Risk Assessment & Safe Systesm Of Work

Whitelee Wind Farm is a Scottish Power facilities situated on Eaglesham Moor, some 17 miles from Glasgow city centre. This is the largest wind farm in Europe boasting 140 wind turbines. Scottish Power have introduce a guided tour of this site, where visitors are shown the turbines and the many ponds that a spread throughout the site. Some of the water from the ponds is used to supply the surrounding area with drinking water. Scottish Water who previously owned the moor stipulated that pollution of the water course was not acceptable, and if Scottish Power were to introduce a tour then a pollution free method of transport was required. Scottish power purchased one of three electric buses which were built for Strathclyde Public Transport (SPT) by Smiths Electric Vehicles. SPT never made full use of these buses. The bus used on the Whitelee site is powered by 54 lead acid gel batteries, arranged in two parallel banks of 27. These batteries are located within the bus chassis. Mechanically the bus is a standard design, with the typical front wishbone and rear trailing arm suspension. The braking system is air over hydraulic, incorporating an air activated spring loaded fail safe parking brake. It is the power-train that is powered by the lead acid gel batteries and the ancillary systems are powered by two 12V heavy duty commercial vehicle batteries which connected in series will give the required 24V to power the ancillary systems, Table 1 shows the power requirements and consumption rates of these components. Risk Assessment The following pages incorporate a hazard checklist, risk assessment and safe systems of work for the use of the bus at the Whitelee facility. The hazard checklist was completed to form a qualitative risk assessment highlighting the where and why an incident was likely to occur. The information gathered from the checklist was then used to compile the risk assessment. The risks were classified according the likelihood of occurrence and the severity of the possible injury. The risks were scored from 1 to 25, where 1 shows there is no inherent risk involved in the task, and 25 shows this task to be highly dangerous and could result in fatal or debilitating injury. The risk register has a copy of the scoring mechanism at the bottom of the page. From this a Safe System of Work was complied to sever as an aid memoir. This highlight the salient points of the risk register to ensure risk of injury is kept to a minimum. Safe System of Work In compiling any Safe System of Work, the following steps give a good example of what points need to be reviewed. * The task o What is the work being carried out o What specialist tools are used o Who will do the task * Hazards associated with the task o From tooling o From plant and other equipment o From substances * Risk Assessment o Assess risks arising from the task * Define a safe method of work o Break task down into individual parts o Specify safe method o Produce documented work instructions * Implementation & operation o Ensure members of staff carrying out the task are adequately trained o Record training o Carryout regular checks and re-assess as appropriate In the case of the bus, I have identified two different tasks, the first being the daily maintenance, the other being the actually driving of the bus on the tour. The hazards associated with the tasks are dependent on which task is being carried out. The following pages are exemplar Safe Systems of Work for the daily maintenance of the bus and for driving the bus on a tour.

How Has Amazon Used Technology Essay

1. How has Amazon used technology to revamp the bookselling industry? Amazon uses technology envelop in search engine of a website. The company captures comments and recommendations of buyers for site visitors to read and also recommends which book to buy. The website captures all the information of the customer such as what pages they are looking at, how much time they spend on site, no of visitors etc. This information is used by the company to evaluate buying and selling patterns of the book industry. 2. Is Amazon using disruptive or sustaining technology to run its business? Amazon is using disruptive technology where it uses new ways to do things that doesnot satisfy the existing customers. This technology brings up new market and destroy the old one to run the business successfully. 3. How could Amazon use kiosks to improve its business? Amazon released a free website that enables its business partners to interact with its website. This website allows partners to create, access to data, populate and even initiating checkout process so that business can improve. This is the way Amazon uses kiosks to improve its business. 4. What is Amazon’s e-business model? Amazon uses Business-to-Customer model because here it sells the product or services to customers over the internet. 5. Which metrics could Amazon use to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of Amazon’s website? Efficiency: Amazon uses following metrics for its efficiency. Throughput: amazon introduces new techniques and brings infront of the customers in a given time and according to time Transaction speed: the website speed is so fast that all transactions of the customers are done quickly. Availability: amazon provides everything for the customers so that it is available for everyone and everything is available in its website. Effectiveness: amazon uses the following metrics for its effectiveness. Customer satisfaction: amazon always thinks about the requirements of the customers so that they will be satisfied.  Ã‚  Conversion rates: amazon charges for the customers for using their site but it be reasonable for the customers to bear.  Sell-through increases: as amazon fulfills the requirements of the customers, sales also increase automatically. 6. What are some of the business challenges facing Amazon? Amazon has been spread global wide. But there are some issues with some countries where language became the main barrier. Site has been forbidden because they include foreign languages through which bookseller site could not be operated. So amazon have to face this challenge for its business improvements.

