Skip to main content

Home/ Digital Civilization/ Group items tagged competition

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Erin Hamson

Modern History Sourcebook: Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations, 1776 (Epitome) - 0 views

www.fordham.edu/...adamsmith-summary.html

shared by Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10 - Cached
Andrew DeWitt liked it
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      The process of specialization was later perfected by Henry Ford, in making cheap, durable cars.
  • This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labor, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labor, and enable one man to do the work of many....
  • Man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favor, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater art of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      This is the basis of the Market Economy or Capitalism, exchange based in self-interest that benefits all.
  • ...38 more annotations...
  • In order to avoid the inconvenience of such situations, every prudent man in every period of society, after the first establishment of the division of labor, must naturally have endeavored to manage his affairs in such a manner as to have at all times by him, besides the peculiar produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of some one commodity or other, such as he imagined few people would be likely to refuse in exchange for their produce....It is in this manner that money has become in all civilized nations the universal instrument of commerce, by the intervention of which goods of all kinds are bought and sold, or exchanged for one another....
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      The role/development of money. The problem with money is that it has to be regulated and who regulates it? If we let the governement regulate it, it might become manipulated...
  • The value of any commodity,
  • is equal to the quantity of labor which it enables him to purchase or command
  • Labor, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities....
  • The real price of everything
  • is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      Note the difference between the value and the price. The price changes most significantly in relation to how much the consumer wants the product, as opposed to how much time it took the maker to make it.
  • which resolves itself into labor
  • resolves itself into rent
  • resolves itself into profit
  • ordinary or average rate both of wages and profit
  • partly by the general circumstances of the society,
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      A man cannot charge above that which can be paid him or he will lose business.
  • partly by the particular nature of each employment
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      Some labor is simply worth more
  • ordinary or average rate of rent
  • partly by the general circumstances of the society or neighborhood in which the land is situated,
  • partly by the natural or improved fertility of the land
  • When the price of any commodity is neither more nor less than what is sufficient to pay the rent of the land, the wages of the labor, and the profits of the stock employed in raising, preparing, and bringing it to market, according to their natural rates, the commodity is then sold for what may be called its natural price.
  • The actual price at which any commodity is commonly sold is called its market price
  • he market price of every particular commodity is regulated by the proportion between the quantity which is actually brought to market, and the demand of those who are willing to pay the natural price of the commodity, or the whole value of the rent, labor, and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it thither.
  • A competition will immediately begin among them, and the market price will rise more or less above the natural price, according as either the greatness of the deficiency, or the wealth and wanton luxury of the competitors, happen to animate more or less the eagerness of the competition.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      The results of scarcity *footballs*
  • quantity brought to market exceeds the effectual demand
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      Surplus
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      ,effect of
  • A monopoly granted either to an individual or to a trading company has the same effect as a secret in trade or manufactures.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      See above
  • When by an increase in the effectual demand, the market price of some particular commodity happens to rise a good deal above the natural price, those who employ their stocks in supplying that market are generally careful to conceal this change
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      A monopoly
  • The exclusive privileges of corporations, statutes of apprenticeship, and all those laws which restrain, in particular employments, the competition to a smaller number than might otherwise go into them, have the same tendency, though in a less degree. They are a sort of enlarged monopolies,
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      See above
  • THE produce of labor constitutes the natural recompense or wages of labor.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      You get what you make
  • Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen; who sometimes too, without any provocation of this kind, combine of their own accord to raise the price of their labor.....
  • Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labor even below this rate
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      Two combinations to react to one another. Like the checks and balances found in gov.
  • The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, necessarily increases with the increase of the revenue and stock of every country, and cannot possibly increase without it. The increase of revenue and stock is the increase of national wealth....
  • It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      equality in the pursuit of happiness
  • First, by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than would otherwise be disposed to enter into them; Second, by increasing it in others beyond what it naturally would be; and, Third, by obstructing the free circulation of labor and stock, both from employment to employment and from place to place.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      Problems of Mercantilism
  • First,
  • by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than might otherwise be disposed to enter into them
  • and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper without injury to his neighbor is a plain violation of this most sacred property.
  • An exclusive corporation necessarily weakens the force of this discipline.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      the gov is not needed for regulation
  • Second,
  • by increasing the competition in some employments beyond what it naturally would be
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      pursuit of happiness
  • by obstructing the free circulation of labor and stock both from employment to employment, and from place to place,
  • Third,
  • Andrew DeWitt on 28 Sep 10
     
