science, history, anthropology, and psychology. The rational choice model provides the most promising basis presently available for a unified approach to the analysis of the social world by scholars from the social sciences. Becker's economic approach to the family is often believed to imply that certain types of targeted government policies cannot affect allocation within families because they will be fully neutralized by individuals' responses. For example, the altruist model and the Rotten Kid Theorem imply that which parent receives the child benefit must be irrelevant. But I would like to argue earlier that the interesting implications of the economic approach to the family do not follow from maximizing behavior and equilibrium, the foundational assumptions of the economic approach, but depend on contested auxiliary assumptions. For example, the conclusion that parents will neutralize the child benefit depends on the assumption that family collective choice is determined by the altruist model and that preferences exhibit transferrable utility. Whether these auxiliary assumptions are described as primary, secondary, or tertiary, is a matter of taste. Becker's influence on welfare reform and other specific policies is difficult to assess. In the final paragraph of the General Theory, Keynes famously asserted that, in the long run, ideas are more important than vested interests in public policy: †¦ he ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and When they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the World is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt From any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist? Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from s ome academic scribbler of a few years back. Becker's influence on the economics of the family has been pervasive. His ideas have dominated research in the economics of the family, shaping the tools we use, the questions we ask, and the answers we give. I can testify to their influence on my own thinking, work, and career. The foundational assumptions of the economic approach –maximizing behavior and equilibrium — as well as such primary auxiliary assumptions as household production and interdependent preferences are now widely accepted not only by economists but also by family sociologists, demographers, and others who study the family. Some of the differences between Becker's original vision and the current state of the economics of the family reflect the evolution of Becker's ideas, sometimes in response to his critics. Other differences reflect ongoing and often vigorous debate. For example, Becker jettisoned stable preferences, which he originally presented as a foundational assumption and dropped his insistence on deferential preferences (â€Å"altruism†), acknowledging the importance of merit goods. With household production, the basic concept is now generally accepted but the secondary and tertiary auxiliary assumptions about household technology are contested. More specifically, Becker's formulation of the household production model assumes the absence of joint production, and some of his most striking conclusions depend on this assumption, yet joint production is present whenever individuals care how they spend their time. No one can predict with confidence the irection the economics of the family will take over the next twenty-five or fifty years. After all, economists took nearly two centuries to unpack Adam Smith's contributions and establish the conditions under which the conclusions of the invisible hand theorem hold. Perhaps economists unpacking Becker's contributions will move more quickly. Those who complete the task will surely honor Gary Becker for laying the foundations of the economic approach to the family. Organ market view was endorsed by the National Kidney Foundation in a testimony to the US Congress where Dr Francis Delmonico argued that â€Å"†¦ a US congressional endorsement for payment would propel other countries to sanction unethical and unjust standards†¦ † Another concern is that, if a market for organ donations were introduced, then organs would oftentimes go to the patients most able to afford them, rather than patients who may have more need for them medically. REFERENCES: http://en. ikipedia. org/wiki/Gary_Becker http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Social_economics http://www. google. com. my/search? hl=en&source=hp&q=rotten+kid+theorem&meta=&aq=0&oq=rotten+kid+ https://netfiles. uiuc. edu/chnelson/www/teaching/ace501/rottenkid07. pdf http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_Economics http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Human_capital http://home. uchicago. edu/~gbecker/Nobel/nobel. html http://www. faqs. org/abstracts/Economics/Risks-and-rewards-Gary-Beckers- contributions-to-economics. tml http://nobelprize. org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1992/index. html http://ideas. repec. org/e/pbe29. html http://www. economictheories. org/2008/08/gray-stanley-becker-economist. html http://www. economictheories. org/2008/08/gray-stanley-becker-discrimination. html http://www. economictheories. org/2008/08/gray-stanley-becker-fertility. html http://www. economictheories. org/2008/08/gray-stanley-becker-allocation-of-time. html

Being a Farm Kid

