Performance Appraisal System Essay

Execution Appraisal System Antronette S. Hancock Axia College of University of Phoenix A presentation examination framework is a significant piece of any effective association. The two representatives and hierarchical administration and pioneers profit by an all around organized execution evaluation framework. These frameworks offer criticism and prizes to representatives who perform well, while simultaneously considering workers responsible for their presentation. The accompanying report will portray the reason, advantages, and components of a decent exhibition examination framework, and diagram an extraordinary performace evaluation framework for a human help association. The motivation behind an exhibition examination framework is to give an assessment and criticism on an employee’s execution. Most associations perform examinations yearly and may call the evaluation by different terms, for example, a survey. Regardless of whether evaluations are performed yearly, the board ought to have week by week counsels or gatherings with staff to guarantee every representative is stayed up with the latest with approaches and every worker comprehends what is anticipated from that person. A director ought not hold up until the finish of a year to tell a worker that there has been an exhibition issue throughout the previous eight months. Issues ought to be tended to as they emerge to forestall any shocks during the examination procedure. The assessment bit of an evaluation framework is typically performed by the board. During this part, the executives assesses an employee’s execution to decide whether there are any territories that need improvement. In a perfect world, all workers ought to fulfill or surpassing hierarchical guidelines. In the event that a worker isn't fulfilling guidelines, or has not satisfied guidelines sooner or later inside the earlier year, their evaluation may have proposals for development or there might be different outcomes because of poor performace. The input segment of an examination framework regularly happens among the executives and the worker who is being evaluated. As per Caruth and Humphreys, examinations ought to be formalized by hierarchical method (2008). Criticism ought to be led in a private setting to guarantee that the data being passed on is secret. The supervisor ought to altogether clarify the employee’s evaluation and urge the worker to pose inquiries. The chief ought to likewise be mindful to what the representative says so the worker doesn't feel like their remarks or concerns are not significant. From a representative perspective, the motivation behind a performace evaluation is totally different than that of the association. As per Cash, the worker needs to know four things: what do you need me to do, how well have I done it, how might I improve my presentation, and prize me for progressing admirably (1993). These are the issues and desires a workers need to know so as to play out their activity well. Chiefs should ensure representatives know about desires every single day while working. From the authoritative perspective, one of the primary reasons for a representative evaluation framework is responsibility. Workers should be considered responsible for their exhibition consistently. A decent evaluation framework plots each employee’s duties and execution rates to show responsibility. This is particularly significant in associations that have zones with covering duties. Every representative has to know explicitly what the individual is considered responsible for. There are numerous advantages of a decent exhibition evaluation framework. One of the advantages is that the examination procedure permits supervisors to have one-on-one time with representatives that they may not get the opportunity to have every day. Another advantage is that any current issues can be tended to and, ideally, arrangements can be made so the issue can be revised. Examinations likewise urge representatives to perform better later on with the goal that the following evaluation will be sure. Consider the accompanying extraordinary evaluation framework for a human help association. Every representative will be assessed yearly. The assessment will be founded on three regions: work execution, participation, and advancement. Work performace will gain the greatest segment of the examination score on the grounds that there are numerous variables included. Work execution will be founded on hierarchical guidelines, precision rates, idealness principles, and consumer loyalty. Participation scores will be founded on the employee’s participation history for the earlier year. Furthermore, Innovation scores will be given dependent on any thoughts the representative has concocted to improve hierarchical procedures or reduced authoritative expenses. When the scores are resolved, a last evaluation score is given to the worker. Representatives can contrast these scores from year with year to check whether their presentation is adequate for the association. Worker examination frameworks are useful for the two representatives and the association. Examinations give criticism to workers concerning their exhibition and furthermore considers every representative responsible.

Capital Punishment Should be Banned essays

The death penalty Should be Banned papers The death penalty ought to be restricted. Today a huge number of individuals around the globe perpetrate wrongdoings. For a general public to be socialized, these individuals must be rebuffed. This discipline is dispensed in various structures. Disengagement from the general public by detainment, or removing a few rights from the individual, are a few types of discipline. For extreme wrongdoings, the discipline also is serious, one of the structures being the death penalty or capital punishment. Regardless of whether it is correct or wrong stays a central issue mark. Groups of survivors of murders, assault and so on are totally crushed by the violations and request equity. In some cases the general public as well, is persuaded that these lawbreakers dont have the right to live. Permitting such crooks to live would just imply that more individuals follow the way of wrongdoing. In this manner giving them capital punishment would not exclusively be an appropriate type of equity, it would likewise set a model for different crooks and keep future wrongdoings from happening. As the colloquialism goes, tit for tat and a tooth for a tooth. Individuals should know not to carry out such violations. Solidified crooks clearly wont have any beneficial outcome on humankind and mankind is in an ideal situation without them. Individuals, whove removed the lives of others and separated families while realizing that it is illegal, most likely have no soul. Restoration, Imprisonment, or whatever else won't assist them with improving. In addition detainees arent con strained to work and make due on food and haven gave by citizens. For what reason should socialized individuals help lawbreakers live? Since they have no commitment to make to the world, theyd rather be killed. Also extending the life of them is most likely more awful at that point slaughtering them without a moment's delay. Notwithstanding, Life is a blessing given to all of us. We as a whole have been given the option to live our lives, the manner in which we need to. Removing somebody elses is unquestionably past our auth... <!

The Three Races

The Three Races In old times, fable retells the story of the young athletic boy hungry for success, for whom winning was everything and success was measured by such a result.One day, the boy was preparing himself for a running competition in his small native village, himself and two other young boys to compete. A large crowd had congregated to witness the sporting spectacle and a wise old man, upon hearing of the little boy, had travelled far to bear witness also.The race commenced, looking like a level heat at the finishing line, but sure enough the boy dug deep and called on his determination, strength and power he took the winning line and was first. The crowd was ecstatic and cheered and waved at the boy. The wise man remained still and calm, expressing no sentiment. The little boy, however, felt proud and important. A second race was called, and two new young, fit, challengers came forward, to run with the little boy. The race was started and sure enough the little boy came through and finishe d first once again. The crowd was ecstatic again and cheered and waved at the boy. The wise man remained still and calm, again expressing no sentiment. The little boy, however, felt proud and important.Another race, another race! pleaded the little boy.The wise old man stepped forward and presented the little boy with two new challengers, an elderly frail lady and a blind man. What is this? quizzed the little boy. This is no race. he exclaimed.Race! said the wise man. The race was started and the boy was the only finisher, the other two challengers left standing at the starting line. The little boy was ecstatic, he raised his arms in delight. The crowd, however, was silent showing no sentiment toward the little boy.What has happened? Why dont the people join in my success? he asked the wise old man.Race again, replied the wise man, this time, finish together, all three of you, finish together. continued the wise man.The little boy thought a little, stood in the middle of the b lind man and the frail old lady, and then took the two challengers by the hand. The race began and the little boy walked slowly, ever so slowly, to the finishing line and crossed it. The crowd were ecstatic and cheered and waved at the boy. The wise man smiled, gently nodding his head. The little boy felt proud and important.Old man, I dont understand! Who are the crowd cheering for? Which one of us three? asked the little boy.The wise old man looked into the little boys eyes, placing his hands on the boys shoulders, and replied softly, Little boy, for this race you have won much more than in any race you have ever ran before, and for this race the crowd cheer not for any winner!By Darren Edwards