    Thanks for the annotations and the comments.
Braquel Burnett

http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111dar.html - 1 views

history.hanover.edu/...111dar.html

shared by Braquel Burnett on 18 Oct 10 - No Cached
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 18 Oct 10
       
      Selective breeding 
  • There is no obvious reason why the principles which have acted so efficiently under domestication should not have acted under nature.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 18 Oct 10
       
      Logical Conclusion
  • With animals having separated sexes there will in most cases be a struggle between the males for possession of the females.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 18 Oct 10
       
      One type of competition
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • No one can draw any clear distinction between individual differences and slight varieties; or between more plainly marked varieties and subspecies, and species.
  • why should we doubt that variations in any way useful to beings, under their excessively complex relations of life, would be preserved, accumulated, and inherited?
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 18 Oct 10
       
      Progression, in species rather than individual people.
  • The theory of natural selection, even if we looked no further than this, seems to me to be in itself probable. I have already recapitulated, as fairly as I could, the opposed difficulties and objections: now let us turn to the special facts and arguments in favour of the theory.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 18 Oct 10
       
      It seems perfectly logical.
  • On the view that species are only strongly marked and permanent varieties, and that each species first existed as a variety, we can see why it is that no line of demarcation can be drawn between species, commonly supposed to have been produced by special acts of creation, and varieties which are acknowledged to have been produced by secondary laws. On this same view we can understand how it is that in each region where many species of a genus have been produced, and where they now flourish, these same species should present many varieties; for where the manufactory of species has been active, we might expect, as a general rule, to find it still in action; and this is the case if varieties be incipient species.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 18 Oct 10
       
      Starting with the premise that species came from one, ie "first existed as a variety", if they were each distinctly created, then this logic is false, because the premise is false. 
  • preserve the most divergent offspring
  • Hence during a long-continued course of modification, the slight differences, characteristic of varieties of the same species, tend to be augmented into the greater differences characteristic of species of the same genus.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 18 Oct 10
       
      How species come about.
  • New and improved varieties will inevitably supplant and exterminate the older, less improved and intermediate varieties; and thus species are rendered to a large extent defined and distinct objects.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 18 Oct 10
       
      Extinction
  • This grand fact of the grouping of all organic beings seems to me utterly inexplicable on the theory of creation.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 18 Oct 10
       
      The fact that there are relations among different species. 
  • But why this should be a law of nature if each species has been independently created, no man can explain.
  • As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favourable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modification; it can act only by very short and slow steps
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 18 Oct 10
       
      Where is the evidence for these short steps? 
  • The wonder indeed is, on the theory of natural selection, that more cases of the want of absolute perfection have not been observed.
  • As natural selection acts by competition, it adapts the inhabitants of each country only in relation to the degree of perfection of their associates;
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 18 Oct 10
       
      Imperfection of Nature
  • we believ
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 18 Oct 10
       
      STILL NEEDS FAITH?
  • Natura non facit saltum
    • Braquel Burnett
      Braquel Burnett on 19 Oct 10
       
      It means "nature does not make jumps." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natura_non_facit_saltus)
Erin Hamson

The Frontier In American History: Chapter X - 0 views

xroads.virginia.edu/...chapter10.html

shared by Erin Hamson on 12 Oct 10 - No Cached
  • As the American pioneer passed on in advance of this new tide of European immigration, he found lands increasingly limited
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 12 Oct 10
       
      The close of the Frontier
  • . But the captains of industry by applying squatter doctrines to the evolution of American industrial society, have made the process so clear that he who runs may read.
  • it seemed not impossible that the outcome of free competition under individualism was to be monopoly of the most important natural resources and processes by a limited group of men whose vast fortunes were so invested in allied and dependent industries that they constituted the dominating force in the industrial life of the nation
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 12 Oct 10
       
      Unregulated turn of events, the people were turned loose and made the best of it. What is wrong with this? They set the standards, and there is no room for competition.
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • Mr. Harriman
  • mastering the economic forces of the nation
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 12 Oct 10
       
      According to Adam Smith and the free market economy theory, the people are the best regulators. This sounds like socialism...
  • The Granger and the Populist were prophets of this reform movement. Mr. Bryan's Democracy, Mr. Debs' Socialism, and Mr. Roosevelt's Republicanism all had in common the emphasis upon the need of governmental regulation of industrial tendencies in the interest of the common man
  • "the State University and the public school system which it crowns would be the strongest evidence of its fitness which it could offer."
  • "general system of education ascending in regular gradations from township schools to a State University, wherein tuition shall be gratis and equally open to all," expresses the Middle Western conception born in the days of pioneer society and doubtless deeply influenced by Jeffersonian democracy.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 12 Oct 10
       
      applying pioneer principles of avaliability and indivdualism to education and other opportunities to suceed in life as presently constituted.
  • propaganda to induce students to continue
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 12 Oct 10
       