Institutionalized Juveniles and their rights Essay

Institutionalized Juveniles and their rights - Essay Example In judging on a proposal to make a hearing private, the court must take into account the maturity and age of the offender, charges against the offender, probability of confidentiality breach, and the advantage of privacy to the offender and weigh these issues against the advantage of an open hearing (Champion, 1997). A juvenile offender has the right to be allocated a guardian. A guardian of a person may be appointed for the offender if the court establishes it will be at the best interest of the juvenile offender, or if no guardian, custodian, or parent turns up at a hearing with the offender (Champion, 1997). A considerable body of law ascertains the rights of incarcerated and detained juvenile offenders and safeguards their rights in confinement. Ombudsman programs also help to supervise juvenile correctional facilities. They safeguard the rights of juvenile offenders in custody. The people who protect juvenile offenders’ rights derive their authority from the Supreme Court, and juvenile codes and statutes (Champion,

Review of the Strategic situation of DeBeer's Essay

Review of the Strategic situation of DeBeer's - Essay Example In view of the emerging challenges, DeBeers had to g back to the drawing board and strategize how it would remain relevant in the market, having lost its monopolistic powers and its market share reduced to 60%. The image of the company had also been tainted for engaging in non-business friendly and illegal practices when it was the market leader as it tried to wade off competition. The company had to change its strategy from a ‘buyer of a last resort’ to a more demand driven strategy that bore in mind the need for a good brand image. A good analysis of this strategy indicates that the company is still going to be a relevant contributor to the industry in the foreseeable future amid the challenges it faces. TABLE OF CONTENTS Title page 1 Executive Summary 2 Introduction 4 Body Analysis of business environment 6 Analysis of the Organization’s strategy 8 Appraisal of the strategy 10 Conclusion 10 Reference list 11 Word Count 12 DeBeers’ Diamond Dilemma Introdu ction Natural diamonds are formed as a result of carbon atoms beneath the surface of the earth bonding in to cubic structures due to excess heat and pressure in a very hard transparent compound. With the discovery of diamond deposits in various parts of the world in the 18th and 19th century, extraction process begun leading to the establishment of the diamond industry as one of the biggest economic sectors of most countries with diamond deposits (Hesse, R. W. 2007). Diamonds are heterogeneous minerals and were initially not considered as commodities in the market like other minerals such as copper and gold. Natural diamonds have widely been used in making jewelry and other precious and coveted ornaments. One of the countries naturally endowed with diamond deposits is South Africa. Other countries with huge deposits of diamond include Angola, Botswana, Democratic republic of Congo, Russia, Australia, and Canada. Together, the seven countries account for about 96% of global productio n of diamond and about 88% of the value of diamonds produced. Initially the diamond producing countries would export the rough diamond to other countries for processing (Carlson, 2005). Diamond processing involves cutting and polishing the rough diamonds into precious items. India was the most dominant diamond processing country in the beginning, while the situations has now changed since most of the producing countries now have diamond processing plants locally. DeBeers, a diamond extraction company in South Africa has for a long time been the market leader in the global diamond industry, controlling about 80% of total diamond supplies and produced about 45% of global production of diamonds. As a market leader, DeBeers could control the prices of rough diamonds globally by regulating supply. In a bid to expand its market share, the company engaged in various practices that aimed at killing any competition. So9me of the company’s practices were illegal in other jurisdictions and contributed to creation of a negative image of DeBeers on the global scene. From the early 1990s to date, the position of DeBeers as the market leader has been overtaken due to various factors that led to establishment and growth of other competitors as well as the popularity of synthetic diamonds and the shifting of the diamond market to adopt the demand-supply structure as the main price determinants. The dissolution of the Soviet Union led to

UN Sanction within Iraq post-gulf storm war, how they affected the Research Proposal

UN Sanction within Iraq post-gulf storm war, how they affected the people and how they provided perhaps breeding ground for terrorist ideology - Research Proposal Example The period in the history of Kuwait in which the country was a part of Basra’s Ottoman ‘vilayet’ was also being followed by the gulf war of 1990/ 1991. A series of political events led to the stage of the war that was fought between the contrived coalition forces of the United States of America and the military troops of the then ruling leader Saddam Hussein. The frontiers of the countries of Kuwait, Saudi Arab and Iraq were decided in the conference of Uqair in the year 1922 by the then high commissioner of the British controlled Indian Army, Sir Percy Cox, for the city of Mesopotamia. The commissioner resolved the constituents of the frontiers of the country, cutting through different series of ridiculous claims and arguments that seemed to be almost impossible for the period. This event was one of the contributors to prepare the stage for the Gulf war. Finally in the year 1930 the high commissioner of the British army in Baghdad passed the judgment of the encouragement of the absorption of Kuwait into the geographical boundary of Iraq gradually by the government of Britain. According to the British government and their representatives the sacrifice of a small and expandable state of Kuwait would not be a huge concern if there had been an existing demand by the struggle of powers of the then period. Kuwait depicted as an ‘oil well’ was being maintained by the United Nations serving as the proxy for the western world. The colonialism policy of the British government along with the imperialism strategy of the United States of America proved to be economic, provided the accommodation were mutually congenial for both, and for the protection of the hegemony of the western world in the fulfillment of the interest of democratic freedom over the natur al oil reserve of the Gulf countries. They were being buttressed by the feudalistic policies of the other regional countries. Previously the government of the United States of America was indifferent regarding Iraq’s conflict with Kuwait, evidence from the period of late nineties or the period of the beginning of the year 1991 showed the strategies of the American government were in favor of war against Iraq. The United States of America provided a positive signal to Iraq, for the invasion of Kuwait by the later. However they emphasized on the lack of commitment from their part in the supply of troops to back the invasion of Kuwait. There were quick moves on the part of the government of United States on the economical, military and political fronts during the period of the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq though no serious opposition was provided by United States on the country’s invasion. The result was too threatening for the government of Iraq. Saddam Hussein was named t he ‘new Hitler’ and ridiculed in Britain, apart from the United States and elsewhere. This led to the introduction of economic sanctions that were comprehensive under the auspices of the United Nations. (Simons, 1–3: Schmid, 3) This invasion of Kuwait by Iraq resulted in the providence of a sanction by the Security Council of United Nations, which imposed tremendous impact on the economy of the country and more devastatingly on the lives of the countrymen.   United Nation Sanction on Iraq   During the period of the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq under the governmental leadership of Saddam Hussein the sanctions were mainly applied by the United Nations to pressurize the government of Iraq, which would act as an indirect force to make them leave. The sanctions mainly and predominantly focused on