Womens Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment

After the American Civil War, several legal challenges faced the newly-reunited nation. One was how to define a citizen so that former slaves, and other African Americans, were included. (The Dred Scott decision, before the Civil War, had declared that black people had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.) The citizenship rights of those who had rebelled against the federal government or who had participated in secession were also in question. One response was the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, proposed on June 13, 1866, and ratified July 28, 1868. The Fight for Postwar Rights During the Civil War, the developing womens rights movement had largely put their agenda on hold, with most of the womens rights advocates supporting the Union efforts. Many of the womens rights advocates had been abolitionists as well, and so they eagerly supported the war which they believed would end slavery. When the Civil War ended, womens rights advocates expected to take up their cause once again, joined by the male abolitionists whose cause had been won. But when the Fourteenth Amendment was proposed, the womens rights movement split over whether to support it as a means of finishing the job of establishing full citizenship for the freed slaves and other African Americans. Beginnings: Adding Male to the Constitution Why was the Fourteenth Amendment controversial in womens rights circles? Because, for the first time, the proposed Amendment added the word male into the US Constitution. Section 2, which dealt explicitly with voting rights, used the term male. And womens rights advocates, especially those who were promoting suffrage, or the granting of the vote to women, were outraged. Some womens rights supporters, including Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and Frederick Douglass, supported the Fourteenth Amendment as essential to guaranteeing black equality and full citizenship, even though it was flawed in only applying voting rights to males. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton led the efforts of some womens suffrage supporters to try to defeat both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments because the Fourteenth Amendment included the offensive focus on male voters. When the Amendment was ratified, they advocated, without success, for a universal suffrage amendment. Each side of this controversy saw the others as betraying basic principles of equality: supporters of the 14th Amendment saw the opponents as betraying efforts for racial equality, and opponents saw the supporters as betraying efforts for the equality of the sexes. Stone and Howe founded the American Woman Suffrage Association and a paper, the Womans Journal. Anthony and Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association and began publishing the Revolution. The rift would not be healed until, in the late years of the 19th century, the two organizations merged into the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Myra Blackwell and Equal Protection Though the second article of the  Fourteenth Amendment  introduced the word male into the Constitution in respect to voting rights, nevertheless some womens rights advocates decided that they could make a case for womens rights including suffrage on the basis of the first article of the Amendment, which did not distinguish between males and females in granting citizenship rights. The case of Myra Bradwell was one of the first to advocate for use of the 14th Amendment to defend womens rights. Bradwell had passed the Illinois law exam, and a circuit court judge and a state attorney had each signed a certificate of qualification, recommending that the state grant her a license to practice law. However, the Supreme Court of Illinois denied her application on October 6, 1869. The court took into consideration the legal status of a woman as a femme covert—that is, as a married woman, Myra Bradwell was legally disabled. She was, under the common law of the time, prohibited from owning property or entering into legal agreements. As a married woman, she had  no legal existence apart from her husband. Myra Bradwell challenged this decision. She took her case back to the Illinois Supreme Court, using the Fourteenth Amendments equal protection language in the first article to defend her right to choose a livelihood. In her brief, Bradwell wrote, that it is one of the privileges and immunities of women as citizens to engage in any and every provision, occupation or employment in civil life. While the Bradwell case raised the possibility that the 14th Amendment could justify womens equality, the Supreme Court were not ready to agree. In a much-quoted concurring opinion, Justice Joseph P. Bradley wrote: It certainly cannot be affirmed, as a historical fact, that [the right to choose ones profession] has ever been established as one of the fundamental privileges and immunities of the sex. Instead, he wrote, The paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. Minor, Happersett, Anthony, and Womens Suffrage While the second article of the  Fourteenth Amendment  to the Constitution  specified certain voting rights connected with males only, womens rights advocates decided that the first article could be used instead to support the full citizenship rights of women. In a strategy carried out by the more radical wing of the movement, led by Anthony and Stanton,  womens suffrage  supporters attempted to cast ballots in 1872.  Anthony  was among those who did so; she was  arrested and convicted  for this action. Another woman,  Virginia Minor, was turned away from the St. Louis polls when she tried to vote⠁  Ã¢â‚¬â€and her husband, Frances Minor, sued Reese Happersett, the registrar. (Under femme covert presumptions in the law, Virginia Minor could not sue in her own right.) The Minors brief argued that There can be no halfway citizenship. Woman, as a citizen in the United States, is entitled to all the benefits of that position, and liable to all its obligations, or to none. Once again, the Fourteenth Amendment was used to try to ground arguments for womens equality and the right as citizens to vote and hold office⠁  Ã¢â‚¬â€but the courts did not agree. In a unanimous decision, the United States Supreme Court in  Minor v. Happersett  found that women born or naturalized in the United States were indeed American citizens, and that they always had been even before the Fourteenth Amendment. But the Supreme Court also found that voting was not one of the privileges and immunities of citizenship, and therefore states need not grant voting rights or suffrage to women. Reed v. Reed Applies the Amendment to Women In 1971, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of  Reed v. Reed. Sally Reed had sued when Idaho law presumed that her estranged husband should be automatically selected as executor of the estate of their son, who had died without naming an executor. The Idaho law stated that males must be preferred to females in choosing estate administrators. The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, decided that the  Fourteenth Amendment  did prohibit such unequal treatment on the basis of sex⠁  Ã¢â‚¬â€the first US Supreme Court decision to apply the Fourteenth Amendments equal protection clause to gender or sexual distinctions. Later cases have refined the application of the Fourteenth Amendment to sex discrimination, but it was more than 100 years after passage of the Fourteenth Amendment before it was finally applied to womens rights. Expanding Rights in Roe v. Wade In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court found in  Roe v. Wade  that the Fourteenth Amendment restricted, on the basis of the Due Process clause, the governments ability to restrict or prohibit abortions. Any criminal abortion statute that did not take into account the stage of pregnancy and other interests than merely the life of the mother was deemed to be a violation of due process. Text of the Fourteenth Amendment The entire text of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, proposed on June 13, 1866, and ratified on July 28, 1868, is as follows: Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.Section. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.Section. 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.Section. 4. The validity of the public deb t of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.Section. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Text of the Fifteenth Amendment Section. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.Section. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

How to Write a Term Paper Wiseessays.com Fundamentals Explained

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IT Project Implementation Failures Free Essays

Before an IT project can begin, the acquisition process must be successful. Once the implementation process beings, however; many things can start to go wrong because there are many factors and people involved that may not work together. Although the acquisition process is very stressful and important too, the implementation of planning a project and choosing the right team to do the job is not always as easy as it sounds. We will write a custom essay sample on IT Project Implementation Failures or any similar topic only for you Order Now As hard as it may be to effectively navigate through these potential failures, project failures such as the ones illustrated in the case study, Memorial Health System CPOE Implementation, can be evaded. At the beginning of the implementation process, Fred Dryer and Joe Roberts agreed and established a plan to get the CPOE system effectively enough for the staff and other employees to use. Stakeholders did not agree with Dryer and Roberts that this system would be meaningful and eventually disagreed with them. This must be a common problem with the implementation process, because it is very difficult to get so many people to work together cohesively. The organization undergoing the IT process must be a cohesive unit in believing in the project as well as being on the same page about what needs to happen. Since the stakeholders have too much power in the process, Roberts and Dryer left the project. The other project failure demonstrates the difficulty of choosing the right team members and management personnel to effectively run the project. The interim CIO, Melvin Sparks, was, to put it mildly, the wrong person for the job. He illustrated many of the project failures. He was unable to effectively communicate with his staff, made decisions that negatively affected the project and ultimately committed a huge mistake by changing the scope of the project during the implementation process. The project manager in the case study was yelled at to give good news or no news at all to Sparks. Not only is it completely inappropriate for CIO to yell at staff, but communication is integral in the implementation process, whether it is good news or bad. Changing the scope of the project during the implementation process creates chaos. A good acquisition process will create an environment where large deviations from the initial project scope are not accepted. Another vital problem in the case study was the lack of testing done on the system. Testing assures the team of the functionality as well as the problems that may arise from the system, and gives time to fix it. Sparks created no confidence in the team and showed none in the initial project. Conclusion: The case study’s project failures could have probably been avoided. The main job of the implementation team, besides implementing the project, should be to create a strong team with strong management and staff. Without this backbone, the process is doomed from the start. There are steps and procedures that can be implemented in order to avoid these types of failures in the future. I would recommend cross-training between management to insure everyone knows what steps to take in order to have a successful IT project. How to cite IT Project Implementation Failures, Papers It Project Implementation Failures Free Essays IT Project Implementation Failures By: Jennifer Dobelstein University of Phoenix Professor: Jason Koller System implementation starts as soon as an organization has acquired the system and continues through the early stages that will follow through to when the day comes where the system can be in use by everyone! Also, the system means applying the plan that is discussed with the team and implementing all the factors together. An implantation process can most defiantly differ from one organization to another one. I am going to explain a short overview of what the implementation process is. We will write a custom essay sample on It Project Implementation Failures or any similar topic only for you Order Now First off, there has to be a team in this process. The team will consist of: Physician, Nurse Manager, Lab Manager, Radiology Director, CIO, IT Analyst, and a Business Manager. Evaluating the strategic plan for the process is good because this way everyone can hear each other’s thoughts and plan accordingly to the plan. Evaluating is a key factor because you must evaluate and figure out more information in creating a plan. The second part of the process is creating a vision for the team so that everyone can work up to that vision and make it a success. Thirdly is to select team members to help implement this plan. Fourth are the schedule meetings to discuss the progress and discuss concerns if any have arisen/and discuss progress reports. Lastly but not least, making sure that upper management is involved in this process if needed. The roles and responsibilities that can be involved in system implementation can be identifying different strengths and weaknesses of the different types of implementing partners. Also, figuring out what types of capacity building the project needs to plan for and selecting the criteria for implanting partners in this plan. The process described in this case study did fail to include the fundamental activities. Some of the fundamental activities that should have been included are: organizing the implementation team and to identify the system champion. Another is to establish and institute a project plan and to determine a project scope and what the expectations are. In this case study, the process seemed rushed and some of the key workflow and system integration were missed. That also means there were twelve months left to complete this project which is not a lot of time. Their resources were getting smaller and had to start being budgeted, so the team got reduced and meant more work for the remaining team members. The project budget was already consumed, two months before being launched. Requirements were not met because of lack of the end-sure training that should have been done. Causes of the project failures can stem from many different things like: lacking clarity and purpose which was noticeable in this case study. This case study lacks clarity and purpose because it seemed this whole project was rushed with no help and hardly a purpose. Then the project kept getting behind each month and the communication was not good at all. Lack of believing in the project is also a project failure. In the case study, Sparks was not happy with the news that was brought to his attention and his attitude made it seem like he just did not believe in the project anymore. There was not enough leadership support and that was a huge problem. It seemed like Martin did not have any support in the project implementation. For each one of the indicators that I mentioned above, I defiantly would had done some things different. First off, I would had made sure that the project plan was clear from the beginning and made sure that there were meetings held regularly to discuss changes or questions. I would have had full faith in my organization with little to no doughts. I say even when things are not going their best, having a positive attitude will increase chances of succeeding. Also, I would make sure that there is enough people on the team and that budgeting was being done correctly. Making sure that the team is being supportive as well and helping is a must I would had done differently. Without leadership support, it is extremely difficult to stay on top and focused. How to cite It Project Implementation Failures, Essay examples