Hick, backwards, redneck, stupid, bumpkin. These are all fine names given to persons that work to feed and clothe the world by certain persons who have no idea what they are talking about. However, there are some people that know very well what it really means to live the life of an agriculturalist. Those that know the best are the ones that have grown up on farms. Being a farm kid means that I know everyone within five miles of where I live. It also means knowing all of their quirks, and the quirks of their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. By just hearing a last name, I can usually assume the character of that person. We also have to overlook those things at times for the sake of neighborliness. Neighborliness takes on many forms, be it pulling cars out of ditches or clearing driveways after snowstorms, to taking food to a neighbor after a death or illness. Being a farm kid also means having a sense of tradition. It’s being able to stand atop a windmill tower and see, in one broad glance, the farms where my great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and I, myself, grew up. A true farm kid calls areas by long gone one-room schools and pieces of property by the families that farmed the land in their parents’ youth, such as â€Å"the Teiges’ place† or â€Å"north of Liberty Center School (which closed in the 1940’s).† I can also walk through the local cemetery and know 99% of the names. Not only that, but I can also pronounce the pure German, or other nationality, names that trip up even the best telemarketer. Being a farm kid instills me with a sense of pride. A true farm kid, while maybe a little ornery, will be a good person and a responsible citizen for the simple fact that a person should be. A farm kid finds the reaction people give when they figure out his dad has a master’s degree amusi ng. It also means taking pride in agriculture. A farm kid’s blood will almost always boil at the thought of animal activists and â€Å"pure food† yuppies. Being a farm kid means being spiritual. In addition to being spiritual, the church is often the central social hub for the community and plays a big part in rural life. Be it 5th Sunday dinners, weekly church services, or Vacation Bible School, a farm kid’s life would be incomplete without church. But a farm kid’s spirituality goes much further than just words on Sunday morning. Farming brings together human and earth more than any other profession. Whether it’s watching a summer storm roll across the northern part of the county from a hilltop, or running among the rows of wheat, soybeans, or milo, farm life constantly fills a person with wonder at the power of whatever being put this silly planet together. Being a farm kid means doing work. A farm kid may spend his weekends, summer, and free t ime doing any number of tasks, from helping with harvest to clearing brush out of a pasture. We are also expected to complete these things in a timely manner and with very little complaining. Farm kids will also find themselves at play amongst machinery and chemicals. They will soon learn to be safe, though, whether it’s by being yelled at for getting to close to the chainsaw or being told that the fly liquid that goes on the calves will kill you. I also learned that shorts mean scratched up legs, but I still wear them. Being a farm kid means living a hard life. At an early age, farm kids realize that death is a fact of life, whether it’s the calf that wasn’t born right or the raccoon that got in the hen house. At times, it feels like the little valley that I call home and have, on so many occasions, been glad to see, is like an enclosure keeping me there. Farm kids also learn early about finances because farm parents don’t try hard to keep talks about m oney behind closed doors. While most kids won’t have to hear about complete financial devastation, it can be a little frightening at times. When it comes to a social life, a farm kid’s is limited, at best, due to the seclusion of the country. My curfew is always 30 minutes sooner than what my parents say because it will take me at least that long to get home. There is also the age-old question for male farm kids: â€Å"Will you return to the farm?† Most kids don’t really decide what they will do when they grow up until their junior year of high school at the earliest, but farm kids are faced with this question from the time they can talk. And it’s no easy decision. While farm life isn’t easy, it offers a way of living that defines a person. The next time you hear a person talking about hicks or rednecks, remember that farm kids are normal people. We might live a hard life, but that we enjoy it. Oh, and you’d be naked and hungry witho ut us.

Comparison between the characteristics of citizens of Germany and Essay

Comparison between the characteristics of citizens of Germany and Qatar - Essay Example As it is explained in the book â€Å"Culture Smart: Germany†, Germans make their best effort to complete a task within the time assigned, and make sure that they do the work rightly the very first time it is done. In short, we can say that they are too committed to their jobs and respect the deadlines. When I compare that to the trend in my country, Qatar, I find a huge difference because most of the people in Qatar are too careless about the work deadlines, and more often than not, work is completed after the deadlines. Regardless of the religion or cultural differences with Germans, I respect them as a Muslim for their hard work, because in Islam, we are taught to do everything with extreme enthusiasm and professionalism. In one saying, our Prophet Mohammed has conveyed that God loves it when someone does something and he/she does it well. Another characteristic that I particularly like about Germans is their straightforwardness. Germans have a habit of saying straight whate ver they have in their mind, and they do not feel any hesitation or embarrassment in being truthful in their speech. There is no hypocrisy in them. Thus, whatever they say, they mean it and they do what they think is right. Straightforwardness to such a high extent may sound rude occasionally, but for me it should not be taken like that. I feel that one should welcome criticism as long as it is just. I would not mind someone telling me to correct myself in a particular way if I am really wrong in that. In my country, people frequently make use of flattery for personal gains. This is a sign of hypocrisy and is strictly forbidden in Islam. In addition to their straightforwardness, I like German’s truth.

