Economic Theories Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Economic Theories - Essay Example His theories helped to establish the foundation to capitalism. Adam Smith postulated that markets were capable of regulating themselves without any external intervention. He introduced a new approach of measuring national wealth using income as opposed to the king’s treasury (Derek, & Steven, 2003). According to him, income was a product of land, labor and capital, and that the income is divided among capitalists, laborers and landlords, in form of interest, rent and wages. Smith’s theory had some limitations, despite helping to revolutionize the economic thought at the time. David Ricardo identified the weaknesses of Smith’s theory and opted to rectify them and incorporate them in his own theory. Among the things he agreed with Smith’s theory include the use of income to measure a country’s wealth. He also agreed with Smith’s view of free markets. He however built his economic thoughts on the three main factors of production; land, capital a nd labor, that had been identified by Smith (Derek, & Steven, 2003). Ricardo introduced other new ideas in his theory to build on Smith’s ideas. He for instance introduced the idea of international trade as the best way to help the local markets. He introduced the concept of comparative advantage in international trade. Comparative advantage suggests that countries only produce those products that they have a higher comparative advantage and import those which they cannot produce efficiently. b). Marx’s opposition to Capitalism Karl Marx was one of the most vocal thinkers to be opposed to Capitalism. He saw capitalism as just any other historical stage that would eventually end and be replaced by Socialism. According to Karl Marx, capitalism introduced classism in the society. The society was made up of the capitalists who were the land owners and owners of factories and the working class, whom provided labor in the lands and factories owned by the capitalists. He iden tified that these two main classes had differing interests that were the source of conflicts in the society. The capitalists’ main objective is to get profit and increase their wealth through minimizing their costs, including offering low wages to their workers (Derek, & Steven, 2003). The working class on the other hand strives to maximize their wages. These two compete g interests will lead to conflicts in the society that would eventually lead to a decline in the capitalist system and create ground for socialism. Marx was opposed to the capitalist system because of the instability it would create in the society where the working class would be left dependant on the capitalists who owned massive resources. According to Marx, leaving wealth to a few private individuals would create imbalance in the society and preferred socialism which would take the wealth from individuals and eradicate classes and ensure equality of all people in the community. The labor theory of valu

Critique of Academic Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Critique of Academic Journal - Essay Example However, this diversity's gradual move into the normal corporate field has brought with it a few negative outcomes (Kelan 2009). It makes it harder to deal with instances of subtle discrimination against women (Calas and Smircich 2006). This diversity simply eliminates the more obvious types of gender discrimination while allowing the attitudes that support such practices to go unchallenged (Gill 2007). For instance, women are usually exempted from the networking that takes place among the men in the workplace, as well as from working on with the business’s most prominent lawyers (Nentwich 2006). When women are confronted with such situations in an era that has actually had laws passed to support their functioning in the workplace, they are likely to think that they are the ones who are either too arrogant, or cold, and thus are not easy to approach for workplace friendships (Johns, Schmader and Martens 2005). They are not likely to suppose that the reason for their being left out of things is because they are women (Crump, Logan and McIlroy 2007). Critique Gender fatigue is constructive because it alerts the society that even with the existing laws and regulations that encourage women to work; women are still not treated in the same way as men in the workplace (Lewis 2006). For instance, in a recent research conducted in a business environment, it was established that male workers ignore what might appear to be gender discrimination because they equate their calmness in such instances with showing tolerance or acceptance (Bailyn 2003). Female workers, on the other hand, feel that if they work harder, they will be able to change the minds of sexist employers (Blau, Brinton and Grusky 2006). In such cases, it can be pointed out that ‘gender fatigue’ is an appropriate explanation for such pusillanimous behavior on the part of workers (Ely, Meyerson and Davidson 2006).   Elizabeth Kelan’s article on gender fatigue appears to bring up a n authentic problem that might actually be one of the reasons contributing to the continuing inequality that women experience in the workplace. The fact that her survey participants indicated that they had heard of cases of discrimination showed that such cases still exist even in an era in which many people feel that the goals of women being permanently accepted in the workplace have been sufficiently addressed. The fact that the workers being surveyed mentioned that instances of gender discrimination usually happen in singular episodes and not as a whole also contributes toward the ‘gender fatigue’ theory. If the incidences of discrimination against women happened in bulk, the opposition would have been more vocal. However, instances where some women are discriminated against and not others are not as visible and can cause doubts to arise when reported.    On the other hand, gender fatigue the article by Elisabeth Kelan on gender fatigue states that the workers that she used in her study were not only convinced that their companies were gender neutral, and were examined on merit. These contributors also quoted statistics on sexism from the previous one or two decades. This means that the situation may have changed in the last few years; and that if gender inequalities still exist, the