Should the US declare China a currency manipulator

Introduction There has been a raging debate as to whether the US should declare China a currency manipulator. The debate has resulted from Beijing’s behavior in international trade that seeks to dominate the international market. China intentionally maintains its exchange rate lower than that of the United States to make its products cheaper than products of the US (Brown par2). This gives them an unfair trade advantage.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Should the US declare China a currency manipulator? specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The debate involves two sides: opponents and proponents. Opponents claim that declaring China a currency manipulator will harm relations between the two countries and create a trade war (Klein par3). On the other hand, proponents claim that China should be declared a currency manipulator because it gains trade advantage over other countries using dubious means (Brown par3). The US should declare China a currency manipulator because it uses illegal, unethical, and unfair means to gain trade advantage over other countries. Supporting arguments First, China should be declared a currency manipulator because it uses unethical means to gain trade advantage (Lazear par4). Laws of the United States give power to the Treasury Department to identify countries that use dubious means to manipulate their currencies in order to gain trade advantage. The Chinese currency is cheaper compared to the American currency. This gives China trade advantage over the US. It intentionally keeps its currency value lower than that of the US dollar (Klein par5). This is unethical because the value of a country’s currency should be dictated by trade activities on the international market (Lazear par4). A low exchange rate enables China to produce goods cheaply and sell them at a higher price against the American dollar that is more expensive. American companies cannot compet e with Chinese companies fairly because their exchange rates vary significantly (Lazear par5). As such, costs of production are higher in America. China has dominated American merchandise markets with cheap goods that make it difficult for American companies to sell their products. Entry into American markets has been described as a strategy to keep exchange rate low and block its currency from rising to a market-determined value (Lazear par7). Secondly, China should be declared a currency manipulator because its low exchange rate has adverse effects on economy of the United States (Roach par3). Legislative action is necessary on China because America’s trade deficit is enlarging mainly due to economic pressure exerted on jobs and national income. Currency manipulation has led to loss of market share by the United States (Lazear par5). This has affected companies, workers, and reduced availability of jobs. Research has shown that trade deficit has averaged at a value of 4.4 p ercent of the total GDP, a figure that has not changed for the last eight years (Roach par5). China is responsible for increase in trade deficit. It presents a serious economic threat to the US because it does not facilitate a level playing ground for trade on the international market.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Thirdly, China manipulation of their exchange rate is a threat to the global economy (Roach par6). It is therefore in the interest of the world to adjust its rate to a fair market value. Global trade imbalance between countries is a threat to stability and sustenance of global economy. Many economists have argued that China’s saving glut is a major source of global economic instability. Counter argument Opponents argue that China should not be declared currency manipulator because such a decision will cause trade wars and strain the relationship between t he two countries. They argue that China’s actions are not to blame for US’s widening trade deficit (Wu par4). The main cause of the trade deficit is a shortfall of net national saving rate. The rate has deteriorated since 2008 and has not shown any signs of improvement. They also refute claims that China manipulates their exchange rate because their currency has risen by 31.4 percent since 2005 (Lazear par8). This increase is more than is required by the Schumer-Graham bill. China is cautious because a sharp increase in the value of its currency might have adverse effects on its economy (Lazear par9). Furthermore, it has shown willingness to bring its currency to fair market values gradually. Conclusion The debate on whether the US should declare China a currency manipulator has been ongoing for a long time. China has been accused of manipulating its exchange rate in order to gain trade advantage. Currency manipulation is a threat to the economy of the United States an d the global economy because it leads to loss of jobs and poor performance of companies. It has led to loss of a significant market share by the US. Opponents claim that China is not the cause of the widening trade deficit but a declining national saving culture. They also argue that China has shown willingness to adjust its currency value because its value has increased by 31.5 percent since 2005. Currency manipulation is a threat to global economy and the economy of the US. Therefore, China should be declared a currency manipulator by the United States. Works Cited Brown, S. Currency Manipulation Gives Chinese an Unfair Advantage. 2012. Web. Klein, E. Five Facts You Need to Know About China’s Currency Manipulation. 2012. Web.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Should the US declare China a currency manipulator? specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Lazear, E. Chinese Currency Manipulation is Not the Problem. 20 13. Web. Roach, S. China’s Currency Manipulation: A Policy Debate. 2012. Web. Wu, M.  China’s Currency is not Our Problem. 2011. Web. This essay on Should the US declare China a currency manipulator? was written and submitted by user Bryson Goodwin to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Frankenstein1 essays

Frankenstein1 essays Mary Shelleys Frankenstein has been hailed as one of the best horror stories ever. The title, Frankenstein, is the last name of the creator of the infamous Frankensteins monster, Dr. Victor Frankenstein. His is a story of the great pain suffered by Frankenstein and his monster and peoples misunderstanding of the poor creature. All his efforts to find a companion are useless, as society shuns him for his horrid figure. Although the story is told by Dr. Frankenstein through Robert Walton, an arctic explorer, the antagonist seems to be his monster. Despite his gruesome appearance, this being composed of various cadaver parts starts out as a compassionate creature longing for companionship and curious of how he came to be. He desperately tries to befriend members of society, but utterly fails at each attempt. His appearance earns him no sympathy, but loathing from his creator and townspeople alike. For example, after secretly living with a poor family for more than a year, he decides to approach the father, a blind old man. The creature reasons that since the old man cannot see him, he will not be repulsed by the monsters form, thus providing companionship for the creature. As the two talk, the old man responds to the plight of the stranger. However, the monsters wish for friendship does not come true for the old mans children return home to find their blind father with a gigantic monster. The old m ans son attacks the monster, but instead of killing the boy, he runs away, overcome by despair and anguish. The creature decides to request Frankenstein make a female version of himself. Frankenstein refuses at first, saying that creating another might destroy mankind, but the monster says to him: You are in the wrong, and instead of threatening, I am content to reason with you. I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to piec...

Troubles with Academic Papers Essay Writing App List is at Your Service!

Troubles with Academic Papers Essay Writing App List is at Your Service! Troubles with Academic Papers? Essay Writing App List is at Your Service! If you are having trouble with your academic papers, there is help available. You can get an essay writing app to lend you a hand. There are many suitable writing apps for essay crafting which help students to avoid succumbing to distractions. They are also designed to help them better manage their time so that academic papers do not seem impossible. Below are 7 essay writing apps which are best suited for students: iA writer It is an app with a clear interface which is very easy to use. It helps students to write articles, essays, or poems in no time without difficult settings or complicated interfaces. Pages Students who use Apple technologies can turn to Pages. This app lets them create documents, edit them, and view them no matter where they are. This is particular beneficial for students because it affords them the opportunity to write down an epiphany, a change, or an edit to something whenever creativity sparks. When sitting on a bus, or reflecting before bed, students might have a great idea perfect for their next paper which they can write down instantly. There are also templates already available for download, so that students can make reports or essays easily. After this, students can share the files they have made with teachers or other students. Articles This app lets students research easily for their upcoming project, putting together chapters, maps, and a table of contents for the writing they have. This makes it easy to trace notes and keep track of research. Plain Text It works as a text editor and has a simple interface which looks strikingly similar to that of a piece of paper. The best feature associated with this app is the ability to create documents and organize them in a folder, then sync that folder with Dropbox. When taking notes, downloading journal articles, and typing multiple drafts, this feature works incredibly well for students. Notebooks This is an app which lets students create content and organize digital notes. Students can divide their research into sub projects and then cross reference the items they have filed. Additionally students can keep track of PDF pages, word documents, and Excel documents too. Papers It is a wonderful app for research, as it allows students the opportunity to browse hundreds of articles online and in a personalized library, and then search for the articles based on name or title. Students can then rate the articles for quality and utilize a built-in citation and reference feature to create their bibliography easily. Clean Writer It keeps writing to a minimum with automatic saving, integration for Dropbox and even email sending, so students can automatically send their email content to themselves or to other people. Overall, there are many great essay writing services and applications available which make it easier for students to get their academic work done on time. No longer do students need to suffer alone. Now there are apps to help get through even the most difficult writing assignments.