Reflection Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Reflection Paper - Essay Example Hence, a student can be able to achieve success in some aspects of their life while at school. For example, there are students who will excel in sports, socialization, and other different aspects of development while failing to pose excellent grades in class. In effect, qualifying such students as failures and branding them as such is not appropriate. To me, I think I have been an overall good student this far. However, the adjective ‘good’ is relative since there have been incidences whereby I think I have not done my best to be a good student. In effect, this reflection paper analyses my student life and the adjustments that I can make to turn my failures into successes while make the successes only better to help me achieve a lot in future. Assignments and school projects form the foundation of a student’s life in school. In this case, the assignments and projects ensure that a student is graded and their progress determined depending on the grades they obtaine d. In effect, a student who fails many of their assignments is branded a failure once they fail to post good grades in their examinations while those who posted impressive grades become successful. For me, I value the challenge posed by assignments and projects since they have been important in ensuring that I posted good grades. In this case, I have been able to hand in my assignments and projects on time. However, I am not happy with the approach that I was taking towards completing these assignments. In this case, I used to work on my assignments a few days, or even hours, before the submission deadline. In effect, I do not think that the level of hard work and research I was putting on these assignments helped me produce and realize my full potential. I feel that the grades were not a reflection of the best that I could have done, which effectively means that the grades are far from what I should have achieved. On the other hand, group projects have been influential since I have been able to interact with diverse people and gain self-confidence. However, we did not conduct our group’s projects in an approach that brought the best out of every member. In this case, I feel that I was not a good a student since I did not speak to my colleagues about this issue. Rather, I chose to remain silent instead of asking my group members to change the way we engaged each other since we were not achieving our full potential. Maintaining silence was not reflective of the behavior that a good student should have observed and I regret this approach. In effect, I want to ensure that I adjusted the approach that we used to conduct our group activities so that I can achieve success as a student in the United States. I realized that I relied more on fellow students than I relied on my instructors. In line with this, relying on my fellow students was beneficial since I gained insights that helped me during my studies. However, I think that I should have engaged my instru ctors more than my fellow students in order to obtain informative insights due to the experience that instructors have in comparison to students. I want to adjust this aspect in order to become a successful student in the United States. Overall, I am a good student although there are some aspects of a good student that I have to accomplish. In this regard, I realize that I have not engaged in extra-curricular activities throughout the course of my

The body is a tool through which to construct the self Essay

The body is a tool through which to construct the self - Essay Example The concept of using the body to represent ideas about the self is quite ancient. Not all citizens have always had the chance to express their true selves through their bodies. For instance, for a long time, it was male artists who defined feminine qualities because women were not expected to have any ideas about the functions of their own bodies. Male artists would produce idealisations of the female shape that were not accurate. This affected how women perceived themselves. It is important for all individuals to feel that they can express their identities through their bodies without being held to a pre-established false standard of themselves. The body was used as a canvas for self-expression by the earliest humans that existed 30,000 years ago. According to Grezes, Pichon, and de Gelder (2007), archaeologists have found ochre deposits and handprints in caves in different parts of the world that are indicative of body painting functions. Ancient burial mounds of civilisations that existed thousands of years ago also show indications of body changing operations such as flattened skulls, or elongated heads. This proves that ancient civilisations engaged in head shaping practices to express aspects that their communities believed in. From such characteristics, it is obvious that even in ancient civilisations community members would make marks on their bodies that were expressions of social status, individuality, or cultural identity. People did not just construct their selves through their bodies by means of markings, however. They also used socially accepted forms of body expression such as dance. According to Hogan and Strasburger (2008), dance includes the physical movement of the body to the accompaniment of music. It is accurate to say that dance has been used as a way of one or more individuals communicating with others. Before the invention of written language, many communities would use dance to express themselves and even communicate stories between

Examine the shifting values of civil liberties in the new millennium Research Paper

