Social Evolutionism How Did Modern Society Develop

Social evolution is what scholars term a broad set of theories that attempt to explain how and why modern cultures are different from those in the past. The questions that social evolution theorists seek answers to include: What is social progress? How is it measured? What social characteristics are preferable? and How were they selected for? What Social Evolutionism Means Social evolution has a wide variety of contradictory and conflicting interpretations among scholars--in fact, according to Perrin (1976), one of the architects of modern social evolution Herbert Spencer [1820-1903], had four working definitions that changed throughout his career. Through Perrins lens, Spencerian social evolution studies a little of all of these: Social Progress: Society is moving towards an ideal, defined as one with amity, individual altruism, specialization based on achieved qualities, and voluntary cooperation among highly disciplined individuals.Social Requirements: Society has a set of functional requirements that shape itself: aspects of human nature such as reproduction and sustenance, external environment aspects such as climate and human life, and social existence aspects, the behavioral constructs that make it possible to live together.Increasing Division of Labor: As population disrupts previous equilibriums, society evolves by intensifying the functioning of each special individual or classOrigin of Social Species: Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, that is to say, the embryonic development of a society is echoed in its growth and change, albeit with outside forces able to alter the direction of those changes. Where the Notion Comes From In the mid-19th century, social evolution came under the influence of Charles Darwins physical evolution theories expressed in Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, but social evolution is not derived from there. The 19th-century anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan is often named as the person who first applied evolutionary principles to social phenomena. In retrospect (something that is tantalizingly easy to do in the 21st century), Morgans notions that society moved inexorably through stages he termed as savagery, barbarism, and civilization seem backward and narrow. But it wasnt Morgan who saw that first: social evolution as a definable and one-way process is deeply rooted in western philosophy. Bock (1955) listed several antecedents to the 19th-century social evolutionists to scholars in the 17th and 18th centuries (Auguste Comte, Condorcet, Cornelius de Pauw, Adam Ferguson, and lots of others). Then he suggested that all of those scholars were responding to voyage literature, stories of the 15th and 16th century western explorers who brought back reports of newly discovered plants, animals, and societies. This literature, says Bock, sparked scholars first to marvel that God created so many different societies, then to attempt to explain the various cultures as not as enlightened as themselves. In 1651, for example, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes explicitly stated that Native Americans were in the rarified state of nature that all societies were before they rose to civilized, political organizations. Greeks and Romans Even that is not the first glimmer of western social evolution: for that, you have to go back to Greece and Rome. Ancient scholars such as Polybius and Thucydides built histories of their own societies, by describing the early Roman and Greek cultures as barbaric versions of their own present. Aristotles idea of social evolution was that society developed from a family-based organization, into village-based, and finally into the Greek state. Much of the modern concepts of social evolution are present in Greek and Roman literature: the origins of society and the importance of discovering them, the need to be able to determine what inner dynamic was at work, and explicit stages of development. There is also, among our Greek and Roman forebears, the tinge of teleology, that our present is the correct end and only possible end of the social evolution process. Therefore, all social evolutionists, modern and ancient, says Bock (writing in 1955), have a classical view of change as growth, that progress is natural, inevitable, gradual, and continuous. Despite their differences, social evolutionists write in terms of successive, finely-graded stages of development; all seek the seeds in the original; all exclude consideration of specific events as effective factors, and all derive from a reflection of existing social or cultural forms arranged in a series. Gender and Race Issues One glaring problem with social evolution as a study is the explicit (or hidden right in plain sight) prejudice against women and non-whites: the non-western societies seen by the voyagers were made up of people of color who often had female leaders and/or explicit social equality. Obviously, they were unevolved, said the white male wealthy scholars in 19th-century western civilization. Nineteenth-century feminists like Antoinette Blackwell, Eliza Burt Gamble, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman read Darwins Descent of Man and were excited at the possibility that by investigating social evolution, science might trump that prejudice. Gamble explicitly rejected Darwins notions of perfectibility--that the current physical and social evolutionary norm was the ideal. She argued that in fact, humanity was embarked on a course of evolutionary degradation, including selfishness, egoism, competitiveness, and warlike tendencies, all of which flourished in civilized humans. If altruism, care for another, a sense of the social and the group good is important, the feminists said, the so-called savages (people of color and women) were more advanced, more civilized. As evidence of this degradation, in the Descent of Man, Darwin suggests that men should choose their wives more carefully, like cattle, horse, and dog breeders. In the same book he noted that in the animal world, males develop plumage, calls, and displays to attract females. Gamble pointed out this inconsistency, as did Darwin, who said that human selection resembled animal selection except that the female takes the part of the human breeder. But says Gamble (as reported in Deutcher 2004), civilization has degraded so much that under the repressive economic and social state of things, women must work to attract the male to establish economic stability. Social Evolution in the 21st Century There is no doubt that social evolution continues to thrive as a study and will continue in the foreseeable future. But the growth in representation of nonwestern and female scholars (not to mention differently gendered individuals) into the academic realm promises to alter that studys questions to include What went wrong that so many people have been disenfranchised? What would the perfect society look like and, perhaps bordering on social engineering, What can we do to get there? Sources Bock KE. 1955. Darwin and Social Theory. Philosophy of Science 22(2):123-134.DÃ ©barre F, Hauert C, and Doebeli M. 2014. Social evolution in structured populations. Nature Communications 5:3409.Deutscher P. 2004. The Descent of Man and the Evolution of Woman. Hypatia 19(2):35-55.Hall JA. 1988. Classes and elites, wars and social evolution: a comment on Mann. Sociology 22(3):385-391.Hallpike CR. 1992. On primitive society and social evolution: a reply to Kuper. Cambridge Anthropology 16(3):80-84.Kuper A. 1992. Primitive anthropology. Cambridge Anthropology 16(3):85-86.McGranahan L. 2011. William Jamess Social Evolutionism in Focus. The Pluralist 6(3):80-92.

