Adam Smith recognized that slavery, despite its economic disadvantages, was the rule rather than the exception in the eighteenth-century commercial society. How did he explain the…
Abstract
Adam Smith recognized that slavery, despite its economic disadvantages, was the rule rather than the exception in the eighteenth-century commercial society. How did he explain the massive employment of enslaved Africans in the American and Caribbean colonies? Several scholars have been highlighting that Smith attributed the persistence of slavery to an almost natural inclination of humanity toward tyranny and dominion. However, the mere reference to the love of domination is not enough to fully answer the question above. This paper addresses another feature of Adam Smith’s account of Atlantic slavery: the relation between the love of domination and the mercantile policies regulating colonial trade. We conclude that Smith saw the extraordinary profitability arising from such policies as an enabling condition to the massive employment of slave labor in the sugar and tobacco colonies.
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Is liberalism premised on an unrealistically individualist anthropology? In one regularly told story about modernity, the earliest liberals grounded their arguments for political…
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Is liberalism premised on an unrealistically individualist anthropology? In one regularly told story about modernity, the earliest liberals grounded their arguments for political liberty in a picture of human nature that centered on our moral autonomy, perhaps epitomized best in Kantian thought. However, a range of critics have now compellingly argued that such accounts of our agency are descriptively inaccurate, and that normative social projects beginning from such flawed foundations are thus unstable. While this paper accepts this criticism of individualist anthropologies, it proposes that this need not identify a problem with liberalism overall. To make this case, this paper turns to Adam Smith, who grounded his early advocacy of liberalism in an anthropology grounded in natural theology that depicts us as morally interconnected, rather than as autonomous, and as always morally impressionable. As it will explain, Smith presumed an account of character as integrally related to and influenced by the agent’s social context, for both better and worse. Furthermore, he wove his attentiveness to this complex interaction between the agent and their context into both his economic analyses and political proposals. Smith’s social vision thus illustrates how a strong regard for individual liberty is fully compatible with a sophisticated anthropology that recognizes our malleability as moral agents – and even with political proposals that capitalize upon this malleability. Smith’s thought thus offers useful resources for contemporary proponents of liberalism who wish to value the dignity of individuals without basing that valuation in unrealistic abstractions, or ignoring the responsibilities engendered by the fact of our ongoing moral formation by our social contexts.
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The case was developed from secondary sources. This descriptive case was classroom tested in undergraduate organizational behavior courses.
Abstract
Research methodology
The case was developed from secondary sources. This descriptive case was classroom tested in undergraduate organizational behavior courses.
Case overview/synopsis
The 94th Academy Awards ceremony, which honored movies released in 2021, was held on March 27, 2022, at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. Prior to Chris Rock announcing the winner in the category of best documentary film, Rock was assaulted on stage by Will Smith. On April 8, 2022, the Academy’s board of governors met to discuss disciplinary actions for Smith’s behavior. The Academy’s board decided to ban Smith from all Academy events for the next 10 years. Theories of individual behaviors and social processes can provide explanations for behaviors of Chris Rock, Will Smith, the producers and the Academy.
Complexity academic level
This descriptive case is most appropriate for undergraduate-level organizational behavior courses. The primary topics in this case align well with individual behaviors relative to emotional intelligence (EI) and motivation. The secondary topics in this case align well with social processes relative to decision-making, conflict and culture.
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Neoclassic economics is a thing of considerable beauty. It yet finds an increasing tendency on the part of those trained in its discipline to rebel from its neatly fitted…
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Neoclassic economics is a thing of considerable beauty. It yet finds an increasing tendency on the part of those trained in its discipline to rebel from its neatly fitted abstractions and intriguing diagrams. The rebellion stems from two sources. Veblen's sweeping attacks upon its postulates16 shock its theoretical foundations. The rapid changes in the industrial and business world discredited it on another front by bringing into increasingly sharp relief the divergence between the institutional assumptions of the orthodox theory and the conditions actually obtaining. The giant corporation, overhead costs, and the necessity for maintenance of volume, industrial concentration, the trade association, a widening spread among income classes, advertising, the growing inability of the consumer to gauge quality, the resort to reorganization instead of the “going out of business” of the long-run analyses – what place could the orthodox theory give to these important characteristics of the existing business economy?