Examine the shifting values of civil liberties in the new millennium that has seen greater public tolerance of government surveillance and record-keeping - Research Paper Example There have been several events that have triggered the re-evaluation of the way civil privacy protection is balanced with police surveillance. During the period that has passed after the terrorist attack of 9/11, there have been diverse changes being implemented in the technological advances; federal law and the interpretation of privacy safeguards by the courts have created an expansion in the ways through which the police may facilitate surveillance of different civil activities or in the ways through which they can frisk citizens in public places for any particular reason. The rationale of this article is to scrutinize the different factors that may promote the escalation of police surveillance with regards to the type of effects that police surveillance has on civil life and privacy rights while also drawing conclusions on newspaper reports on the situations whereby issues have been raised in regards to stop-and-frisk policy. (http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/articles4 (3) /escalating.pdf‎) The way people view privacy and surveillance have been dramatically altered over the years and the change has been more evident in the balance between individual privacy rights and police surveillance authority. A significant section of the American public attributes the change to the 9/11 event to have catalyzed the search authority that has been related to the police surveillance. Surveillance has been modified and made quite inclusive of elements that were not previously connected to threat warnings, and with the advances made in the technology platform, a thin line has to be drawn as to what is acceptable by law and what should be considered as interference with the rights of an individual. Any form of threat to the safety of the American public has been defined in the constitution with the recommendations on the specific ways through which these issues of threat to national security have to be handled

Women's Emancipation in The Awakening Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Women's Emancipation in The Awakening - Essay Example Edna had a strong and passionate spirit but this died down with her marriage to her husband, Leonce. When she became Mrs. Pontiellier, she took it upon herself to live a life of responsibility, leaving who she was before they got married. Her marriage to Leonce was not perfect. In fact, there were times when she cries at night confused on the reason she was crying (Chap.3, par.10.). But during that night, she felt even more oppressed, even to the point of feeling anguish about her situation. Her emotions during that specific night during their summer vacation indicated that, although she realizes there was something wrong with how she felt, she strived to keep it to herself. Notice that she didn’t mention anything to her husband about how she felt during night the next morning. It was as if nothing was wrong. This was a typical scene for women of the 1800s. Chopin described Edna to be a slave of the social expectations of marriage and motherhood. Edna’s individuality wa s cast aside to become what is to be expected of a woman in marriage, a supportive wife and doting mother. But Edna was not entirely such a person. She acted only as if she was that person because she was expected to do so. Her husband even had to persuade her to check their son during the night he believed the young one had a fever (Chap.3, par. 6). Chopin was not alone in her belief how married women acted and felt. Ibsen shared this idea as seen in â€Å"The Doll House.† In this story, Nora led a difficult life because of the social expectation that her husband is supposed to be the dominant figure in their family. She also had the same strong spirit that Edna exhibited in â€Å"The Awakening.† But the same with Edna, Nora was unable to show how strong she is because of the bounds of marriage. Marriage is not a bad thing. Most, if not all, women envision themselves to become married and have a family. What turns this around are the social expectations linked to marr iage. One of the heaviest things that society has linked to marriage is the expectation that it is the husband that is supposed to lead and to provide for the family. Although social expectations increased the confidence and the responsibility of men, it decreased women’s participation in the family. Yes, it is the wife who becomes the mother and the housekeeper of the family. Yes, her role in the family has a great bearing in maintaining the family’s connection with each other. But with this role, the woman releases her connection with herself, as that with Edna and Nora. She lets go of her individuality, of who she is, when she becomes a wife and a mother. Edna and Nora followed the demands of the society to become perfect partners, even if it meant they hide their true feelings and beliefs on what their husbands were doing. When women become wives, they are expected to keep the family intact. And so, when Edna and Nora acted upon their own desires and wants, the ima ge of their families were jeopardized. The society expects that families should always be whole and when something bad happens, it is blamed on the women although it is not entirely their fault. This is not to justify the actions of both female characters. This is to show that because of the strings tied to them through marriage and social expectations, these female characters were repressed of their own emotions and individual personalities. When Edna and Nora realized that their marriage was actually killing who they were, they decided to let go of their marriage not to become free of the obligations of family life but to become free from the repressing environment that kills their own desires to take care of the family. They did not leave their families just because they want to become single