Strategic Fashion Marketing Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Strategic Fashion Marketing - Assignment Example The paper "Strategic Fashion Marketing" concerns strategic marketing in fashion. The contemporary fashion market is mainly for clients who are adventurous and aware of the current fashion trend. Contemporary outfits closely look like those seen on the runway only that they are sold at a different price, which is lower. The rise in status of contemporary fashion can be attributed to the changing tastes in artistic things among other factors. There are various marketing trends currently being used to market fashion wear. Technology and new inventions have seen the rise of many marketing strategies that are better and easier. Two contemporary fashion-marketing trends that will be influential over the next five years in the global fashion industry are mobile marketing and e-marketing. These fashion-marketing trends are important for various reasons. Many people have become very busy with daily activities be it official, academic or home chores. For this reason, they have very little time left for social activities including shopping for clothes. Things have been made easier by technology using the internet and mobile facilities like phones. Changing times have seen the rise in the use of these two marketing strategies. Internet has become readily available and this goes for mobile facilities as well. Mobile marketing is important because many people in various regions can be reached. This means that the market base for contemporary fashion is expanded and in turn, more sales are made.

Thesis essay on digital media Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Thesis on digital media - Essay Example Youths are consistent users of digital media than any other group in the society. It is considered a natural aspect that youths are so much integrated into digital media. For instance, almost every young person possesses cell phone. Most of these youths do not necessary make calls or send short messages. They only want to feel part of the larger population that has identified itself with the current trends of digital media. On the same note, youths unlike any other groups of the society uses phones among other digital media devices in the most diverse way. In this regard, it is right to assert that digital media is a habit for the youth. The youth has assimilated and embraced digital media quite fast. This has made them used to it, especially in the social aspects of life. Family negotiations are a critical and integral factor in the digital media-youth interaction. It has been deemed to act as a control or autonomy tool in the youth-family affairs. Digital media has made communication, data processing, sending and receiving of information easy. With this, parents and other family members can monitor their youth using digital media devices. On the other hand, the youth counts on the digital media devices as a source of freedom. Although easier and cheap means of communication are provided, ascertaining the credibility of the information given may be challenging. The youth take this advantage to lie about their whereabouts, thereby achieving their autonomy purposes. Digital media has created a whole new world for the youth. The youth expresses a crystalline awareness on digital media. In the social networks context, digital media is not only prosthesis of their body, but of their social competence as well (Aspray 153). When direct communication fails to materialize, then digital media finds its way in account for the loop. Uncomfortable and embarrassing moments for the youth have been

Emails Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Emails - Essay Example Use professional signatures, not elaborate ones. Signatures should contain information about yourself in relation to your position and department, and how you can be contacted (your cellphone number, extension number or direct line). Reply promptly and accordingly to messages that need a reply. This is to inform the sender that you have read and understood the message he has sent. However, be cautious when replying. Do not use the reply-to-all button if the information you are sending is for the sender only. Business e-mail addresses include the name of our company. Your signatures contain the name of our company. Be careful in sending out e-mails to people outside of your department and our company since our e-mail address is connected to the reputation of our company. You carry the name of your department and our company when sending out e-mails. You carry our reputation through sent messages. And it is important that we protect our company’s name so that our business will go on according to our mission, vision and goal. E-mails are part of doing our business. It is important that each one of us uses it with care and responsibility since it shows a glimpse of the policies and the communication style we have in our company. This policy serves as a reminder for everyone using e-mails. I hope that this would be a start of creating a new and more professional way of writing, sending out and replying to our e-mails. If you have any questions or clarifications, please do not hesitate to send back a reply. Emphasizing the importance of professionalism in using e-mails is the focal point of the policy. Since the e-mail is used as a major form of communication in companies, it is important to emphasize that it should be used with care. It is important to consider the reader and how he will react to an e-mail message by determining the appropriate language (Jerz & Bauer, 2008). Quality is