Gender Stereotypes Of Grace Jones - 910 Words

We are together but have been created physically different, we are equal when it comes to our rights to live, air, water yet not the same in certain issues. Both sexes are,â€Å"deeply ingrained in the codes of our society.† Stereotypes imposed on us by the society has shrewdly manipulated or brainwashed us into believing that being told how to comport ourselves and be is rather a liberation, not oppression. Unfortunately, we are unconscious of this conspiracy when trying to look and behave like those individuals we see in the media or magazines. For women, in particular, the assumption is that we wear beautiful clothes such as dresses and skirts, reveal some skin to attract men, wear makeup and keep our hairs long. Two different images of Grace Jones will be the source of comparison in this essay to illustrate gender stereotypes placed on women. The first image has her album title on top, â€Å" Grace Jones/ Nightclubbing.† Also, there’s a quote in the bottom of the of her picture, which reads †I’ve seen that face before†. Beneath the quote, it says â€Å"liber tango†, which is her single on the album. The background is painted in an unappealing bright greenish yellow. This color shifts the attention of the observer to her much darker image in the middle. In the second picture, there’s not much background. However, in both images the focus is solely on her, she has a strong presence and expression. Although she’s a woman, Jones, is displayed as a man in one picture and veryShow MoreRelatedFemininity, Masculinity, And Masculinity861 Words   |  4 Pageseither homosexual or queer. I chose two pictures of Grace Jones to compare in this essay since she happens to be a gender bender and victim of alike persecutions. Additionally, Grace Jones is a supermodel and singer from Jamaica, who’s renowned for cross-dressing and artistic fashion styles (Williams). The picture titled, â€Å"Grace Jo nes/Nightclubbing,†was derived from the National Portrait Gallery,while the other from, â€Å"Essense† website, Jones demonstrates that women can be feminine or soft in oneRead MoreGender Bending : Femininity And Masculinity928 Words   |  4 Pages Gender Bending Womanhood is often associated with femininity while manhood with masculinity. Masculinity is the idea that men are tough both physically and mentally. Femininity, a term associated with being a women and used to describe a women’s comportment and attitude. A gentle individual, male or female, who wear dresses, skirts, high heels, makeup, have long hair is considered feminine. 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Sponsors of these pageants argue that they instill confidence and grace in contestants, while critics worry that they encourage superficiality at a young age and reinforce gender stereotypes (â€Å"Issue Overview: Plastic Surgery). Finally, there are teenagers and adults who become obsessed with surgeries and never feel happy and satisfied with what the mirror brings back. In suchRead MorePlastic Surgery Before Age Eighteen2588 Words   |  11 Pagesgrown into a multibillion-dollar industry that draws hundreds of thousands of contestants, many of them under the age of 12. Sponsors of these pageants argue that they instill confidence and grace in contestants, while critics worry that they encourage superficiality at a young age and reinforce gender stereotypes (â€Å"Issue Overview: Plastic Surgery). Finally, there are teenagers and adults who become obsessed with surgeries and never feel happy and satisfied with what the mirror brings back. 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Models and actresses are usually desperately thin, predominantly white, and always wear a trendy hairstyle. In fact, along with thinness, I believe that hair is a major component of what is