Business Research Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Business Research Paper - Essay Example METHODOLOGY †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.7 4.0 Research Design†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.8 4.1 Study Area and target group†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦8 4.2 Sampling techniques and Sample size†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦8 4.3 Research Instruments†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.8 4.4 Limitations of the Research†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦9 5. SPECIFICATION OF HY POTHESIS AND OBJECTIVES 5.0 Hypothesis†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..9 5.1 Objectives†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦9 REFERENCES†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦10 1. INTRODUCTION The major purpose of the study is to examine the effects of an effective and efficient management on the performance of an organization. The leaders of an organization have a major impact on the organization depending on how they perform their functions. The management of an organization performs different functions and thus, the success of the organization greatly depends on the manner in which the duties are performed (Drucker & Maciariello,  2008, 30) Therefore, the objective of the study is to find the major impacts that an effective management would have on the overall performance of an organization. The study seeks to find the extent of increase in production of an organization when then the management improves its performance. The foremost reason as to why I chose the topic is because; I would want to assess the major factors that determine the success of an organization. In addition, I would also like to find out how the performance of an organization can be improved and made effective. The topic also interests me since; it affects a variety of individuals and businesses in the economic world. Thus, such a research would be very useful to many parties in the business market. Many business organizations would definitely want to ensure the management of their businesses is effective in order to ensure that they reap the accruing benefits. 2. LIT ERATURE REVIEW 2.0 Introduction This chapter focuses and concentrates on previous studies conducted in regard to the effects of effective management on the performance of an organization. The issue of management’s effectiveness is very crucial to the organization’s performance and thus, many scholars have conducted different studies concerning the issue. 2.1 Critical Literature Studies have shown that when there is effective management in an organization, there will also be effective planning. On the other hand, effective planning in an organization ensures that there is a smooth flow of activities and operations. Thus, the organization is likely to accomplish most of its objectives (Anthony & Anthony,  2008, 34). The management of an organization also has a function of co-coordinating operations in the departments. Thus, when there is effective management in the company, there will also

Credit Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Credit Report - Essay Example Fair Credit Reporting Act was amended by adding the following new subsections:Fair Credit Reporting Act was amended by adding the following new subsections:†¢ RESELLER.—the term ‘reseller’ means a consumer reporting agency that assembles and merges information contained in the database of another consumer reporting agency or multiple consumer reporting agencies concerning two or any consumers for purposes of furnishing such information to any third party, to the extent of such activities; and does not maintain a database of the assembled or merged information from which new consumer reports are produced.†¢ Identity theft prevention; to identify theft, means a fraud committed using another person’sIdentifying information, subject to such further definition as the commission and the board may prescribe, jointly, by regulation. Have different sections that it represents and includes the following: a] Investigating changes of address and inactive acco unts this is done by the federal banking agencies and the national credit union administration] Fraud alerts.Include a fraud alert in the file of that consumer for a period of not less than 90 days beginning on the date of such request, unless the consumer specifically requests that such fraud alert be removed before the end of such periodc] Truncation of credit card and debit card account numbers d] Summary of rights of identity theft victims e] Establishment of procedures for depository institutions to identify possible Instances of identity theft f] Study on the use of technology to combat identity theft.

The New Frontier Politics and Social Change Essay Example for Free

The New Frontier Politics and Social Change Essay The decade of the 1960s is a link between the past and the future. The exciting images and events of the 1960s were traces and shadows of the previous two decades and at the same time served as the influences of the present. The same decade characterized the U.S. history with the emergence of new frontier politics and social change coming from famous personalities and notable events. What used to be just an inspirational slogan used by John F. Kennedy, the â€Å"new frontier† phrase became the domestic and foreign policy label or trademark by the 35th President of one of the most powerful nations in the world. The colorful era of the 1960s saw the beginning of the new frontier, expansion of the civil rights movement, foreign frontiers, Lyndon Johnson and the great society, from civil rights to black power, the tragedy of Vietnam, and the sixties crescendo, all of which shaped not only the lives of the American people but of a lot of people around the world. Notwithstanding its success and failures, the 1960s new disciplines and social changes indeed determined the people and events of the past and the present. A Glimpse of New Frontiers: Politics and Social Change in the 1960s In a document titled â€Å"New Frontiers: Politics and Social Change in the 1960s,† historians George B. Tindall, David E. Shi and Thomas Lee Pearcy told of John F. Kennedy as the 35th President of the United States in a decade that showed an active idealism. Based on the account of the three authors, the 1960s also attested a spectacular and fresh stage of the civil rights movement. The pictured Kennedy was one of the first nation presidents to acknowledge that the majority of the American people were not only entangled into poverty but also deprived of public awareness or consciousness. The three historian added that despite the fact that Kennedy himself was unwilling to battle racial discrimination in his country, the circumstances of the 1960s eventually drove him and the next President, Lyndon Johnson, to make civil rights their main business.