Discovering Professional Resources Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 2

Discovering Professional Resources - Essay Example The current paper makes use of three different journal publications and uses the articles within them to study the perceptions and conclusions of various researchers on the specific issues pertaining to school administration. This will include the management of time and stress and the various methods of dealing with conflicts and the challenges of working in teams. In addition to discussing the points provided in the chosen journals with respect to each of these topics, the paper will also focus on ways to implement them in practice and express opinions on their positive and negative traits. The latest issue of the Education Administration Quarterly published in August 2009 contains publications discuss issues such as the need to foster leadership within school administration and the need to address the issues of conflict in Schools. The articles are mostly based on maing inferences through numerical and statistical interpretation and the journal is associated with the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA. The information is available as a paper publication in addition to being accessible in online research portals. Given the broad range of issues that the journal discussed in the bvarious issues pertaining to School administration, this is a resource which I would refer to frequently. as the name suggests, Education week is a weekly journal publication that adopts the approach more of a magazine. The latest edition pertains to the preceding week that ended August 15th, 2009. Education week can be considered as a semi-scholarly resource as it contains a whole lot of other content in addition to containing academic discussions on School Administration. Further, the magazine discusses a wide variety of other issues pertaining to Education in general. the magazine is available online through a web portal that can be reached at www.edweek.org. given its generalized

Product Cost and Budgetary Control Methodologies and Systems Essay

Product Cost and Budgetary Control Methodologies and Systems - Essay Example The budgetary control systems controls costs through the preparation of budgets, comparing actual performance with the budget. This allows the managers to act upon the budget and results in order to attain maximum profitability (FAO, 2010). Over the last two decades the computer world is changing how companies operate and report. The need to incorporate computerized systems in every business aspects is still ongoing research. Budget information systems and product cost systems are analysed in this report, their benefits and challenges they pose. The product cost and budgetary control methodologies and systems There are two budget control methodologies i.e. the budgets and the budgetary control. The budget is the formal statement that represents the projected financial resources that are needed to undertake business activities. Budgetary control on the other hand is a technique and a tool that is used by management to compare the budget with the actual performance. Any discrepancies a re then acted upon either by revising the budget or exercise control action. The budget information system (BIS) BIS has been in use for the last 25 years having been used for budgetary needs in schools, cities and even countries. BIS integrates all the budget functions into one single application. These functions are capital budgets, human resources, operations, performance measures, reports and producing final budget documents. The system provides all the necessary features for maximizing the efficiency of the budget process. BIS is software that interfaces with the finance, personnel and payroll departments. It then condenses the historical data into database structures. This enhances performance in strategic planning, reporting, document processing, capital planning and improvements. Benefits of BIS The system improves overall performance by enhancing planning process. The system reduces errors hence planning is made easier and effective. The use of BIS accelerates the speed wit h which comparison of data is undertaken. It enables accurate tracking of costs in the system. The system quickens the budget preparation process hence few hours are spent in this process. Use of the BIS lowers the number of personnel needed for database management. To implement BIS in an organisation, there is need for training the involved staff. This is enhanced through videos materials, online sites, documents that come with the softwares and use of experts. The system can be customized to meet the individualized needs of a company i.e. application process, reports format and document processing. Different computer softwares are used for the BIS depending on the manufacturing company. However aspects of budgeting can be incorporated in one single software or broken down into budget softwares separately, control aspects, comparison parts etc. It is highly recommended for the company to incorporate the single application software of BIS. It may be expensive and complicated but wit h enough training and customer support from the producing company, the system is easy to use. The product cost is defined as the cost of direct labour, direct materials and direct overheads utilized in the production process. These costs are incorporated in the budget process and actual results compare for any variances. The product cost system sets out the process for accounting for the organisation’s product costs for the purpose of producing information

History Study Notes Essay Example for Free

History Study Notes Essay Topic 1 Investigating History †¢ interpret and construct time lines †¢ define the terms that describe historical periods of time †¢ the terminology and concepts of historical time, including year, decade, generation, century, age, BC/AD, BCE/CE †¢ sequence societies and events within specific periods of time †¢ ask historical questions †¢ distinguish between fact and opinion †¢ draw some conclusions about the usefulness of sources including a website †¢ examine differing historical perspectives and interpretations †¢ explain cause and effect †¢ identify significant people of the past  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ examine the motives for people. s actions in the past †¢ the process of historical inquiry: . Fact and opinion . †¢ the usefulness of sources as evidence including a website . †¢ differing perspectives . cause and effect . history as the study of people †¢ explain the consequences of people. s actions †¢ describe some aspects of family/community heritage †¢ heritage issues †¢ appreciate the value of preserving and conserving our heritage Ancient Egypt †¢ the origins of the society or period †¢ identify the origins of the society or historical period †¢ daily life of men and women in the society or period  Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ describe how both men and women lived in the society or period †¢ Civics and citizenship in the society or period †¢ describe the way in which the people of the society or period were governed †¢ describe the rights and freedoms of different groups in the society or period †¢ beliefs and values of the people of the society or period †¢ explain the beliefs and values of the society †¢ impact of significant people and/or events †¢ explain the impact made by significant people and/or events on the society or period †¢ contacts with other peoples †¢ outline the contacts that the society had with other peoples.