Schindlers List Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Schindlers List - Movie Review Example World War II has just begun and Polish army has been torn apart by Germany. Oskar Schindler, brilliantly portrayed by Liam Neeson, is a sadly unsuccessful businessman who arrives in Crakow hoping he may make use of the sudden increase in free manpower resulting from the population of the concentration camps, to set up a manufacturing unit for direct supply of goods to the German Army. Schindler is a member of the Nazi league, and is well aware of the right strings to pull and the right pockets to contribute to. Schindler soon gets around to acquiring a factory for production of army kits as is his plan. Ben Kingsley plays Itzhak Stern, "a man with the face and manner of a Talmudic scholar" (Steven Zaillian, Schindler's List) who is a functionary in the local Judenrat (Jewish Council) with contacts in the Jewish business community in the Ghetto. On his insistence, they agree to loan Schindler the money he needs. And in return they get a small share of products produced by the new company for trade on the black market. Work begins in Schindler's factory. Stern takes care of the matters of administration. In a well thought move, he suggests to Schindler that it would make more sense for the fledgling factory to depend on Jewish manpower as opposed to Poles. One of the benefits of work in Schindler's factory is that the employees are allowed outside the ghetto. Now Stern, in his capacity, ensures that as many of them as possible are reported as "essential" to the Nazi bureaucracy. In a subtle shade, we come to know that although Schindler is aware of what is going on, he does not try t o curb this. A very visible influence of the pre war take on the economics of successful business activity is evident in the portrayal of the running of Schindler's factory. The choice of workers also displays this influence, given the preference for Jews. This is a consequence of the pretty convenient fact that Jews are paid less, resulting in savings for the factory, although as the movie progresses, it becomes quite evident that profit making took second priority in the mind of at least one of the two men. In a fresh angle to the exploitative labor practices, the Jews themselves are paid nothing; all the wages go to the Reich. The movie gives us a fresh and at times depressing insight into the atrocious living conditions of the people. The Jews in the camps, as in the town are subjected to all kinds of torturous treatment. This is very well highlighted in one scene where Schindler enters a hotel, with a very suggestive sign saying ""No Jews or Dogs Allowed". Another very appealing scene shows the initial roll call and checkup of the inmates where they are paraded naked, man, woman and child alike. In some editions of the movie, this scene has been removed. Following airing of a largely uncut edition of the movie on NBC, Tom Coburn, then a congressman, stated that by airing the film, NBC had brought television "to an all-time low, with full-frontal nudity, violence and profanity", adding that airing the film was an insult to "decent-minded individuals everywhere"(Associated Press). Under fire from fellow Republicans as well as from Democrats, Coburn apologized for his outrage. Such insights have served in creating awareness in the people about the objectionable conditions brought about by war and its ravages. Politically these incidences, as has the war itself,

Industrial Services of America Inc Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Industrial Services of America Inc - Essay Example It is evident that a number of factors including promotion, job security, approval from peers and management, and appraisals, motivate employees in an organizational scenario. Internal factors, such as ethics, values, and morals of the organization affect the motivation and work output of the employees. A successful organization ensues that its employees are well motivated because they are the organization itself. An organization should study and structure its throughput variables in a manner that will enhance employee motivation. The knowledge of throughput variable interaction is essential for successful employee motivation and performance enhancement (Burke, 2010). This paper will examine the throughput variables of Industrial Services of America Inc. and how their interaction influences employee motivation and performance. Industrial Services of America is a company that is in the recycling business majoring in metal recycling. This business is quite competitive in the United Sta tes, and this exposes ISA to potential business risks and stiff competition from some of the established recycling companies. This problem is compounded by the fact that the economy is unfavorable for the market; therefore, the company’s returns are adversely affected. ISA management has resorted to employee motivation using throughput variable interaction to influence employee motivation and enhance performance. This increases the work output of employees thus increasing the returns of the company. Throughput Variables used by ISA Mission and Strategy The mission and strategy of ISA emphasizes on consistent and clarity in communication that are essential for the company’s success. The senior management believes in forming a mission and vision statement that is celebrated by both the public and the employees. To ensure that employees celebrate the strategy and the mission of the organization, the teams that create it must consider the opinions of the employees in the p rocess. Studies have shown that those organizations that have involved teams at all levels in mission and strategic planning increase an employee’s motivation to the success of the organization. Through wide consultations and public debate, the employees’ individual needs and divergent views are listened to without reprimand. This process motivates employees because it makes them valued and thus dissipating any hidden rebellion or resistance to management (Sharma, 2006). Individual needs and values As aforementioned, an individual’s need for satisfaction influences their motivation. ISA is like a society with employees with a diverse background. This translates to different needs and values among the company’s employees, which makes it vital for the organization to enhance its ability to meet the different needs of the employees. ISA identifies the values and needs of its employees through integrating them in the process of major decision-making. The comp any has a culture in which the management mingles freely with the junior employees besides the use of effective feedback mechanisms that are employed. The feedback mechanisms used by the company are essential for job enhancement decisions taken by the management. Job enhancement and enrichment boost employee motivation. This is because the meeting of the employees’