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Actually, it was the time of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. which saw the beginning and foundation of the national civil rights movement. Securing from the superior scheme of nonviolent civil disobedience, King grabbed the attention and sympathy of a ca self-satisfied country like the U.S. The same decade accounted for the formation by King of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of SCLS. King and his organization compelled the national leaders to help and address needs of the victims of racial injustice. This was done through a lot of protests. Kings burning dedication and morale-booster expressions ignited patriotism among both black as well as white Americans. His campaigns resulted in the enactment of major measures such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that specifically forbid racial discrimination in work force and public places. Kings efforts also led to the legislation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that superseded literacy examinations and other legal ways utilized by local registrars to refuse blacks right to voting. The cited events made King the recipient of the 1964 Nobel Peace.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   However, as the civil rights movement began to take part, its lawful and political profits failed to be turned into a fast economic and social improvement. Black-related incidents of crime and drug addiction, fatherless households, and intense frustration and alienation persisted in the country. Statistics showed the number of race riots, people that were killed and arrested. It was unfortunate that for a lot of urban blacks (African-Americans), civil rights movement resulted into less and real improvement in their lives. This is because in real life, these blacks actually suffered from prolong poverty, unemployment, decreasing housing and schools facilities, and cruelty by those in power.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The campaign for â€Å"Black Power† in the middle of 1960s was a result of the impatience of the young black militants with Kings leadership ability and his dedication to consolidate within the whites who are the majority of the society. This was spearheaded by Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown who resisted the peaceful civil rebellion of King and his organization. For them, Black Power became the rallying cry in the mid-1960s.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Black Power idea came from the black custom of patriotism on the premise that black people such as those with African roots partake in a unique civilization and fate. It was based from the agitating dissatisfaction of the rate of social modifications among urban blacks. Malcolm X, who was the most powerful advocate of black patriotism, encouraged the blacks to even violently take charge in their communities. Malcolm X was different with King because he was not fascinated in supporting consolidation with the whites. His aim was an isolated and independent black society in his country. In a turn of events before the mid-1960s, Malcolm X started to soften his position. He separated from the Black Muslims and started to speak of racial cooperation. For Malcolm X. this apparent abandonment resulted in his death perpetrated by the assassins from his own group.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The aggressiveness portrayed by Malcolm X continued among the younger Black Power supporters. It was in the summer of 1966 that Stokely Carmichael led the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or SNCC to break away from its initial dedication to non-violent social alteration. He was replaced by H. Rap Brown who instructed SNCC members to arm themselves, put the cities on fire, and kill the whites. Another group led by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale supported these powerful campaign feelings and eventually formed the Black Panther Party that made insurgent activities against white leaders.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The summer from 1965 and 1968 sparked racial-related public violence in American municipalities. The number of killed and arrested people as well as the escalating rioting during 1967 compelled President Johnson to designate Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois as a special National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. The Kerner Commission Report, that determined the causes of the racial violence, went out the next year. It called for a caring, solid and continuous dedication to racial and social fairness to be supported by the most powerful and richest country in the whole world. Again in a tragic turn of circumstances and after a month that the Kerner paper was reported, King was assassinated that re-ignited eruption of racial-related violence in the U.S.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   During the later part of the 1960s the cry for racial equality was complicated with other powerful events within American societies. These include antiwar resistance or protest actions as well as compelling feminist-related actions. The connection among these two forces, coupled with other campaigns, which were elicited with their traditional backfires, jeopardized and unscrambled U.S. towards the end of 1960s. For more and a detailed understanding of the cited new frontier politics and social changes, it would be helpful and important to note the Tindall, Shi and Pearcy documents that appeared in â€Å"The Essential America† (2001) and â€Å"America: A Narrative History† (2003). The New Frontier   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   According to the similar documents that appeared in both books, the election, eventually victory and domestic as well as foreign policies for the nation characterized what President Kennedy called as the new frontier. Aside from these, the strong personality or character of Kennedy and his family had a much effect to the events of the 1960s. The three authors manifestation of the new frontier was traced from Kennedys wealthy family and from the Presidents own portrayal of vigor, energy, and even his good or charming looks. His Catholicism was never a problem and impossibility. In fact, he was more noted for his youth and having a beautiful wife caught the American imagination (Tindall, Shi Pearcy, 2001 2003).