Business Finance Written Assignment Free Essays

Q1. Define an â€Å"efficient market† and the three forms of market efficiency. Explain how each of the forms differs from a perfect market. We will write a custom essay sample on Business Finance Written Assignment or any similar topic only for you Order Now Define arbitrage and explain what kind of information is needed for you to obtain arbitrage in each of the forms of market efficiency. (5 points) Q2. Please compare the advantages and disadvantages of the following investment rules: Net Present Value (NPV), Payback Period, Discounted Payback Period, Average Accounting Return, Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Profitability Index (PI). You can start by considering the following questions for each investment rule: Does it use cash flows or accounting earnings? Does it consider all cash flows or not? Does it apply a proper discount rate? Whether the acceptance criteria are clear and reasonable? In what situation it can be applied? What kind of weakness does it have? ) (5 points) Question 1 An efficient market is advocated by a hypothesis that under free movement of information, the true value of securities are fairly priced, which immediately and accurately reflect all information available to investors. By the assumptions that rational investors evaluate the price by ascertained future cash flows, and are able to learn and react quickly to new information once delivered, investors do not expect to achieve returns in excess of average market returns. The three forms of market efficiency are weak, semi-strong, and strong. Different degree of information is reflected by price in different forms. Under weak form, the prices reflect all past publicly available information, like historical prices movements. Under semi-strong form, the prices reflect all publicly available information, like financial statements and news reports. Under strong form, the prices reflect all public and private information. Generally, because of quick reflection of information in price and quick response of investors to the market, it is impossible for investors to obtain or use new information to find undervalued stocks. To illustrate, in weak form, using past prices for technical analysis is useless to predict future trend as past information is irrelevant to the future. In semi-strong form, using fundamental analysis is not useful as the prices are immediately adjusted once the information widely circulated in the market. In strong form, finding undervalued stocks is not consistent as all information is well known. Thus, no investors can earn excess return by trading the information or selling the stocks with too high expected returns. A perfect market is where no arbitrage opportunities occur (i. e. Law of One Price) because complete information is shared among all investors. Compared with efficient market, no distinction in degree of information is reflected in price here. Arbitrage means the practice of buying and selling equivalent goods in different markets to take advantage of a price difference. An arbitrage opportunity occurs if making a profit without taking any risk. An efficient market does not necessarily mean investors cannot yield excess return. Instead, an arbitrage opportunity does exist if they ask for appropriate information quickly. If a market achieves strong form efficiency given that it is mature enough, no investor can yield any excess return in long run. Thus, no more information is needed. On the other hand, private and latest public information are needed to obtain arbitrage in semi-strong and weak form efficiency respectively. (395 words) Question 2 Use of cash flows and discount rate All investment rules are determined by estimated cash flows but only NPV, IRR and PI consider all cash flows throughout the project’s life. Except payback period, the cash flows are discounted by proper discount rate under each rule. A positive NPV expects the project adding value to firm and shareholders’ wealth. All discounted expected future cash flows are taken into consideration compared with the initial cost. The discount rate estimates the risk level and the return and thus it is appropriate. Thus, NPV is the best because it accounts for time value of money and risk of cash flows. IRR is the return that set NPV to zero. Similarly, the calculation is based on cash flows and discount rate (i. e. same benefit as NPV). It provides a simple tool without estimating all details but intuitively appealing to know. If IRR is high enough, the time spent on estimating a required cost of capital is avoidable. PI measures benefit per unit cost based on time value of money to estimate an additional value to firm. Two versions of PI provide same decision and both are easy to understand and communicate. For calculating PI, NPV calculation is used and thus PI’s advantage is same as NPV’s. Payback period is the amount of time for future cash flows taken to recover the initial investment. It is a scanning tool for uncertain cash flows. However, it ignores cost of capital and time value of money since only cash flows for that current period are concerned. Also, not all cash flows are considered as cash flows beyond payback period are ignored. Similar to payback period, the only difference is discounted payback period better considers discount rate (i. e. time value of money). Therefore, payback period on a discounted basis will be longer. Clearness and reasonableness of acceptance criteria NPV, IRR and PI can provide clear and reasonable criteria while only NPV can be applied to all situations. The NPV rule is to accept a stand-alone project with positive NPV or a mutually exclusive project with the highest NPV. As NPV is estimated absolutely, the rule can still be applied despite of different scale of projects. The IRR rule is to accept a stand-alone project with IRR greater than cost of capital or a mutually exclusive project with the highest IRR. However, IRR rule is consistent with NPV rule only if all negative cash flows precede positive cash flows. In other words, the conflict is due to non-conventional ash flows and change in signs more than once. Thus, non-existent or multiple IRR(s) may cause uncertainty in decision making. IRR is unreliable when mutually exclusive projects are different in scale, risk and time horizon. PI is closely related to NPV, generally leading to identical decisions. PI helps evaluate and identify the optimal combination under resource constraint, especially for limited budget. The project with the highest PI should be chosen first. Nevertheless, it ignores the size factor and thus leads to incorrect decisions among mutually exclusive projects. Moreover, PI cannot be applied during multiple resource constraints. The rule of (discounted) payback period is to accept the project if it is less than a pre-specified length of time. It is easily understood and simply used because of clear acceptance criteria. However, an arbitrary cutoff point is required for determination. It is subjective since ignoring the impact of cash flows after payback period favors short –term projects and biases against long –term projects. Conclusion NPV is the most commonly used investment criteria and true at any time. If any conflicts exist among the investment rules, NPV rule should prevail. 605 words) Reference 1. Hong Kong Institute of Investors (2001), â€Å"Efficient Market Hypothesis†, retrieved 1 April 2012, from http://td. hkii. org/investu/168ch7/7-5. php 2. NYU Stern, â€Å"Market Efficiency – Definition and Tests†, retrieved 1 April 2012, from http://pages. stern. nyu. edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/invemgmt /effdefn. htm 3. Wikipedia, â€Å"Efficient-market hypothesis†, retrieved 1 April 2012, from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis 4. Wretch (21 February 2006), â€Å"Efficient Market Hypothesis†, retrieved 1 April 2012, from http://www. wretch. cc/blog/jeysafe/3421966 How to cite Business Finance Written Assignment, Essay examples