A postcolonial critique of liberal peacekeeping theory

A postcolonial critique of liberal peacekeeping theory Northern Statism at the Margins:   A postcolonial critique of liberal peacekeeping theory. Today, ‘humanitarian intervention or so-called ‘muscular peacekeeping occurs in contexts known as ‘complex emergencies, which combine elements of civil war, state collapse, human rights violations, ‘criminality and humanitarian crisis.   Often, local agents have formed vested interests connected to external powers, which induce them to reproduce situations of emergency.   Mark Duffield aptly refers to the ‘security-development nexus, in which global assemblages of crisis management are connected to the local reproduction of crisis.   This nexus deploys peacekeeping and peacebuilding as alternatives to recognising the impact of neoliberalism and imperialism on development (****).   Duffields analysis resonates with the idea of crisis-management in the work of Gayatri Spivak (1990: 97-8), who portrays crisis as a constant situation in a postcolonial world where the North constantly wards off the traumatic effects of colonialism.   While clear fro m official documents, this status of responses to the South as crisis management is not apparent in the fantasmatic discourse of public pronouncements and media coverage.   In this context, it becomes crucial to the critique of colonial power to simultaneously see the process of crisis management and its ideological construction to repress the colonial trauma.   An examination of liberal theories of peacekeeping must show their complicity in both these processes. This paper will pursue an approach of ‘seeing together in relation to liberal theory, by reading this theory together with the intervention in Somalia.   It will thus seek to draw out the complicities between false and oppressive assumptions in theory and colonial actions (and failures) in practice.   The main purpose of this paper will be to establish that liberal and instrumentalist peacekeeping theorists share a number of colonial assumptions.   While drawing on postcolonial studies, the approach will also engage with ethnography, anarchism and cultural studies as means of providing multiple angles from which to see situations.   Multivocity is deployed to approximate a complex situation by viewing it from a number of different directions at once, each viewpoint being taken as an incomplete perspective.   Postcolonial theory will here be shadowed firstly by Richard J.F. Days anarchist critique of liberalism, to demonstrate the complicity and interchangeability of c olonial and statist standpoints.   Secondly, it will be traced through reflections on the intervention in Somalia by anthropologists and postcolonial theorists.   While recognising the danger of epistemological violence in the Northern anthropologists representation of the Other, such accounts are useful in exposing the structural gap between the theoretical framing of the situation and the situation as it appears from a more nuanced engagement.   There are doubtless also gaps between the anthropologists reconstruction and the immanent discourse of everyday life, but for the purposes of this paper it is necessary only that the anthropological account be closer to this discourse than is that of the normative theorists.   The article focuses on three related liberal theorists: Nicholas Wheeler, C.A.J. Coady and Fernando Tesà ³n.   The theorists discussed here are similar in their general frame, though varying in the degree of subtlety with which they express it.   Coady offers a more subtle theory that the other authors, but his subtlety supplements rather than overriding the performative effectivity of liberal discourse.   In this article, we treat them as part of a single discourse, and trace their colonial logic through a series of five interlinked assumptions which can be traced through all the theorists discussed. 1. Northern privilege as universalism The first problematic assumption is the view that a desituated Northern agent can assert and establish the content of a universal ethics.   Most often this is constructed in opposition to a straw-man of relativism.   It is not, however, the universalist stance which is most crucial to their colonial status.   Rather, it is the fact that they believe universally true positions can be established by reference solely to Northern experiences and values.   Their approach is thus colonial in foreclosing the need for dialogue with difference.   Northern standpoints are privileged by means of a separation between marked and unmarked terms.   The unmarked term of the civilised world becomes the exclusive referent for justifications of approaches to the ‘uncivilised other.  Ã‚   Hence, the ‘civilised world is ethically tautological: its relation to its Others is justified by its own values, which are the relevant referent because it is ‘civilised, a status it po ssesses by virtue of its values.   This reinforces the view that, despite the tenuousness of its moral realism, liberal cosmopolitanism is a paradigmatic ‘royal science, seeking to give a certain Law to its readers to provide a stable basis for moral order.   As Richard Day writes of Kymlicka, liberal theory produces ‘an utterance that does not anticipate a rejoinder (78).   The construction of monologism takes different forms in each theory.   Wheeler rests his account of the normative force of the duty to intervene on a liberal international relations (IR) perspective which is pitted mainly against the Realist view that states are incapable of normative concern.   His main concern is thus to show that normative restrictions, even if used or formulated in self-interested ways, can still be binding on states (2004: 4, 7, 24).   This sidesteps the question of how ethical positions should be reached, but has a symptomatic side-effect.   This construction of international normativity thus focuses on the emergence of normative communities among states (e.g. 2004: 23, 44).   Stateless societies can be the objects of intervention, but are excluded from the formation of the normative community which legitimates it, effectively relegated to terra nullius by the absence of a relevant international claimant not empty of people as ‘bare life, but e mpty of morally relevant agents, people who ‘matter as normative voices.   Things get no better when Wheeler briefly enters the field of discussion of how positions should be reached, rendering this process the exclusive province of the ‘values of civilized societies (2002: 303).   Hence, ‘civilised societies ask themselves if they are entitled to intervene; nobody thinks to ask the recipients.   In practice, this leads to a situation where the   UN believed that no consent was needed to intervene in Somalia due to the absence of a state able to give such consent (Wheeler 2002: 183).   Fernando Tesà ³n offers the most unreconstituted variant of the universalist global-local.   He adopts a strongly realist moral ontology in which moral truths are absolutely independent of their origins (Tesà ³n 2001:12).   Having asserted ontologically that such truths exist, he nevertheless provides no clear guide to the epistemological means by which they can be known.   But what he does not say, he shows by his performance as speaker of ethical ‘truths.   His reference is to a Northern in-group connected to the dominant fantasy frame, as for instance when he writes of ‘the shock we felt over the Srebrenica massacre (2001: 44).   The type of subject who felt shock at this juncture is of a certain type: tuned into the global media, experiencing the events of Bosnia from the outside, contained in a sphere of safety in which such events are shocking rather than horrifically quotidian and predictable.   This ‘we excludes by gradations the Srebrenica vic tims themselves, whose emotions were likely much sharper than mere shock; the solidarity activists, Muslim and secular, who would be angry but unsurprised at the Serbian atrocity and the UN betrayal; and the other recipients of intervention, the Somalis, Rwandans and so on, whose reactions remain opaque.   Like Tesà ³n, Coady is a moral realist who views ethics as a form of knowledge allowing universal claims and derived from human nature (2002: 13-14, 18).   This position is counterposed to a simplified view of relativism (2002: 14), and again, its ontological firmness is undermined by its silence on epistemology.   No method is provided for distinguishing in practice between relative and universal positions, though such judgements are most definitely made in practice (2002: 16).   Again, it seems that the universal truth is established solely by Northern agents.   One establishes truth through the ‘courts of reason, feeling, experience and conscience, which may or may not produce an obvious answer (2002: 14).   Being internal to the desituated Northern observer, these ‘courts do not require any accountability to non-Northern Others, or any kind of reflexivity.  Ã‚   A Northern subject-position is introduced performatively.   Hence for instance, reactions of Northern media viewers are deemed facts of human nature (2002: 29, 36).   Hence it is clear that, while Others are allowed to make claims in these courts, but the judge remains resolutely Northern.   In practice, such universalism, operating as a global-local, provides space for linguistic despotism.   Deleuze and Guattari have argued that the persistence of despotism after the end of absolutist states relies on the despotic functioning of transcendentalist language (Anti-Oedipus 207).   In peacekeeping discourse, this transcendentalism is expressed especially in the binary between civilised and uncivilised, which creates the conditions for sovereignty and states of exception.   One can thus think of peacekeeping violence in terms of law-founding violence, a suspension of ethics in the creation of a statist order.   Hence, Hardt and Negri are right in arguing that ‘[m]odern sovereignty†¦ does not put an end to violence and fear but rather puts an end to civil war by organizing violence and fear into a coherent and stable political order.   Peacekeeping in the dominant discourse is the violence which forms a bridge between ‘anarchy (the demonised Other) and liberal-democracy, cutting through complexity with the simplicity of brute force (Debrix 110).   The effects of this discursive asymmetry are made clear in Sherene Razacks investigation of peacekeeping violence.   Razacks book focuses on instances of torture and murder by Canadian peacekeepers in Somalia, and accounts for such violence as expressions of discourses of superiority (10).  Ã‚   Razack argues that Canadian peacekeepers in Somalia committed atrocities because of their identity as agents of a civilised nation operating in a hostile, otherworldly context.   