Pursuit Of Profit Research Articles

The Capitalism, Rent and Democracy

By inertia, which derives from Adam Smith, modern capitalism is described as a free-market competition. This historical model has worked while the market expands and the availability of resources increases. It provided the opportunity to maintain the political order of the welfare state as a form of non-economic egalitarian distribution of resources, which mitigates inequality and class antagonisms generated by market. However, once capitalism has engulfed the whole world, it is more prone to crises: competitionintensifies, markets of demand and market outlets do not expand, technological progress creates a growing structural unemployment, economic growth due to the completion of the global village-city transition stagnates, the resources of all the peripheries are almost exhausted. As a result, nationalism and protectionism arise, the polarization between the global center and the periphery increases, and there comes the image of undemocratic and non-egalitarian labor less society on the horizon of the future, with the precariat and the unemployed growing in numbers and demanding large amounts of rent to maintain their livelihoods. Due to this, the market model of capitalism is gradually transforming into a rental one, where the pursuit of profit, the main motivational factor intrinsic to the market, is removed by the pursuit of rent and the redistribution of markets by non-economic ways. In this context, the state becomes the key economic actor, which distributes resources by extra-market means within the hierarchy of rental groups that form the framework of a new structure of the political community.

Monopoly of State-Owned Enterprise of Social Justice

The role of the state through BUMN becomes so important when it is formulated in a provision as formulated in Article 33 Paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution of the State of the Republic of Indonesia, where the production branches which are important for the State and which affect the livelihood of the public must be controlled by Country. Here it indicates the authority of the State to participate in economic activities through the operation of production branches that can be categorized as important for the State and considered vital and strategic for the interest of the State.This is based on the reasons as formulated in the explanatory section of Article 33 of the 1945 Constitution of the State of the Republic of Indonesia, so that the benefits of the production branches do not fall into the hands of individuals, the State actively takes the role to cultivate it because the production branch is considered important and which control the livelihood of the people for the greatest prosperity of the people. State-Owned Enterprises is formed with the aim of contributing to the development of the national economy in general and the state's revenue in particular; The pursuit of profit; To hold general benefit in the form of providing goods and / or services of high quality and adequate for the fulfillment of the livelihood of the public; Pioneering business activities that have not yet been implemented by the private sector and cooperatives and actively providing guidance and assistance to weak economic entrepreneurs, cooperatives, and communities.SOEs are given the right to monopoly in the economic field which is considered to control the livelihood of many people.

“Healing the World”: The Divine Role of Africa-Centered Metaphysics

This paper argues that Africa is the cradle of civilization. That civilization evolved out of an understanding of the cosmos as well as the valorization of the metaphysical author of cosmogony. The paper asserts that appreciation of metaphysics created a stable and balanced cosmos. Civilization then meant living in harmony with fellow mankind, with the environment and with the cosmos as a whole. The paper suggests this was based on a clear understanding of the interdependence between the departed as well as the organic relationship between man, animal and nature. Now there is a gap between civilization and technological advancement. The metaphysics of unhu/Ubuntu as enshrined in the living law of Ma’at sank under the weight of capitalism; that pursuit of profit regardless of any moral price. Universal politics is now dictated by the desires of a few who stop at nothing to create a world order where humanity is reduced to a commodity. Wars and more wars have become the order of the day, threatening the whole world with extinction. This paper traces how Africa in particular has lost its metaphysical locus as a result of several foreign –induced imperial interventions culminating in the present intellectual, moral and cultural cacophonies that tear Africans apart. The paper argues that Africa can restore its glory as the citadel of civilization by returning to the “the way”. It is hoped that the whole world would also take a leaf, as it has done before, from Africa’s return to “the way”. The paper contends that the metaphysics of unhu/Ubuntu has this divine role to heal the world of various types of sickness: social, cultural, spiritual, intellectual, psychological and material.