Effect of Australias Two Party System on Liberal Democracy

Effect of Australias Two Party System on Liberal Democracy The two-party system is essential to the health of Australian liberal democracy. The politics of Australia takes place within the framework of a federal constitutional parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy. The bicameral body of the federal Parliament of Australian to which Australians elect parliamentarians, incorporate a fusion of executive elements inherited from the Westminster system and a strong federalist senate adopted from the United States. Australia largely operates as a two-party system in which voting is compulsory. The Australian political landscape has been dominated by organised, national parties since federation. The Australian Labor party come into prominence during the late 19th Century and represented the organised workers. They were opposed by two main parties the first who represent the middle class business and offered a social conservative aspect, known as the Liberal party of Australia. The second represented rural or agrarian, now the National Party of Australia. While there are a small number of other political parties that have achieved parliamentary representation, these main three dominate organised politics everywhere in Australia. Australian politics now operates as a two-party system, as a result of the permanent coalition between the Liberal Party and National Party.() â€Å"A two-party system is a system where two major political parties dominate politics within a government. One of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually referred to as the majority party while the other is the minority party.†() The two-party system had its origins in the rise of the Labor Party as a mass political organisation. This occurred in Australia roughly from 1891. Important moments occurred in 1909, when the Protectionists and Free Traders merged, and again in 1946, when Sir Robert Menzies established the modern Liberal party. In this perspective the political game is fundamentally about two main parties periodically contending for public support. () â€Å"The Australian Labor Party (ALP) is a self-described social democratic party which has in recent decades pursued a neo-liberal economic program, founded by the Australian labour movement and broadly representing the urban working class, although it increasingly has a base of sympathetic middle class support as well.†() â€Å"The Liberal Party of Australia is a party of the centre-right which broadly represents business, the suburban middle classes and many rural people. Its permanent coalition partner at national level is the National Party of Australia, formerly known as the Country Party, a conservative party which represents rural interests. These two parties are collectively known as the Coalition.†(). The 1913 election was important because it consolidated the two-party system. It was the first time an elected majority government was replaced by another majority government, this time the new Liberal Party that had in 1909 fused together the anti-Labor forces. However it was the introduction of proportional representation that shaped the system of government we have today. â€Å"The Commonwealth Constitution does not govern in detail how members of the House of Representatives and the Senate are to be elected, nor could it dictate the number and strength of Australia’s national political parties and the dynamics of competition among them.†() The political dynamics in Canberra including the roles the two houses of parliament and the relationship between them is profoundly impact by the electoral and party system. Proportional representation has fundamentally affected the balance of power among the parties, the implementation of principles of responsible government, and the practical dynamics of politics in Parliament. â€Å"The decision made in 1948 that thereafter Senators would be elected by proportional representation. Until 1949, Senators were elected in much the same way as Representatives, except that three or more Senators were chosen in each state at each election. Sec.7 of the Constitution provides for Senators to be elected on a state-wide basis—each state voting ‘as one electorate’—unless Parliament provides otherwise, which it has not done. Thus, until the 1949 election, between three and six Senators were elected state-wide at each election, by a plurality system that often led, as we shall see, to one party winning most or all of the seats being contested.†() Preferential voting protects the election against a candidate who receives a plurality, but not a majority, of the votes cast. If more than two candidates run for the same seat, it is quite possible that none of them will receive a majority; most voters will select someone other than the candidate who receives a plurality of the votes. A closely related effect of preferential voting is to encourage more than two candidates to run for the same seat—or to put it differently, for more than two parties to field candidates for the same seat. In plurality district elections, it is typically argued that anyone who contemplates voting for a third or minor party candidate is, in effect, throwing away his or her vote. If the candidate whom a voter truly prefers has no realistic chance of winning, so the argument goes, any