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The said Tindall, Shi and Pearcy materials documented the economic policies of the â€Å"New Frontier legislation† such as the gain in the minimum salary of the people and that of expenses incurred by the government expenditures that were intended for housing of poor Americans. The three authors, however, noted the tragic assassination of Kennedy that was accompanied by various conflicting conspiracy theories. They added that this unfortunate end to the life of Kennedy and the other turn of events during the early 1960s failed to divulge some weaknesses and failures of the said regime. Specifically, Kennedys new frontier is all about Kennedys election; his style of administration; and his domestic records such as the tax-cut proposal and legislative victories because of foreign aid, Peace Corps, trade expansion, housing assistance, increased minimum wage, area development and space race (Tindall, Shi Pearcy, 2003). Civil Rights Movement   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Tindall, Shi and Pearcy said that the fight for equal rights for Blacks actually started even before the decade of the 1960s. The three historians accounted that the Blacks rights to citizenship and vote were provided by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, respectively. For a short time and just before 1877, the Blacks actively took part in the American politics. This was cut off as the racists Whites restored their rule. This made it harder for Blacks to utilize their rights as provided by the Constitution. The Blacks have been continuously conscious of their countrys cry to battle dictatorship. However, it turned out that the rights that they fought for were always intended for others such as the Anglo Saxon. This was in contrast with the Whites who were associated with home, family and the country. The Blacks, who realized that they were always violated and ignored, eventually affirmed that they needed to fight and even die to protect their rights.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The fight for rights of the Blacks started with their sit-in protest organizations. These were done during lunch in various restaurants counters. In the event they were not serviced, the Black just stayed at their respective locations. Although some of these sit-ins were effective, the Blacks are usually faced with violence and the militants were even jailed. The sit-ins were later followed by boycott, marches, picketing and other forms of protests that turned out to be effective. The freedom that the Black Americans enjoy today was the fruits of the campaigns made by a lot of former Blacks who just died giving up the fight. In particular, Tindall, Shi and Pearcy wrote that the growth of the civil rights movement included the mass movements, student participation, formation of the SNCC, and importance of 1960s music. This period was also marked by freedom rides and the Federal intervention particularly the integration of â€Å"Ole Miss,† Birmingham demonstrations, JFKs changing position as well as his confrontation with George Wallace (Tindall, Shi Pearcy, 2003). Foreign Frontiers   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   According to the same Tindall, Shi and Pearcy documents, the foreign frontiers in the 1960s actually referred to Kennedys foreign policies. The invasion of Cuba proved to be both successful and failure for Kennedy administration. Just after taking his oath of office, Kennedy discovered a CIA strategy to invade Cuba and overrule President Fidel Castro with the utilization of Cuban exiles in the United States. Kennedys approval of the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961 turned out to be a disaster. This is because his decision to withheld critical air support at the last minute resulted to Soviet Unions increased direct military aid to Cube thereby jeopardizing the American operation.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The hostilities between the communist USSR and the United States that were already   in place because of the construction of the Berlin Wall in August of 1961 escalated in the last quarter of 1962. This was proven by aerial photographs which disclosed that the Russians were building medium-range missile sites in Cuba. The nuclear fiasco between the USSR and the United States was immediately acted upon by Kennedy when he instructed a naval barricade around Cuba. This military action prevented the Soviet Union from bringing in any more missiles in Cuba and the Russians were also forced to dismantle and remove any missiles already placed in Cuba. History accounted this event as the Cuban missile crisis that actually brought the world to the edge of nuclear war. It was terminated four days after the Kennedy order when Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev surrendered to Kennedys requirements. The missiles were returned to the USSR while the United States committed not to invade Cuba and, in a more subtle decision, also removed its own missiles from Turkey (Tindall, Shi Pearcy, 2001).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Thereafter, the relationship between America and Soviet Union improved as proven by the establishment of a â€Å"hot line† telephone link between Washington and Moscow that made communications between the superpowers easier. It was in August of 1963 that the Soviet Union, apparently worried over a possible threat from China, called on for Great Britain and the United States and the three nations later signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This pact prohibited nuclear testing on the earths air and water areas. However, other nuclear-power countries such as France and China did not take part in the accord. Noticeably, the treaty with the USSR actually showed that Kennedy still safeguarded his country from communist expansion (Tindall, Shi Pearcy, 2001).   