Internal Control free essay sample

My Recommendation Impact of going public Public companies, as the result of the passing of Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002, are necessary to document their controls, assess the documented controls and have their external auditors examine their testing of controls and note down a report about the efficiency of controls surrounding financial reporting. As a result, there will be supplementary work on designing, testing and auditing of controls if you come to a decision to go public. High-quality practices Having long-term employees is a real positive feature and I acclaim you for retaining talent. The use of pre-numbered checks, pre-numbered invoices, locking up new checks, having two managers support new hires, and carrying out bank reconciliation are greatest practices and I support you to stick with these procedures. Weak practices and recommendations There are a number of practices, on the other hand, that make you defenseless to errors, mutually planned and unplanned. We will write a custom essay sample on Internal Control or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Segregation of duties Employees that manage cash ought to not be involved in the bank reconciliation or invoices. Employees in charge for purchasing should not have any payment or reconciliation duties. By segregating duties, there is more than one person implicated in the sales and purchasing cycle as a result one person cannot carry out a fake transaction or take away cash or purchased assets without it being noticed by another employee. Access to assets All employees should not have access to petty cash. The cash must be locked and those with a key should make sure proper documentation for cash distributed to be sure it is approved. Indelible ink machine Printing your own checks is all right as long as you use pre-numbered check stock paper to write the checks. Or else, you will not recognize that you have accounted for every check written. Leaving paychecks in office Checks should be locked until distributed to assure confidentiality and security. Background checks Prior to authorizing new hires, a background check would prevent putting high risk individuals in positions where they might harm the firm. Passwords Passwords are a key control preventing staff from accessing data outside of their duties and altering transaction information from preliminary amounts to cover up errors, fraud or theft. Everyone should have an individual password and not reveal it to another. Changing passwords periodically is a best practice. Approval Having a supervisor approve the bank reconciliation to be sure no strange or old reconciling items are left unattended is a greatest practice.