voter who selects that candidate thereby gives up the opportunity to affect the choice between the two candidates who actually might win. Under a preferential voting system, a voter can vote for the candidate he or she truly prefers, and then mark his or her second preference for a candidate w ith a better prospect of winning—the political equivalent of having one’s cake and eating it too. Precisely because of this logic, of course, preferential voting can have the effect of encouraging a multiplicity of candidates and so reducing the likelihood that any one of them will receive a majority of the first preference votes cast. In a proportional representation system, lesser parties can moderate policy since they are not usually eliminated from government. It is suggested the two-party approach may not promote inter-party compromise but may encourage partisanship. In the past the two-party system has proved to be extraordinarily robust. The Australian major parties are required to be more pluralistic (Winner takes all) than any other democracy as a consequence of being such a stable bipolar system. Minor parties find it very difficult to gain a foothold in the lower house due to the combination of preferential voting and single-member electorates. The preferential system means minor parties vacuum up discontented voters to deliver back to one of the major parties. Two-party systems have been criticized for downplaying alternative views, being less competitive, encouraging voter apathy since there is a perception of fewer choices, and putting a damper on debate within a nation. Two dominant parties pattern of politics involves an assumption about their ideologies. It implies that the two parties present the community with real and divergent choices and that these are based on broader differences of political philosophy or ideology. In turn, these different philosophies are assumed to provide guidance about how to respond to particular issues. Further, taken together, the philosophies of the major parties broadly exhaust the repertoire of political possibility. Again, these were all valid assumptions for most of the past hundred years. But do any of them still hold? The community is now much more differentiated and pluralised. Australians exhibit a much wider spectrum of attachments and attitudes. We are a much more diverse and pluralised community. We do not divide along binary lines. To think of ourselves in linear, left-right terms would be a gross distortion. A kaleidoscope is perhaps a better image. Relatively small numbers of voters remain rusted on loyalists of the major parties Party organisations have a minimal role in linking the community to politics. We no longer have powerful party organisations. The remnants are shadows of their former selves. But none of the tasks that they once performed are carried out anywhere else in the political system. Power has flowed from the organisation and the members to party leaders. We no longer have two parties divided by a clear programmatic orientation. Rather the major parties agree on many aspects of the broad direction of policy, particularly in relation to the economy. Real disagreement often mostly concerns priorities or important details. Or the major parties may agree and freeze out other voices that have a right to be heard. They may also disagree profoundly about particular issues like gay marriage, environmental protection, euthanasia, education reform etc. There is now often cross-party agreement about the general direction of policy. This creates the incentives for opportunism, populism, manufactured difference and exaggeration outcomes that now irritate many voters. If this is the reality of political life in the early 21st century, we should remember what our parties should be representing, Liberal Democracy. â€Å"Liberal democracy is a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the principles of liberalism, i.e. protecting the rights of minorities and, especially, the individual. It is characterized by fair, free, and competitive elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and political freedoms for all persons. Liberal democracies usually have universal suffrage, granting all adult citizens the right to vote regardless of race, gender or property ownership.†() Liberal democracy is base on four main principles, The belief that all individuals are rational moral, The belief that it is a natural condition of mankind to want growth evolution, the belief that this growth will come through order cooperation rather than chaos disorder and a suspicion aga inst concentrated forms of power. Accordingly, liberal democracies are organised in such a way as to define and limit power in order to promote legitimate government within a framework of justice and freedom, Powers are limited defined through the use of written constitutions that separate legislative, executive and judicial power, These democracies are legitimised by require a high level of support derived from the electoral system, This system provides justice to all citizens by equal treatment and being accorded dignity and respect, and lastly by granting the freedom to make decisions. to learn from them and to accept responsibility for them. Citizens must have the capacity to choose between alternatives and the freedom to do what the law does not forbid.()