      Want everyone to go to college to become their best individual self.
  • all under the ideal of service to democracy rather than of individual advancement alone
  • The times call for educated leaders.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 12 Oct 10
       
      And have yet to cease to call for experienced leaders. Which is why we are all sitting here reading this, to become educated leaders.
  • The test tube and the microscope are needed rather than ax and rifle in this new ideal of conquest
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 12 Oct 10
       
      influence of technology on life
  • It is hardly too much to say that the best hope of intelligent and principled progress in economic and social legislation and administration lies in the increasing influence of American universities.
  • able to think for themselves, governed Dot by ignorance, by prejudice or by impulse, but by knowledge and reason and high-mindedness,
  • The learning of the few is despotism; the learning of the many is liberty.
  • At first pioneer democracy had scant respect for the expert.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 12 Oct 10
       
      individualism
  • That they may perform their work they must be left free, as the pioneer was free, to explore new regions and to report what they find; for like the pioneers they have the ideal of investigation, they seek new horizons.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 12 Oct 10
       
      application of pioneer ideals
  • Thus it is the function of the university to reveal to the individual the mystery and the glory of life as a whole
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 12 Oct 10
       
      opening the mind to new ideas and ideals
Andrew DeWitt

NASA - NASA Helps Kick Off Competition for Bright Minds - 0 views

www.nasa.gov/...bright_minds.html

nasa competition aviation flight

shared by Andrew DeWitt on 15 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • "In the first century of flight, NASA made countless contributions to aviation by improving performance, efficiency and safety. Just as we needed the brightest minds for all those contributions, we need the brightest minds now and in the future to develop, operate and improve our future air transportation system,"
  • Teams of three to seven high school students from at least 29 states and the District of Columbia will compete to design a more fuel-efficient airplane
Gideon Burton

The digital age an age of stagnation? - 2 views

www.wired.com/...future-shock

future shock wired

shared by Gideon Burton on 22 May 12 - No Cached
  • Gideon Burton on 22 May 12
     
    When Will This Low-Innovation Internet Era End?
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Sean Watson on 23 May 12
     
    Fascinating article. Thanks for sharing this, Dr. Burton. Do you think it's because internet technologies are mainly looked at as entertainment sources and not utilized as educational, academic, and research empowering tools? Is there something about the facility of information that hampers one's creativity, kind of like the cat and mouse game of dating that heightens one's mojo? Or could it possibly just be the result of a nation that has become exhausted with the competitive level necessary to transform this into what it may become? Or finally, do you think it's just a matter of time like the economic historian, Paul David said?
  • Gideon Burton on 25 May 12
     
    I do think it is a matter of time. People fall into ruts, even with revolutionary technologies. But enough is happening to keep this sphere innovating on the large scale even if it appears same-old in the short term. Nice to hear from you, Sean.
  • Sean Watson on 26 May 12
     
    Very interesting! Nice to hear from you too, Dr. Burton.
Erin Hamson

Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business - 4 views

www.wired.com/...ff_free

shared by Erin Hamson on 25 Sep 10 - Cached
Andrew DeWitt liked it
  • zero-cost distribution has turned sharing into an industry
    • Bri Zabriskie
      Bri Zabriskie on 27 Sep 10
       
      This article is long but well worth skimming. I used a quote from it in one of my latest blogposts, "Free Entertainment?" at bricolorful.wordpress.com
  • Invent something people use and throw away.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      Eliminates scarcity
  • By giving away the razors, which were useless by themselves, he was creating demand for disposable blades.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      Supply and demand
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • The fastest-growing parts of the gaming industry are ad-supported casual games online and free-to-try massively multiplayer online games
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      Still need a way to make money
  • The first is the extension of King Gillette's cross-subsidy to more and more industries.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      That is, giving somethings to make you buy others
  • The second trend is simply that anything that touches digital networks quickly feels the effect of falling costs.
  • And that meant software of broader appeal, which brought in more users, who in turn found even more uses for computers.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      Cheaper goods brings in more people allowing the standard of living to rise for all.
  • FREE CHANGES EVERYTHING
    • Andrew DeWitt
      Andrew DeWitt on 28 Sep 10
       
      Wow, this is awesome.  Imagine the world of free electricity.  It makes me wonder what our age of free digital will bring.
    • Kristi Koerner
      Kristi Koerner on 28 Sep 10
       