They use such categories to construct an ‘affective space of belonging (24).   The identity of Canadian peacekeepers as citizens of a civilised nation lead to the denial of personhood to Somali Others (Razack 9).   The stance as civilised outsiders leads to violence through the operation of a binary of civilised versus savage which is inherently racialised (13).   The civilisers are counterposed to the ‘dark corners of the earth in a narrative which places Northern peacekeepers outside history (12).  Ã‚   They are assigned the task of sorting out problems of Southern others at some risk to themselves (32).   ‘History is evacuated and the simplest of stories remains: more civilized states have to keep less civilized states in line (48).   Sites such as Somalia thus become viewed as utterly hostile, sites of absolute evil in which anarchy blurs with terrain and climate (15, 84).   Since the South is constituted as an inferior category, peacekeepers enter a space where their ability to relate to others humanity is impeded (54, 155).   Such black holes, or extraordinary spaces, become sites of exception and emergency (44).   Excluded from dialogue by the myth of its absolu te evil, the Other is taken to understand little but force (38-9, 93).   Canadian peacekeepers involved in abuses were acting on a narrative bearing little resemblance to their actual situation in a largely peaceful town (73).   They in effect went looking for enemies, scheming to lure and trap Somalis who were then assumed to fit stereotypes (79-81).   The narrative of imposing order amidst chaos creates conditions in which peacekeepers initiate conflict to provide a context in which to respond overwhelmingly and brutally.   Paradoxically, peacekeepers thereby often become unable even to keep the peace between themselves and their local hosts, let alone to impose it among locals.   2.   State as necessary; social order The second problematic grouping of assumptions concern the social role of the state.   Liberal theorists view the state as identical with or essential to society, and as something without which a decent life is impossible.   This is taken as a truism.   As Richard Day argues, liberal scholars systematically ignore arguments that stateless life might be preferable to life under the state, in an intellectual doubling of the move of liberal states to ruthlessly suppress movements aspiring to stateless life.   Despite their criticisms of particular state policies, liberals consistently think about social life from the standpoint of the state.   As Day writes, liberalism identifies with the state by adopting its subject-position (79).   This fixation on the state expresses itself normatively in the attachment of overriding significance to themes of order, security and stability.   For instance, the UN resolution on Somalia called for action ‘to restore peace, stability and law and order (cited Lyons and Samatar 34).   On the other side, metonymic slippage is established between terms like statelessness, lawlessness, anarchy, chaos and barbarism.   This conceptual conflation combines into a single concept at least four distinct phenomena:   state collapse as such, the collapse of society (such as everyday meanings and relations), the existence of a situation of civil war, and the existence of a set of ‘lawless actions similar to criminality (such as murder, torture, rape, armed robbery and extortion).   This runs against the warnings of more informed empirical scholars who emphasise the need to disaggregate these phenomena (Menkhaus State Collapse 405, 407).   On an explanatory level, statist authors tend to attribute the other aspects of a complex emergency, particularly social conflict and ‘lawless actions, to the absence of a state (or of the right kind of state).   Hence, they fail to distinguish between peaceful and warring stateless societies, or between ‘lawless stateless societies and those with some degree of diffuse ‘governance.  Ã‚   A society such as Somalia is stateless, hence necessarily beset by civil war and social predation.   As a result, it is assumed that the response to problems related to civil war and ‘lawlessness must be resolved by the restoration or construction of a proper state.   An absence is taken as the explanation for various effects, with no sense of what specific forces cause these effects.   The possibility that the worst problems in complex emergencies could be mitigated instead by moving towards a more peaceful and less predatory type of statelessness a possibility at the forefront of the empirical literature on Somalia for example is simply ruled out in advance.   Also excluded from the frame is the need to establish and engage with contingent causes of intergroup conflict.   These themes can be traced through the work of the authors under discussion.   Wheeler deems ‘state breakdown and a collapse of law and order a sufficient cause for intervention (2002: 34).   In referring to situations in which ‘the target state had collapsed into lawlessness and civil strife (2002: 2), he clearly conflates statelessness, ‘lawlessness and civil war: state collapse itself means ‘lawlessness and civil strife; this is what a society becomes when a state collapses.   Furthermore, ‘lawlessness and the ‘breakdown of authority are taken to be the cause of famine in Somalia (2002: 176, 206), notwithstanding the continued absence of state authority in the famine-free years since 1994.   Wheeler also rather strangely refers to state-building as the removal of ‘the gun from political life (2002: 306).   States are not known for their lack of guns.   Writing in 2002 by which time Somalia had experienced a stateless peace for nearly a decade   Wheeler argues that ‘[d]isarming the warlords and establishing the rule of law were crucial in preventing Somalia from falling back into civil war and famine (2002: 190).   What Somalia needed, he decided, was a ‘law-governed polity (2002: 173).   To this end, he advocates ‘the imposition of an international protectorate that could provide a security framework for years, if not decades, to come (2002: 306), effectively the recolonisation of the country.   In constructing criteria for the success of an intervention, Wheelers position is again ambiguous.   His exact demand is that a successful intervention establish ‘a political order   hospitable to the protection of human rights (2002: 37).   Yet when he discusses Somalia, and faces the problem that humanitarian relief and state-building were contradictory goals, he takes a pro-statebuilding position (2002: 189-90).   This can be interpreted to mean that he assumes that only a statist order could possibly be hospitable to human rights, notwithstanding the appalling human rights record of the previous Somali state.   Yet there is no reason why local polities could not be assessed in terms of human rights (Menkhaus and Pendergast, 2).   In Tesà ³ns account, a Hobbesian position on state collapse, including the identity of state collapse, societal collapse, ‘lawlessness and civil war, is explicitly advocated.   ‘Anarchy is the complete absence of social order, which inevitably leads to a Hobbesian war of all against all (2001: 7).   People are thus prevented from conducting ‘meaningful life in common (2001: 7).   It is clear that state and society are so closely linked here as to be indistinguishable; it is left unclear if the ‘absence of social order means the absence merely of the state or of other forms of social life.   Given that contexts such as Somalia do not in fact involve the collapse of all social life, it must be assumed that the former is being inferred from the latter.   We see once more the reproduction of the conflation of statelessness with a range of problems, in apparent ignorance of the possibility of other kinds of statelessness.   The solution is taken to be pervasive imposition of liberal social forms.   Humanitarian aid simply addresses ‘the symptoms of anarchy and tyranny, whereas building ‘democratic, rights-based institutions addresses a central cause of the problem and does ‘the right thing for the society (2001: 37).   As a result, situations of anarchy necessarily lead to barbaric interpersonal behaviour which is seriously unjust, causing a ‘moral collapse of sovereignty and a loss of the right to self-government (2001: 2-3).   The difference between statist societies and stateless societies is not, he tersely declares, a matter of legitimate dispute.   The difference is a matter of what all ‘reasonable views will accept and what they will not (2001: 13-14).   This boundary reproduces the tautological ethical stance of the Northern agent.   While emotively related to the extreme effects of civil war and predatory violence, this position in effect declares any stateless society to be beyond the pale regardless of whether it displays these characteristics.   The gesture of Schmittian sovereignty, deciding on the exclusion of those deemed unreasonable, is particularly dangerous given that intervention happens in contexts where the majority of local agents show such characteristi cs.   Peacekeepers primed to enter situations deemed uncondonable are doomed to violent contact with local agents (including ‘victims who do condone them, because their very frame is constructed to exclude engagement.   Again in Coadys work, the assumption that states exist for benevolent purposes is prominent.   States are viewed as responsible for the protection of citizens (2002: 11-12).   Intervention can legitimately be aimed at ‘failed or profoundly unstable states (2002: 21), and has the goals of ‘ensuring political stability and enduring safety (2002: 30), liberal code for state-building.   It is not unusual in peacekeeping theory to find a distinction drawn between ordinary human rights (identified with concrete violations) and extraordinary human rights (identified with the collapse of legitimate state power), a binary which ethically voids the very concept of rights by identifying its actualisation with a particular social order.   In other varieties, one finds it in distinctions between truly shocking and merely wrong forms of violation, between ‘extremely barbarous and mundane abuses, or between law and order as a primary goal of intervention and human security as a secondary luxury (see Coady 2002: 16, 28, Tesà ³n 2001: 37, Walzer Just and Unjust Wars 108, Lund 2003: 28-9, 47-8, Paris 2004: 47-8).   This serves to put the denial of rights, or of the state, in the South (or rather, its crisis-points) in an incommensurable category distinct from human rights abuses in and by the North (and its Southern allies).   