President John F. Kennedys Inauguration Speech Analysis

President John F. Kennedys Inauguration Speech Analysis Abstract This paper provides a rhetorical analysis of President John F. Kennedys inauguration speech. Included is the type of text it is, where it was first spoken, and the main objective. My analysis of this speech includes his clear call to action for the American people to unite together with the rest of humanity to ensure human rights, freedom, peace, and stability for the world. Also, the larger debate included is how we as Americans, live in a somewhat utopian society where other countries do not and we need to take the responsibility to ensure this right for everyone. Kennedy utilizes all three emotional appeals, weather stated specifically or inferred, but his most used was his appeal to the emotions of the audience. Also analyzed is his successful use formal and informal style which is inferred and organization which leads to the conclusion that great admiration for this man can come from this speech as well as a call to duty that we can all take upon ourselves with the responsibilit y to carry out this great mans idealistic concepts for the world. JFK Inauguration Speech John F. Kennedys Inaugural speech was given on January 20th, 1961. He spoke to not only the citizens of the United States, but to the entire world. It was clear that his main goal was to unify the entire human race and to make the world a better place for everyone. John F. Kennedy was calling on all Americans to be the difference, to take a stand, to make the change, and to do what is morally right. There was a great reference to our country being the first to revolt against the will of greedy men, and that we are the heirs of that revolution with the duty to uphold and bring basic human rights to all human beings across the globe. His great use of logic and powerful emotions used throughout the speech brought this sense of duty, argued his call to action, and allowed his words to be quite effective in the unification of the citizens of the United States and the rest of the world together. Utopia is the world that comes to mind after reading President Kennedys inauguration speech. In his call to action, he indicated that his administration would be the beginning of change for the betterment of humanity and will need to continue on. He states to Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americansborn in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritageand unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world (1961). We as Americans believe in liberty and justice for all people; we are all descendants of the soldiers who fought in the revolutionary war to stand united in upholding such principles. Having this same background, President Kennedy brings more to the unification of the citizens of the United States. As stated previously, Kennedy further brings a connection to the audience through a civic call to duty, which is directed to everyone. He states to the audience and the world to Ask not what your country can do for youask what you can do for your country (1961). Though this is a huge responsibility to the people of the United States, he makes the acknowledgment that this is possible if each citizen puts forth the effort to make a difference. Through the effort of an entire nation combined, the United States will be able to change the world for the better. In addition to uniting the citizens of the United States as a single entity, President Kennedy then continues to unite the human race as a single entity as well. For example, he made the reference to allies whom we share similar values and cultural origins with, our sister countries, as well as the United Nations, from which he makes a pledge to the many different societies around the world that we will ensure that all humanity will be given equal human rights. He continues to develop his theme of unification by references to goals and cultures common to which we share with countries throughout the world. As a result of this, he effectively united all humans throughout the world as one. Throughout his speech, conveyance of shared backgrounds and morals are used to unite the citizens of the United States and the rest of the world to accomplish the same goals that also unite us together. Kennedy then continues to unite the world by stating that even if we overlook our similar backgrounds, we as Americans share a core set of values, of morals, of ethics as well. President Kennedy uses these values, these ethical and moral appeals in his speech to unite the country even further. He states that Now the trumpet summons us againnot as a call to bear arms, though arms we neednot as a call to battle, though embattled we are but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulationa struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself (1961). There is a stark connection made, with the presidents ability to impact the world and the audience having the very same capability to make an impact on the entire world. With this, the audience is able to accept President Kennedys call to duty which then, proceeds to credit his speech as being quite effective. Kennedy was trying to unite all Americans and all humans as they exist on this earth and to bring the audience to his call to duty. He used Americans shared backgrounds and their core values to strengthen his call to duty as well as connect the country as one. His call to action is based on the three rhetorical appeals, ethos, pathos and logos. He has appealed emotionally to the audience with patriotism, hope, and justice for all humans. Kennedy uses the contrast of feelings such as pride and fear and pity, which works very well to convey his call to action. He then utilized these negative emotions of pity felt by the audience for parts of the world that have people living in poverty which push people further into his call to duty (1961). Kennedy creates these unwanted feelings in a successful attempt to push people to rid themselves of such emotions. Then, in contrast, he continues to utilize emotional appeals by evoking pride in unifying America and the world. He keeps enforcing hi s call to duty through emotional appeal. Last, but not least, he has used reason in how he used American values and the cause and effect of the revolution in America to becoming a country who believes in liberty and justice for all. His whole speech makes sense and flows well together from point to point. Kennedys utilization of pathos, appealing to the emotions of his audience is of most importance to his inaugural speech, in which the chief aim was to unify all Americans and the world together. He states to Let us begin anewremembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate (1961).ÂÂ   Kennedy conveyed himself as a man of great integrity that the audience and the world had no choice but to trust him. From my perspective, there was not a single logical fallacy to be found in this entire speech. Also, the speech was very successful in connecting the people of different backgrounds in the world which puts great emphasis on his call to action. It was clear that he was very successful in conveying his goal of working towards providing the people of the entire world with human rights as well as peace and stability. We can conclude by stating the fact that K ennedy had a perfect vision for the world. In his closing, he states that Whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth Gods work must truly be our own (1961). His call to action showed how admirable and responsible a man he is, and proves without a doubt that we should all take responsibility for creating the world in which all are granted life, liberty, and freedom. References Kennedy, John F. (1961). John F. Kennedy Quotations, President Kennedys Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961. Retrieved from https://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations/Inaugural-Address.aspx Life of John F. Kennedy. Retrieved from https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/Life-of-John-F-Kennedy.aspx

Shakespeares Development Of Power In Macbeth :: essays research papers

Macbeth is a very power greedy person. It is not necessarily his own doing that he is such a ruthless person. It all started (Macbeth being power greedy) with the Three Witches predictions: "All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!/ All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of/ Cawdor!/ All hail, Macbeth! That shalt be king hereafter." (1.3.50-54)As soon as Macbeth learned of his future, he began to scheme on just exactly how he would fulfill these prophecies. That is when he decided that he would have to murder Duncan to fulfill the last prophecy. But that is when he had a change or heart. The only problem with Macbeth deciding not to murder Duncan, is that all of a sudden Lady Macbeth became the power greedy one. This is when Lady Macbeth's scheming began. Although Macbeth had changed his mind and basically refused to murder Duncan, Lady Macbeth was able to eventually convince him to carry through with the plan. Even though Macbeth was the one who executed the plan, Lady Macbeth was the mastermind behind the scheme. Her greed for power was the one major factor that possessed her to convince Macbeth of the plan and carry through with it. Macbeth murdered Duncan at Iverness, and became hysterical after doing so. As a result of Malcolm and Donalbain's suspicions resulting in their departure to England and Ireland Macbeth became king: this was the ultimate power that he and Lady Macbeth had as their goal (well, actually it was more of Lady Macbeth's goal), and now he eventually had received it. Nothing was going to take away this ultimate power from Macbeth, and he would do anything to keep it. Macbeth's ruthlessness results in him ordering three murderers to murder his best friend, Banquo. The power of being king has taken over Macbeth's life, and he is a victim of his own greed for power. He is a tyrant. Not only does Macbeth murder Banquo (not directly, of course), he also murders (actually he has people murder) Macbuffs family. Macbeth does not murder Macduff, but he does murder his wife, children, and servants.