Smith & Wesson negotiated a settlement that signified changes in its gun marketing and manufacturing practices. An opportunity to lead the industry in public safety resulted in a…
Abstract
Smith & Wesson negotiated a settlement that signified changes in its gun marketing and manufacturing practices. An opportunity to lead the industry in public safety resulted in a public relations blunder. “Topical transformation”, a concept that applies structuration theory to explain the importance of signification, is used to illustrate that S&W failed to show its actions as significant for its stakeholders, resulting in isolation from its peers, consumers and supporters.
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One of the features of the Short Brothers & Harland stand will be a display illustrating the versatility of the Skyvan in civil and military roles. The Skyvan light transport…
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One of the features of the Short Brothers & Harland stand will be a display illustrating the versatility of the Skyvan in civil and military roles. The Skyvan light transport, powered by two Turbomeca Astazou XII turboprops of 690 s.h.p., is now in production for operators throughout the world. It is notable for its carrying capacity with a hold 16 ft. long by 6 ft. 6 in. square. The volume of 670 cu. ft. is almost twice that of any comparable aircraft, and it can accept vehicles as large as a minibus. Eighteen passengers can be carried or 4,600 lb. of freight. The Skyvan was designed to be simple and robust so that it is suitable for operating under arduous conditions with the minimum of maintenance. It meets the structural requirements of B.C.A.R. and F.A.R.23 and is designed for a long safe life with fail safe major structural components. The wings and fuselage are of a composite construction in which the flat outer skin is bonded to a corrugated inner skin. Two Skyvan aircraft will be shown, one in the flying display and the other in the static park as a demonstrator of palletised loading of freight and passenger seats, a facility which enables the turnaround time to be kept to a minimum when changing roles.
Selina Kungwane and Millicent Boaduo
With the advent of democratic government in South Africa in 1994, the government has been making strides toward ensuring that education is accessible to all, including children…
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With the advent of democratic government in South Africa in 1994, the government has been making strides toward ensuring that education is accessible to all, including children with disabilities. The South African Constitution, under the Bill of Rights, alludes to the fact that the government has the responsibility to ensure that education is accessible and all are given the necessary support. The Department of Basic Education has developed a variety of legislation, policies, and guidelines to improve the inclusion of children with disabilities in schools. The launch of Education White Paper 6: Building an Inclusive Education and Training System: Special Needs Education, 2001, further led to the development of several policies, strategies, guidelines, and interventions in order to support the development of an inclusive education and training system. The objective of education White Paper 6 is to build an inclusive education system in the country. This requires stakeholders with various relevant expertise to work as teams in order to make education accessible and offer support to those learners with barriers to learning in classrooms. Collaboration between teachers and occupational therapists in a classroom is seen as vital.
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Maria Carinnes Alejandria, Rob Grace, Pamela Gloria Cajilig and Will Smith
I suggest that the search for Adam Smith’s theodicy is likely to be in vain. The paper begins with a brief history of approaches to evil, emphasizing the context in which they…
Abstract
I suggest that the search for Adam Smith’s theodicy is likely to be in vain. The paper begins with a brief history of approaches to evil, emphasizing the context in which they arose, and the questions authors were addressing. Approaches most relevant to Adam Smith include those of Augustine and Calvin, and the early modern theodicies of Leibniz, Samuel Clarke and William King, as well as the attacks on them by Bayle and Voltaire. Scottish Enlightenment writers were not terribly interested in theodicy, though Hutcheson and Kames did devote space to their versions of problems of evil. David Hume’s Dialogues on Natural Religion are often taken to be classic statement of the problem of theodicy and argument against religious belief, but his concern was to demolish rationalistic theodicies rather than religious belief or practice. The paper then turns to Smith’s writings, considering similarities and differences to these approaches to evil. Smith emphasizes the wisdom and beneficence of God, and that evils we observe are part of a larger providential plan. He makes no attempt to justify the God in the face of evil, and in this respect Smith shares more with Augustine and Calvin than he does with the early modern theodicists. Smith’s approach to evil is simple and ameliorative. Smith’s approach contrasts with early nineteenth century English political economists, from Malthus onwards, for whom theodicy was important. Whatever view we take of the theodicists project of justifying an all-powerful and good God in the face of evil may, we still struggle to make sense of economic suffering and evil.