The Commodification of Care: a Critical Exploration of the Marketing Mix for Domiciliary Care at the End-of-Life

The home care industry has grown exponentially around the world. In palliative care, the delivery of home care has been promoted as the ideal type of formal care; offering cost savings to local authorities and ‘choice’ for patients and their families. However, there is a dark side to the commodification of care that is rarely discussed in the marketing literature. The pursuit of profits, contracting and bureaucratising care can reduce care to physical, measurable elements and might ignore the emotional and relational aspects of care which cannot easily be costed or detailed in contracts. This paper critically examines the elements of the marketing mix for ‘care packages’ and highlights the impact of commodification on two parties involved in the market exchange: vulnerable patients and workers.

Valorised but not valued? Affective remuneration, social reproduction and feminist politics beyond the crisis

This paper proposes an analytical distinction between modes of valorising and modes of valuing social reproduction to suggest that a conflict between these two opposing modes lies at the heart of an on-going crisis of social reproduction in the face of purported economic recovery, where unpaid reproductive labour constitutes a source of surplus value. A systemic imperative to expand markets in the pursuit of profitability goes hand in hand with a devaluation of social reproduction, either by making this work invisible or by externalising its cost. This article analyses the specificities of this process in the context of contemporary Britain and investigates the role of the state, focusing on volunteering and new forms of ‘affective remuneration’ linked to financialisation and the connection between social reproduction and wealth extraction. In conclusion, the paper outlines the contours of possible counter-practices informed by a feminist politics.

Core tenets of the theory of ecologically unequal exchange

In this article, core tenets and claims of the theory of ecologically unequal exchange (EUE) are synthesized. EUE theory postulates a net flow of natural resources from peripheral developing to core industrialized countries through international trade, a situation which undermines the development of the periphery while enhancing that of the core. The key claims and EUE mechanisms are categorized and discussed under three topics: 1) the structure of the capitalist world-economy, 2) monetary valuation, and 3) equity and justice. The treadmill logic of capitalism in which capital extracts ecological resources and release waste in an endless pursuit of profits creates an expansionary dynamic which draws peripheral countries into exploitative market relations. This peripheralization is supported by 'free trade' economic policies, while nation-states and other political-economic institutions such as the WTO and IMF provide the regulations which ensure proper functioning of the system. Monetary valuation caps it by obscuring the inverse relationship between thermodynamics and economics, in which low-entropy energy and materials indispensable in economic production processes are lowly priced while processed goods which have dissipated most of their matter-energy are highly priced, ensuring that biophysical resources and profits accumulates in the industrialized Northern countries. This EUE framework is applied to the EU's Raw Materials Initiative from the vantage point of policy as implicit theory. By challenging mainstream policies and their underlying theories, the EUE perspective demonstrates that alternatives to neoliberal policy prescriptions exist and policy can play a crucial role in bringing about the necessary structural changes.Key words: ecologically unequal exchange, environmental justice, EU, capitalism, free trade, policy

Cooperatives as Alternative Form of Organization for CSR Effectiveness: Insights from Rabindranath Tagore

Increasing thrust on sustainability has pervaded every form of organization today including business. Active involvement and participation in community activities is no more considered an act of traditional philanthropy but an integral and significant part of the business model and operations for inclusive growth of the multiple stakeholder constituencies along with the organization. This also throws challenges to modern organizations to look for alternative forms and redefined priorities beyond the confines of single-pointed pursuit of profits and economic growth. The present article primarily engages in this search for ‘the other’ form of organization in the pioneering initiative for rural regeneration by the Nobel Laureate poet and philosopher from India Rabindranath Tagore at Sriniketan, in the district of Birbhum in West Bengal. Sriniketan was a novel venture to uplift the neglected village and bridge the gap between the urban and the rural milieu. In this regard, this article will undertake a detailed study of Tagore’s twin objectives—first, to educate the villagers in self-dependence and second, to gift the villagers a complete life. It will also attempt to uphold the ideal of village welfare as envisioned by Tagore through people-centric education with the help of local and global experts. The article explores through a qualitative study of Tagore’s Sriniketan, a rural development project directed towards sustainability in viewing the spirit of cooperatives as an alternative form of organization. It will also finally highlight on how modern organizations can draw lessons on sustainability from Tagore’s cooperative movement for creative and effective corporate social responsibility (CSR) interventions.