      I actually agree that some things, maybe even more things, should be free. But not as a marketing ploy. And this system seems to go against our capitalist ideals of competition.
  • The most common of the economies built around free is the three-party system. Here a third party pays to participate in a market created by a free exchange between the first two parties.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 28 Sep 10
       
      Where the money comes in.
  • There are dozens of ways that media companies make money around free content, from selling information about consumers to brand licensing, "value-added" subscriptions, and direct ecommerce
  • subscription model of media and is one of the most common Web business models.
  • Isn't it just the free sample model found everywhere from perfume counters to street corners?
  • the manufacturer gives away only a tiny quantity
  • A typical online site follows the 1 Percent Rule — 1 percent of users support all the rest.
  • Yahoo's pay-per-pageview banners, Google's pay-per-click text ads, Amazon's pay-per-transaction "affiliate ads," and site sponsorships were just the start.
  • Gideon Burton on 25 Sep 10
     
    A seminal post that became the basis of Anderson's 2009 book, FREE (Hyperion) 
Bri Zabriskie

Browse Challenges : Challenge.gov : The central platform for crowdsourcing US Governmen... - 0 views

challenge.gov/search

open government

shared by Bri Zabriskie on 17 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Bri Zabriskie on 17 Sep 10
     
    This seems like an interesting step towards open government, if gentle. I read about the site on someone's blog and decided to check it out. It purports to present problems to the public for them to solve hand in hand with the government. 
Shaun Frenza

Communist Manifesto (Chapter 1) - 1 views

www.marxists.org/...ch01.htm

shared by Shaun Frenza on 04 Oct 10 - Cached
  • holy alliance to exorcise
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Religious diction
  • All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Man is responsible for technology which is responsible for a fast paced world, which they don't like
  • It compels all nations, on pain of extinction,
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Japan
    • Shaun Frenza
      Shaun Frenza on 05 Oct 10
       
      Seems a little singular - is there a specific reason why you only say "Japan"
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Capitalism has taken over the world, and those that were slow to buy into the idealology are being left in the dust, and dependant on others, which they don't like.
  • Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Communists retaliate by not producing enough goods.
  • He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Paints these people as the suffers, clearly appealing to them to call for "equality"
  • Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      In Communism all become slaves of the state and the state leaders, how is that better?
    • Shaun Frenza
      Shaun Frenza on 05 Oct 10
       
      Or they become the machine - They are not the slave, they are the mechanizm together... at least that is what they tell themselves.
  • All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Conflicts with the MIT lesson, except for those that have to work. (in regard to females working) again an appeal to the working class people, who are the masses to revolt. This works less well in America because of the American dream and the possibility for change fostered by it.
  • At this stage, the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984, they hope lies in the masses of uncontrolled people
  • Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (Trades’ Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      The working class fights back
  • so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat,
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      they aren't alone in their cause
  • The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations;
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      The shear fact of having money and therefore time to spend with children brings these differences.
  • The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.
  • Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable
    • Erin Hamson
      Erin Hamson on 04 Oct 10
       
      Doesn't believe capitalism can survive.
    • Rhett Ferrin
      Rhett Ferrin on 05 Oct 10
       
      Wait, all these sound like good things. Is he saying its bad to have Toyotas? Is it bad to have bannanas in December?
  • rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.
    • Rhett Ferrin
      Rhett Ferrin on 05 Oct 10
       
      Can someone help me out here? Is he being sarcastic? He says capitalizm is bad then says that the bourgeoisie 'rescued' people from the 'idiocy of rural life' Thomas Jefferson thought the rural life was the ideal and to be sought after. I can't tell if Marx is for or against it.
  • By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour
  • By proletariat, the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live.
  • immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation
    • Shaun Frenza
      Shaun Frenza on 05 Oct 10
       
      Notice how we are in the same situation now as were were then - the facilitation of communication with the internet and how it shapes the world to become more homogenous.
Brandon McCloskey

What do we mean by currency wars? - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...business-11722578

digiciv economics

shared by Brandon McCloskey on 10 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • The strength of currencies has become a source of tension between some of the world's biggest economies, especially the US and China. Brazil's finance minister went as far as to warn that his country would not stand idly by as international currency wars threatened its competitiveness. What was he talking about? Watch this animated guide to find out about why countries are falling out with each other because of their currencies.
  • Brandon McCloskey on 10 Nov 10
     
    A quick description of what currency wars are
1 - 9 of 9
Showing 20▼ items per page