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Kennedys foreign policies also involved the countrys additional American military and personnel assistance to South Vietnam. By the end of 1963, there were 16,000 U.S. military personnel in the region. The increased presence of the communist Viet Cong in the provinces signaled the beginning of the Vietnam Wat with Kennedy supporting the South Vietnamese Army in overthrowing infamous President Ngo Dinh Diem. However, the decision of the United States to recognize the new military government that succeeded Diem after his death proved to be a wrong foreign policy made by Kennedy. This is because the new government barely made an effort to put up even a show of democracy. Although Kennedy supporters claimed that the president was inclined to withdraw from Vietnam after the 1964 election, his critics believed that the withdrawal was an apparent acceptance of the domino theory that viewed Communism as a massive entity which is hard to reckon with (Tindall, Shi Pearcy, 2001).    Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Johnson administration was initially shocked by the Kennedy assassination. Despite the fact that the Kennedy regime was such a promise, Johnson had to move the country. He did this through his superior political skills and tactics and by making use as well as putting into actions what Kennedy was able to put in Congress legislation. Johnsons programs included working for a better education system and school facilities, medical care for the elderly and ultimately to put a stop to poverty. Johnsons efforts were tested in influencing Congress to approve the Medicare and Medicaid measures. Aside from these, there were also other similarly important cases handled by the Supreme Court during the Johnson administration that helped formed the American society. Specifically, Johnson and what was called the Great Society was characterized by the Presidents background and style, his early legislative achievements, the 1964 election, landmark legislations, civil rights movement and the development of Black power (Tindall, Shi Pearcy, 2003). From Civil Rights to Black Power   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Civil Rights movement in the 1960s was followed by the Black Power when a lot of SNCC members such as Kwame Ture who were critical of the peaceful means to address racial equality. The progression of increasingly radical Civil Rights Movement was also followed by the increasing yet subtle rejection by the younger Blacks of the idea of appealing to the publics morality and religious doctrines. Black power proponents generally reasoned that their consolidation with the Whites actually steal them of their self-respect and inheritance. In present world, majority of Black Power proponents did not change their independence argument. This is because racial equality remains around the world and it is generally accepted that the Black Americans did not finally absorb into the American mainstream culture. In fact, the Blacks were more suppressed by their own race nowadays.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Tindall, Shi and Pearcy specifically identified that the civil rights movement included the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights of 1965 while the development of the Black Power was characterized by the riots of 1965 and 1966, the assessment of the urban black condition and the focus on Black Power (Tindall, Shi Pearcy, 2003). The Tragedy of Vietnam   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   What the Johnson administration aimed to stop the spread of Communism turned out to be disastrous for the administration primarily because of his critical decisions involving Vietnam War. As the war escalated, Americas assistance was not enough and the communist North Vietnamese gained control of more and more jurisdictions. This prompted Johnson to send additional military troops in South Vietnamese. This military action proved tragic for American war history and fatal for many American soldiers. It also jeopardized Johnsons administration and later hurt the Nixon regime. It was perceived as the longest yet least successful war that America has entered into. Sixties Crescendo   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Tindall, Shi and Pearcy specifically identified that the sixties crescendo was composed of the twin tragedies of 1968 such as the assassinations of King and Kennedy as well as the convergence on the election of 1968. The 1960s significantly showed more than the above-cited events. The sixties crescendo manifested the young Americans’ refusal to accept the conventional norms of the 1960s society. This respite resulted to a counterculture that embraced the ideas of freedom and individuality. These ideas were seen with the young Americans experimentation of fresh kinds of dressing and music inclinations. This counterculture and pop culture not only tested how these young Americans would look like but also influenced their relationships with others. Aside from culture awakenings, the sixties crescendo was also marked by the promotion of the rights of the women. These included the passion for womens liberation and feminism. Conclusion   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Much has been showed by the new frontier politics and social changes in the 1960s. It marked the success and failures of the administrations of at least three famous American presidents – Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. It also accounted for the emergence of the powerful personalities such as King and his successors. Nonetheless, all their works, achievements and misfortunes are now just a thing of the past. It would be fruitful, however, to note what they have done and what did the decade of 1960s taught not only the Americans but people worldwide. Simply put, there is no harm in learning from the accomplishments and mistakes of the past. References Tindall, G. B., Shi, D. E., Pearcy, T. L. (2001). The Essential America. New York: W. W.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Norton Company. Tindall, G. B., Shi, D. E., Pearcy, T. L. (2003). America: A Narrative History. New York:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   W. W. Norton Company.