Understanding the Outcome in the Chinese Changjiang Disaster in 2015: A Retrospective Study

BackgroundRescue after a maritime disaster remains a great challenge in emergency medicine. ObjectiveWe performed an overview of rescue efforts among the victims in the sunken cruise ship Eastern Star in the 2015 Changjiang River marine disaster, as well as possible preventive measures in maritime transport situations. MethodsThe rescue records of 454 victims of the sunken ship were analyzed retrospectively. Their demographic data, rescue effects, accident inducement, and injury disposition were reviewed. A thorough analysis from the point of view of maritime traffic safety was also performed. ResultsOf the 454 victims, 442 (97.36%) were killed and only 12 (2.64%) survived. The survivors were classified based on their gender, rescue type, and rescue spot as follows: male (91.67%), female (8.33%); tourists (50.00%), and ship staff (50.00%), after the breakdown of the rescue spot in Jianli, Hubei province, China. The survivors were saved only during the initial 17 h after the disaster. The survivors suffering from somato- and psychotrauma were urgently treated for limb injuries, infections of the upper respiratory tract and lungs, fluid and electrolyte imbalance, and acute traumatic stress. This incident was the most severe maritime disaster since the establishment of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, due to the large number of elderly victims, fast overturning speed, and severe weather. ConclusionsEmergency rescue requires more automated and intelligent systems for maritime safety. An increased focus must be placed on public welfare and ethics, with the goal of influencing more prosocial behavior rather than the pursuit of profit.

Hyper-power, the marketing concept and consumer as ‘boss’

This article extends our knowledge of scientific marketing management and the reasons behind the emergence of the marketing concept. In our narrative, the banking community plays an important role in promoting marketing in the early 20th century. We illuminate this argument using the writings of Fred W. Shibley (1864–1944) and the theoretical resources of Michel Foucault. For Shibley, marketing advanced the interests of corporate financiers, shareholders and employees. Their profit focus was enabled through the marketing concept and accounting practices that mediated hyper- and disciplinary power. In this discourse, organizational relations reflected a pyramidal management of information through a ‘principle of omnivisibility’. These processes individualized departments and affected all employees. Importantly, these control mechanisms were seeded through ‘displacement’. This discursive move reveals a new dimension underwriting the promotion of the marketing concept and the pursuit of profit. These ‘progressive’ facets of marketing theory and practice were invoked to redirect employee attention away from their fractious relationships with management and the owners of capital. Redirecting employee focus was attempted by positioning the consumer as the ‘boss’, with increased production and consumption framed as ‘unpolitical socialism’. While the marketing management literature depicts the marketing concept in quasi-humanistic terms, we unearth the roles of hyper- and disciplinary power, combined with a status-quo orientation that underwrote its promotion in this formative period.

National Sport Governing Bodies and Sport Tourism: Agency and Resources

This paper employs agency theory and resource dependence theory to explore relationships between Australian national sport governing bodies and commercial tour operators. These relationships produce domestic and international travel packages to major sport events and can provide commercial revenue to sport governing bodies. The research identifies agency challenges inherent in the relationships and how these are managed by sport governing bodies. Findings indicate that while sport governing bodies and tour operators interact to generate revenue, the two parties have divergent attitudes toward risk, particularly risks associated with pursuit of profit. The sport governing bodies manage interaction with tour operators through control of event tickets, a perishable and finite resource. The research contributes insights into the challenges confronting sport governing bodies attempting to diversify revenue into commercial sport tourism, as well as the underexplored role of sport bodies in facilitating major event tourism.

Asymmetric Payoffs and Spatial Competition

We investigate the location choice of two firms whose objectives are the weighted average of their own profit and social welfare, in which they simultaneously decide their locations before setting their prices. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the asymmetric locations are influenced by the asymmetry of the firms’ objectives or by the asymmetry of firms’ marginal costs. We show that, when both firms have the same marginal cost, the equilibrium locations are always symmetric even in the case of the asymmetric objectives. On the other hand, the cost differences lead the asymmetric locations in equilibrium. That is, the asymmetric locations are a result of the cost asymmetry, but not the asymmetry of the firms’ objectives. We also demonstrate that the pursuit of profit by the cost-inefficient firm may increase consumer surplus.