With human rights deemed impossible in a stateless society, rights-violation is excused as ‘law-creating violence, the creation of an order where rights become possible, but which does not require prefigurative recognition of rights in the present, a position not dissimilar to the telos of socialism in Stalinist ideology.   The declaration of justice and rights as the purpose of the state sits uncomfortably with the kind of state likely to result in practice from statebuilding in contexts such as Somalia.   Clearly, Tesà ³n has transmuted his normative position on what states should do into an essentialist position on what states are, which leaves him with a project of building a state per se, without regard for whether the project or the resultant state serves the ascribed goals.  Ã‚   In the meantime, the patently obvious existence of customary rights in societies such as Somalia is conveniently ignored.   Presumably, as rights of the ‘uncivilised, these rights do not count as fully ‘human.   In practice, the effects of such a statist frame are to disengage peacekeepers from populations they are supposed to be rescuing, constructing them as epistemologically-privileged bearers of a project of social reconstruction which is in the interests, regardless of the wishes, of the locals.   This framework produces a paradigmatically colonial arrogance.   Peacekeepers misperceived unfamiliar institutions as an absence of institutions, leading to racist effects.   Empirical scholars have approached Somalia with a frame distorted by such statism, as when Lyons and Samatar portray the country as a ‘Hobbesian world without law or institutions, divided between ‘the most vulnerable and ‘the most vicious (Lyons and Samatar 7; c.f. Makinda ****).   In practice, the Somali intervention was framed by Northern insecurities about ‘disorder in the context of global neoliberalism.   According to one cultural analyst, the intervention was an attempt to suture th e field of global disorder, acting out a predetermined script in an attempt to create an appearance of fixed order, namely, neoliberalism as the end of history (Debrix 97-9).   This suture is necessary because of the gap separating neoliberal ideology from the actuality of global disorder (107).   It was to fail because an excess of uncontrollable images arising from local difference began to disempower the global order (Debrix 126).   In Somalia, peacekeepers found themselves in a society with very different assumptions about state power. According to Menkhaus, ‘there is perhaps no other issue on which the worldviews of external and internal actors are more divergent than their radically different understanding of the state (Menkhaus State Collapse 409).   ‘For many Somalis, the state is an instrument of accumulation and domination, enriching and empowering those who control it and exploiting and harassing the rest of the population (Menkhaus Governance 87).  Ã‚   Hence, statebuilding was misconceived as necessary for peacebuilding in a setting where it was virtually impossible.   Menkhaus and Pendergast argue that the ‘radical localization of politics in Somalia is often misunderstood as disorder and crisis, when in fact it is part of the functioning of local social life.  Ã‚   ‘The challenge to the international community is to attempt to work with this â€Å"stateless† pol itical reality in Somalia rather than against it.   It is a myth to see the intervention as rebuilding a state, since an effective state has never existed in Somalia (Menkhaus State Collapse 412).   Somalia has historically been resistant to the implantation of the state-form, and previous colonial and neo-colonial states, arising mainly as channels for global patronage flows, were caught between the extractive and despotic use of concentrated power by the clan which dominated the state and moves to balance against this excessive power by other clans.   Even such an artificial state has been made impossible by changing conditions (Menkhaus and Pendergast 2-3).   Attempts to rebuild a centralised state have exacerbated conflict between clan militias, which compete for the ‘potential spoils of such a state (Menkhaus and Pendergast 13).   With the capital viewed as the site or ‘house of state power, the battle for the state encouraged clan conflicts for control of the capital (Jan 2001: 81; )    Where state-building has occurred in postwar Somalia, it has been similarly marked by strong extractive and divisive tendencies (Lewis 81-3).   Hence, to favour stateb uilding in Somalia is to contribute to exacerbating conflict by taking stances between diffuse forces which favour some and disempower others.   In seeking local collaborators in building the state, the UN ended up favouring some clan militias against others (Rutherford 16, 23, 40-1).   On the other hand, empirical evidence does not confirm the view that peace required a strong state.   Statelessness as such did not cause civil war or social problems.   Until the 1980s, Somalia was extremely safe, despite or because of its weak state; the source of security was communal, not juridical (Menkhaus State Collapse 412).   Similarly, Somalia rapidly returned to peace after the UN departure, with conflict infrequent between 1995 and 2006 (Menkhaus Governance 87-8).   In part, this was due to the declining local influence of warlords inside their own clans.   Ameen Jan analyses the post-UN scenario as a revival of processes frozen by the intervention, which were already moving national power towards clans and clan power towards civilians (2001: 53-5).   Another apparent anomaly is that the de facto independent northwestern region of Somaliland successfully constructed peace and local political institutions with meagre resources, at the same time that expensive U N peace conferences were failing (Lewis ix-x).   This process succeeded because it arose from the grassroots and started with reconciliation on issues of contention, many of which were social issues such as buying off militia members and resolving land disputes (Lewis 91, 94-5; Menkhaus, Governance 91).   Hence, the causes of the civil war in parts of Somalia were contingent products of circumstances which are unlikely to recur (Menkhaus and Pendergast 7, 15).   Having started from the wrong premises, it is no surprise that the wrong conclusions were reached.   Successful peacebuilding in Somalia would involve a transition from a violent diffuse acephalous society to a peaceful diffuse acephalous society, whereas the colonial assumptions of peacekeepers instead sought to override the entire structure of Somali society as a means to construct their preferred form of order.   In practice, this obsession with order and interpellation of otherness as disorder expresses itself in reliance on hard power.   The UN and US sought to rely on technical and military power as a substitute for engagement in the context (Debrix 115, Wheeler 2002: 181, 205).   This tends to reproduce the very context posited by the Northern discourse.   Pieterse has argued that the emphasis on hard power in interventions reinforces or even creates rigid ethnic categories and authoritarian institutions, hence creating the conditions for humanitarian crisis. The emphasis on hard power stemming from the problematic of sovereignty effectively rendered peacebuilding impossible.   While local clan reconciliation conferences were more effective in practice, the UN approach focused on militia leaders, a process which tended to entrench their power and disaggregate them from their support-base (Jan 2001: 63).   This misrepresented their power through the frame of sovereignty.   Clan militias, like Clastrean chiefs, did not hold stable power.   They were speculative and temporary, and subject to rapid decomposition (Lewis 80, Menkhaus and Pendergast 4-5).   Lewis views the Somali militias as clan militias involved mainly in territorial conflicts (Lewis 75).   Far from dominating the context, militias depended on soft power within clans to a great degree, and were unable even to implement accords among themselves due to their limited influence over their clans (Menkhaus and Pendergast 4-5).   Clastres theory of warfare in indigenous societies, the source of the Deleuzian theory of war-machines, emphasises the role of intergroup alliances and balancing as quasi-intentional means of warding off concentrated power and transcendentalism. Intergroup feuding expresses ‘the will of each community to assert its difference,‘[t]o assure the permanence of the dispersion, the parcelling, the atomization of the groups.   Such a situation of centrifugal forces is indeed typical of the kind of conflict settings which peacekeeping interventions target.   Somalis are predominantly nomads, and form the archetypal nomadic war-machines carrying out the diffusion of social power.   The frame applied from the North is, however, rather dangerous: the logic of the war-machine is misunderstood as a primal Hobbesian violence.   This sets peacekeepers up for colonial warfare.   The terminal crisis of the UN intervention arose from the redefinition of one of the two major allia nces of clan militias as an enemy.   Focused unduly on the person of General Aidid, the escalation arose following an attack on UN troops which was interpreted as a violation of transcendental sovereignty, an attack on protected bodies of exceptional value.   In the local frame, however, it was reconfigured as horizontal warfare rather than vertical enforcement, and the UN became seen as the ‘sixteenth Somali faction (Jan 2001: 72).   Hence, it seems that an incapacity to think outside a narrowly statist frame was the source both of a violently colonial intervention, and of the constitutive unrealisability of the goals of the intervention.   It would seem that statism and colonialism intersect, with certain Southern societies judged as inferior for their lack of state forms.   This expresses the promotion of the Northern state, in spite of its increasing authoritarianism and colonial legacy, as an unmarked term to which the world should aspire.   Although it is outside the scope of this paper, it is also apparent that Southern states are typically pathologised as the wrong ‘type of state too corrupt, too contaminated by the dirty world of social life, insufficiently able to mobilise uncontested concentrated power or authority.   It is possible that the club of ‘real democracies, or ‘successful states, is actually a repetition of Fanons club of the civilised, held up as a goal for those w ho are constitutively excluded from it.   3.   Victims The third set of assumptions of such theories are concentrated in the figure of the victim.   The victim is a contradictory figure, for, while she is the quasi-absolute ethical referent of peacekeeping theory, the figure on whose behalf other ethical principles may be suspended, whose call is the source of an imp