European governance: ‘Football or Champions League?’

This essay presents the evolution of European governance in a parallel symbiosis with football. It describes the EU, this sui generis ‘team’, giving examples, images, dates and events from the world of football. It seeks to contribute to the debate on the changing profile of EU institutions through the looking glass of football ones, as a ‘team’ in the framework of governance and international relations. In particular, it uses the specific institutional example of the Champions League as a source of analogies and regularities for the on-going European experiment. It examines how far EU and football continue to encompass the same joy of accomplishment after the dramatic change in their institutional and political rules of play in an age ruled by the relentless and insatiable pursuit of profit. The paper argues that European governance needs to redefine its integration’s priorities, restoring dedication to and passion for the European project.

“Cash Is Better than Tenure”: (De)Constructing the “Posthistorical University” in James Hynes’s Gothic Academic Satire The Lecturer’s Tale

Abstract This article analyzes the manner in which James Hynes’s novel The Lecturer’s Tale (2001) can be read as a satire of what Bill Readings identified in his influential The University in Ruins (1996) as the “posthistorical university.” I argue that, in the contemporary context in which higher education establishments are becoming more like corporations and the idea of culture is replaced by the “discourse of excellence,” Hynes’s novel offers an insightful discussion of universities’ negotiation of the Scylla of the pursuit of profit and the Charybdis of self-absorbed literary theorizing and its association with political correctness, the exploitation of junior and non-tenured faculty, and the quest for academic stardom. At the same time, I discuss the way in which the Gothic elements that permeate the novel fittingly double and deepen the critique of contemporary educational establishments and professors.

Efficiency and Ethically Responsible Management

One common justification for the pursuit of profit by business firms within a market economy is that profit is not an end in itself but a means to more efficiently produce and allocate resources. Profit, in short, is a mechanism that serves the market’s purpose of producing Pareto superior outcomes for society. This discussion examines whether such a justification, if correct, requires business managers to remain attentive to how their firm’s operation impacts the market’s purpose. In particular, it is argued that the value of efficiency, despite views to the contrary, cannot be fully separated from the planning and intentions of business managers as long as those managers direct their firms in an ethically responsible fashion. This position is inspired by, and serves as a supportive clarification of Joseph Heath’s so-called “market failures approach” to business ethics.

When Schools Become Dead Zones of the Imagination: A Critical Pedagogy Manifesto

Originally printed on Truthout, Tuesday, 13 August 2013 Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. Martin Luther King, Jr If the right-wing billionaires and apostles of corporate power have their way, public schools will become zones of the reduced to anti-public spaces that wage an assault on critical thinking, civic literacy and historical memory. (1) Since the 1980s, schools have increasingly become testing hubs that de-skill teachers and disempower students. They have also been refigured as punishment centers where low-income and poor minority youth are harshly disciplined under zero tolerance policies in ways that often result in their being arrested and charged with crimes that, on the surface, are as trivial as the punishment is harsh. (2) Under casino capitalism's push to privatize education, public schools have been closed in cities such as, Philadelphia, Chicago and New York to make way for charter schools. Teacher unions have been attacked, public employees denigrated and teachers reduced to technicians working under deplorable and mind-numbing conditions. (3) Corporate school reform is not simply obsessed with measurements that degrade any viable understanding of the connection between schooling and educating critically engaged citizens. The reform movement is also determined to underfund and disinvest resources for public schooling so that public education can be completely divorced from any democratic notion of governance, teaching and learning. In the eyes of billionaire un-reformers and titans of finance such as Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, the Walton family and Michael Bloomberg, public schools should be transformed, when not privatized, into adjuncts of shopping centers and (4) Like the dead space of the American mall, the school systems promoted by the un-reformers offer the empty ideological seduction of consumerism as the ultimate form of citizenship and learning. And, adopting the harsh warehousing mentality of prison wardens, the un-reformers endorse and create schools for poor students that punish rather than educate in order to channel disposable populations into the criminal justice system where they can fuel the profits of private prison corporations. The militarization of public schools that Secretary Arnie Duncan so admired and supported while he was the CEO of the Chicago School System was not only a ploy to instill authoritarian discipline practices against students disparagingly labeled as unruly, if not disposable. It was also an attempt to design schools that would break the capacity of students to think critically and render them willing and potential recruits to serve in senseless and deadly wars waged by the American empire. And, if such recruitment efforts failed, then students were quickly put on the conveyor belt of the school-to-prison pipeline. For many poor minority youth in the public schools, prison becomes part of their destiny, just as public schools reinforce their status as second-class citizens. As Michelle Alexander points out, Instead of schools being a pipeline to opportunity, [they] are feeding our prisons. (5) Market-driven educational reforms, with their obsession with standardization, high-stakes testing, and punitive policies, also mimic a culture of cruelty that neoliberal policies produce in the wider society. They exhibit contempt for teachers and distrust of parents, repress creative teaching, destroy challenging and imaginative programs of study and treat students as mere inputs on an assembly line. Trust, imagination, creativity, and a respect for critical teaching and learning are thrown to the wind in the pursuit of profits and the proliferation of rigid, death-dealing accountability schemes. …

Asymmetric Payoff and Spatial Competition

We investigate the location choice of two firms whose objectives are the weighted average of their own profit and social welfare, in which they simultaneously decide their locations before setting their prices. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the asymmetric locations are influenced by the asymmetry of the firms' objectives or by the asymmetry of firms' marginal costs. We show that, when both firms have the same marginal cost, the equilibrium locations are always symmetric even in the case of the asymmetric objectives. On the other hand, the cost differences lead the asymmetric locations in equilibrium. That is, the asymmetric locations are a result of the cost asymmetry, but not the asymmetry of the firms' objectives. We also demonstrate that the pursuit of profit by the cost-inefficient firm may increase consumer surplus.

The Demoralizing Trap of Keynesianism

Classical economists since the days of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers held that one of the primary arguments for capitalism, in addition to its superior economic efficiency and its grounding in robust political economy, was its civilizing role. They recognized that commerce channels self-interest into voluntary, mutually beneficial pursuits. The cooperative pursuit of profit thus encourages the development of tolerance, honesty, and manners even among diverse people. Keynesianism, however, undermines the civilizing role of commerce by promoting wide-spread government control and direction of the economy. Because big government undermines the market and fosters cronyism, commercial virtues are dampened, and they are often replaced with dishonesty, distrust, and intolerance.

The Common Good of the Firm and Humanistic Management: Conscious Capitalism and Economy of Communion

Businesses have long been admonished for being unduly focused on the pursuit of profit. However, there are some organizations whose purpose is not exclusively economic to the extent that they seek to constitute common good. Building on Christian ethics as a starting point, our article shows how the pursuit of the common good of the firm can serve as a guide for humanistic management. It provides two principles that humanistic management can attempt to implement: first, that community good is a condition for the realization of personal good, and second, that community good can only be promoted if it is oriented towards personal good. To better understand which community good can favor personal good and how it can be achieved, we examine two recent humanistic movements—Conscious Capitalism and Economy of Communion—that strive to participate in the common good. From the analysis of these two movements, we identify a shared managerial willingness to adopt the two principles. Moreover, we also reveal that Conscious Capitalism and Economy of Communion present different ways of linking community good and personal good, and therefore, different means exist for firms to participate in the common good.

Corporate Crocodile Tears? On the Reactive Attitudes of Corporate Agents

Recently, a number of people have argued that certain entities embodied by groups of agents themselves qualify as agents, with their own (analogs of) beliefs, desires, and intentions; even, some cl ...

Uloga menadžmenta preduzeća u kriznim situacijama

This paper analyzes the relationship of enterprise management in making strategic decisions in times of crisis, with the aim of preserving the environment. A large number of strategies that a company can choose, in order to ensure survival in the harsh operating conditions requires careful consideration and make timely decisions. The pursuit of profit often leads to neglect some aspects of policy, such as environmental protection. Among the large number of concepts of successful companies often choose for total quality management (TQM), which despite high costs of a comprehensive concept of strategy management. In this situation, the state with its measures helps companies to the joint efforts achieve the objectives of environmental protection.