The Case against ‘The Case against Perfection’

Michael Sandels essay The Case against Perfection (The Atlantic Monthly, April, 2004) is basically a stand that opposes the idea of genetic enhancement primarily via cloning. Sandels places forward his idea of what is wrong with genetic engineering. He admitted its benefits, but he also tried to show how bad it could be allow cloning and genetic engineering. Sandels starts with a thesis that states his stand over the subject matter. His choice of words even in the first sentence alone shows his opposition to the idea of using genetic engineering to enhance the next generation   offspring of a couple.. Throughout the text, the readers find Sandels pondering on perspetive of the advocates of genetic engineering, talking about the possibilities of the technology and then giving the possible good effects that the development of the technology might bring. He then talks about the how the different popular issues against genetic engineering may be invalid. He defends the stand of genetic engineers, but not to really defend it, but only to show why some reasons some parties are against it are not valid at all. Then, he would present the case which he believes is the more valid reason why genetic engineering should not be used to enhance the future generations. Sandels attacks the issue by presenting its different facets using analogies and logical reasoning. Even a s he ended the essay, he quoted what he must have believed to be the stronges and the most tempting reasons why genetic engineering should be given a chance to be used to enhance future generations – perfect muscles, right height,   intelligence, and freedom from diseases.   Yet, like in the other paragraphs, Sandels only refuted the idea of genetic engineering, however, his he failed to lay in details his counter against the satnd of the last author he quoted. In his attempt to show all the sides of the issue to avoid being biased, Sandels showed clearly how the idea of the advocates of genetic engineering works. But most of the time, he is unable to discuss clearly why the idea of the advocates he mention the different parts of the essay are wrong. In some cases, he had problems with reasoning. Let us start with the first issue he raised in the first paragraph. The last part of the paragraph sounds strong, but there are flaws in his reasoning: â€Å"In liberal societies they reach first for the language of autonomy, fairness, and individual rights. But this part of our moral vocabulary is ill equipped to address the hardest questions posed by genetic engineering.† This reasoning is like an ad hominem, only, it does not attack the speaker but the words which encompass the basis of the liberal societies in advocating genetic engineering. In ad hominem, the argument attacks the speaker rather than the reason, but here the words â€Å"autonomy†, â€Å"fairness†, and â€Å"individual rights† appear to be the sources f the argument and are the ones being attacked instead of the arguments that are according to Sandels, founded on these words. Instead of focusing on the reasons, he preempted the arguments of the believers of genetic engineering by claiming there is something wrong with how we define the â€Å"autonomy†, â€Å"fairness† and â€Å"equal rights†. It can further be noted that Sandels himself refuted the oppositions to genetic engineering that are based on autonomy. He did not define clearly what he meant by autonomy in his essay. Moreover, instead of strengthening the position of the opposing parties that base their arguments on autonomy. What he strengthened rather was the stand of genetic engineers when he made analogies between cloning and using botox and steroids. When he countered the argument about autonomy, the first reason he gave why the argument was not convincing is: â€Å"†¦it wrongly implies that absent a designing parent, children are free to choose their characteristics for themselves. But none of us chooses his genetic inheritance. The alternative to a cloned or genetically enhanced child is not one whose future is unbound by particular talents but one at the mercy of the genetic lottery.† (par. 5) His point seems rather ambiguous, for what is the sense of the second sentence of the excerpt? How can an enhanced child be at the mercy of the genetic lottery when the parents have already determined the child’s genes? Moreover, he mentioned that the argument has a wrong implication – that children whose parents did not choose their genes for them are free to choose their characteristics for themselves. The argument states that parents disallow the rights of the child to an open future by choosing a genetic structure of the kid in advance. His does not imply that children can choose their genes. It only wants to say that if their genes are not pre-selected by their parents, they can choose their career paths based on what pleases them and not based on the genes that their parents designed for them, and he even explained it this way. In paragraph 8, he drags the issue to theology, that claiming that it is a matter of moral. He makes it appear that the only way to resolve this issue is by consulting theological thoughts about the issue. He is pushing the idea that this issue can only be resolved if we look into the moral status of nature and proper stance of the human beings toward the given world. He may be right that this is a moral issue, but the grounds on which he based his arguments seem not well founded. This part of his paper appears more like a moralistic fallacy. He seems to be setting up the readers for something that would discuss how things should be and let that be the basis of the argument against genetic engineering or be the argument itself. In paragraph 9, he made a generalization, â€Å"Everyone would welcome a gene therapy to alleviate muscular dystrophy and to reverse the debilitating muscle loss that comes with old age.† This is perhaps a swift overview or an overgeneralization. How could he be sure that everyone would be open to the idea? He did not even present any survey to support his claim at least inductively. This is a sweeping statement that can be toppled any who would say that he does not welcome a gene therapy to alleviate muscular dystrophy or to reverse the debilitating muscle loss. In the same paragraph, he made weak analogy. The author claimed â€Å"The widespread use of steroids and other performance-improving drugs in professional sports suggests that many athletes will be eager to avail themselves of genetic enhancement.† Logically speaking, it does not follow that though A and B have similarities, what applies to A will apply to B. Though his claim may be true, he fails to make the necessary connections to establish a strong analogy between genetic engineering and performance enhancers. Again, as he had done in the earlier paragraphs, in paragraph 11, Sandels presents an argument against genetic engineering and refutes it: â€Å"It might be argued that a genetically enhanced athlete, like a drug-enhanced athlete, would have an unfair advantage over his unenhanced competitors. But the fairness argument against enhancement has a fatal flaw: it has always been the case that some athletes are better endowed genetically than others, and yet we do not consider this to undermine the fairness of competitive sports.† Here, mentions that the fatal flaw in the argument is that there have always been athletes who are disadvantaged because some athletes are better endowed. That some athletes are better endowed than others is true, but that this fact is a fatal flaw is the flawed idea. This is a case of fallacy of relevance. Being genetically or drug enhanced is very different from being genetically endowed by nature. A person endowed by nature with genes that make him competitive may have an advantage over those who are not endowed, but both have the equal chance to enhance their abilities through practice. However, it must be considered that an athlete is more likely genetically endowed than not. Hence, the biggest factor is not the natural abilities of the athlete, but perhaps the preparedness of the athlete for a contest. If an athlete is drug enhanced or genetically enhanced, he may not need to practice or train as hard to achieve the results he wants. Therefore, Sandels conclusion that â€Å"if genetic development in sports is ethically offensive, it should be for motives other than fairness† is invalid. In paragraph 14, Sandels proposes two reasons why we should worry about bioengineering – â€Å"Is the scenario troubling because the unenhanced poor would be denied the benefits of bioengineering, or because the enhanced affluent would somehow be dehumanized?† Above this is his belief that â€Å"worry about access ignores the moral status of enhancement itself.† In his argument, Sandels commits a fallacy of presumption, specifically, a fallacy of dilemmas. He limits the situation to two negative scenario – the poor cannot afford the cost of genetic enhancement and the rich who can afford become dehumanized. The question is, â€Å"what evidences point to the situations he is saying?† What he is saying may be plausible, but he is not able to develop it logically to make the premises strong and firm. Limiting his choices to only two scenarios makes it appear that there is nothing more to bioengineering than deprivation of the poor of it and the dehumanization of the rich. This reasoning also makes it appear that only the rich may be able to access genetic enhancement. Furthermore, he limited the tern dehumanization to the rich. This poses a sort of bias to those who can afford it, when earlier in the paper he was talking about athletes who might access genetic enhancement the way they do performance enhancement drugs. Towards the end of paragraph 14, Sandels had a firm claim that â€Å"the fundamental question is not how to ensure equal access to enhancement but whether we should aspire to it in the first place.† This is a misleading notion of presumption. He makes this assumption and lets the evidences suit it rather than conclude based on empirical data and logical analysis. It seems that only because â€Å"the fundamental question is not how to ensure equal access,† then the major concern is whether we should desire for it (bioengineering) in the first place. What he is saying may be true, but the way he develops it makes his reasoning invalid. It weakens his propositions. He repeats the same fallacy in paragraph 18 when he claimed that the real question about growth hormones is not its availability but whether we want to live in a society where the parents spend for genetic enhancement. In his discussion about the possible solutions to problems of unequal access to bioengineering, he made it sound all too simple for the government to subsidize the demands even of the poor. He did not realize that had the governments of different countries the money or funds, they would rather use that money to make sure nobody gets hungry, and not on expensive genetic enhancement that does not have any promise to save people from hunger based on any study. He created a scenario that seemed too easy to happen just to let his idea stand out. His proposition is perhaps a more important question, but the way he brings it out hurts the validity of his arguments. Another issue on his discussion of genetic enhancement is the ability of the parents to choose the sex of their child. In the previous paragraphs he would always state the case of something that is already prevalent and then compare it with genetic engineering. Here, he only mentioned that where folk remedies failed, genetic enhancement or bioengineering can be of help. Through bioengineering, a couple can choose the sex of the offspring. He pointed out in his discussion about this matter that choosing the sex of the offspring somehow removes the giftedness when the child comes. The child not longer comes as a gift, but more like a planned object. He did not criticize how folk remedies also tend create the same effect whether they are effective or not. It is clear ere how he leans toward a bias in attacking genetic engineering. Sandels also had reasons that are too far flung from reality. Consider his argument in paragraph 30. While it is true that effort is not everything, it would not have been possible that a basketball paler who trains harder than Michael Jordan would be a mediocre player. It would take a lot to be more than like Jordan and to earn more than he did, but one who trains harder he (Jordan) did would not remain mediocre. He is using an impossible scenario to create his point. And that does not make much sense at all. In paragraph 40, Sandels said that â€Å"Genetic manipulation seems somehow worse — more intrusive, more sinister — than other ways of enhancing performance and seeking success.† There is a grave error here suggesting that all efforts of parents in seeking to enhance the performance of their children so they may become successful are bad, intrusive, or sinister. What of parents who personally train their children? What of parents who lets their children attend to trainings that they want to attend, because they (the children) want to be successful in that endeavor? Would that be sinister? Maybe that is not what he means, but that is the message his paper seems to be putting across. It could have been better if he specified which ways of enhancing the child’s performance are sinister. In paragraph 53, Sandels wants to pint out that genetic engineering does not only violate religious morals, but also secular morals: â€Å"The moral stakes can also be described in secular terms. If bioengineering made the myth of the â€Å"self-made man† come true, it would be difficult to view our talents as gifts for which we are indebted, rather than as achievements for which we are responsible. This would transform three key features of our moral landscape: humility, responsibility, and solidarity.† He denies religion in this part, but he talks about gifts for which we are indebted. The question now, is, â€Å"to whom are we indebted?† Taking our talents as gifts inevitably leads us to a proposition that involves religion, for where will the gift come from? If the gifts were merely from nature, to whom do we owe humility, responsibility, and solidarity? He further argues that genetic engineering takes away these three. He forgets to consider that the characteristics of a person are but secondary. What a person, whether genetically endowed or not, savors most is life itself. With or without genetic enhancement, a person has reasonability to his fellowmen. In the same way, whether genetically enhanced or not, a person may be boastful or humble depending on how the parents reared him. Solidarity has nothing to do with genetic enhancement or endowment. People unite for a common cause, for love and for peace. His argument is presuming that genetically enhanced individuals are incapable of humility, responsibility, and solidarity, but he did not develop the issue logically. If his statements in paragraph 53 were factual, why did he have to mention, â€Å"The more we become masters of our genetic endowments, the greater the burden we bear for the talents we have and the way we perform†? Immediately following this, he mentioned about the future scenario in which a basketball player may be blamed now for missing rebound, but in the future for being short. Here is another reasoning error, for who would hire a small basketball player if not for his exceptional skill? Basketball payers are usually tall, hired for height and skill, so what is saying is another far flung argument. The last argument in favor f genetic engineering he mentioned pondered on the possibilities of enhancing IQ and physical abilities of children. All he said about this is, â€Å"But that promise of mastery is flawed. It threatens to banish our appreciation of life as a gift, and to leave us with nothing to affirm or behold outside our own will.† If it were indeed flawed, then how is it flawed? How can it banish our appreciation of life as a gift? How can he say hat it leaves us with nothing to behold and affirm with our free will when he himself talked about being endowed by nature? He may be right to think that cloning and other forms of genetic engineering have setbacks, but his essay provided arguments that are pro genetic engineering that he failed to counter effectively. References Sandel, M. J. (April 2004). The Case Against Perfection. Retrieved 9 April 2008, from http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/medical_ethics/me0056.html)