Invisible Man Essay: Race, Blindness, and Monstrosity -- Invisible Ma

Race, Blindness, and Monstrosity in Invisible Man      Ã‚  Ã‚   I'd like to read Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man as the odyssey of one man's search for identity.   Try this scenario: the narrator is briefly an academic, then a factory worker, and then a socialist politico.   None of these "careers" works out for him.   Yet the narrator's time with the so-called Brotherhood, the socialist group that recruits him, comprises a good deal of the novel.   The narrator thinks he's found himself through the Brotherhood.   He's the next Booker T. Washington and the new voice of his people.   The work he's doing will finally garner him acceptance.   He's home.    It's a nice scenario, but the narrator realizes his journey must continue when Jack, the leader of the Brotherhood:    'Now see here,' he began, leaping to his feet to lean across the table, and I spun my chair half around on its hind legs as he came between me and the light, gripping the edge of the table, sputtering and lapsing into a foreign language, choking and coughing and shaking his head as I balanced on my toes, set to propel myself forward; seeing him above me and the others behind him as suddenly something seemed to erupt out of his face . . ."   (Ellison, Invisible Man, 409).    The careful bureaucracy gives way to rage; he regresses, spitting and swearing in a foreign tongue, leaning forward as if to attack the narrator.   And the eruption?   Jack is a Cyclops, the one-eyed mythological giant of terror and lawlessness:    I stared into his face, feeling a sense of outrage.   His left eye had collapsed, a line of raw redness showing where the lid refused to close, and his gaze had lost its command.   I looked from his face to the glass, thinking he's disem... ...Citizen is a rowdy drunk that no one listens to.   Yet Jack is a brother, or, as Invisible Man puts it, the great white father.   He's not such an easy enemy to defeat, and the problem won't just go away.   The map of racism, blindness, and monstrosity that Ellison draws is incomplete because the monster is never defeated.   Perhaps this too is characteristically American.   Ellison's evolved Cyclops has staying power.   He's grown resistant to the hero's tricks and, though blind, he will thrive.   Ellison's Odysseus is doomed to wander longer than eleven years.    [1] This is the Gaelic word for "nonsense".    Works Cited Ellison, Ralph.   Invisible Man.   New York: Random House, New American Library, 1952. Homer.   The Odyssey, translated Richmond Lattimore.   New York: Harper Collins, 1991. Joyce, James.   Ulysses.   New York: Random House, 1990.   

Miss Ophelia in Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin Essay

Miss Ophelia in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Being the only Northerner to take a focal role in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Miss Ophelia is a realistic adaptation of the ideal woman that Harriet Beecher Stowe proposes with the images of the other perfect women. She is educated, single, independent, ambitious, and motivated by a certain sense of duty. Unlike the other women in the novel, she is the one with the most masculine mannerisms: she relies on her thoughts rather than her emotions to make decisions about her life and political beliefs. However Miss Ophelia also appears to be the audience that Stowe is partially addressing -- those who feel like they know something about slavery, but who haven’t truly analyzed their own mind about their prejudices. This was one of the reasons why Stowe wrote her book: to connect with people who hadn’t yet decided what side of the Mason-Dixon line they fell on. Ophelia is the perfect example of either Northerners or Southerners who at first don’t have a strong opinion about slavery but after an encounter, experience, or a revelation finally find their voice. For Miss Ophelia, she discovers herself with the help of a little girl.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Little Eva attempts to explain to Ophelia about how they should love all and follow Jesus’ love for everyone. â€Å"Don’t you know that Jesus loves all alike? He is just as willing to love you, as me. He loves you just as I do, -only more, because he is better. He will help you to be good; and you can go to Heaven at last, and be an angel forever, just as much as if you were white. (p.245-6)† Even though Jesus loves both black and white folks, that can’t necessarily persuade Miss Ophelia to kiss and hug the slaves. â€Å"’It puts me in mind of mother,’ he said to Ophelia. ‘It is true what she told me, if we want to give sight to the blind, we must be willing to do as Christ did, - call them to us, and put our hands on them.’ ‘I’ve always had a prejudice against Negroes,’ said Miss Ophelia, ‘and it’s a fact, I never could bear to have that child touch me; but I didn’t think she knew it. (p. 246)† Even though Miss Ophelia has people trying to persuade her to fully embrace the other race, for one reason or another she just can’t bring herself to do it. She believes that it is wrong because that is what she was raised to think. On the other hand, St. Clare is the polar opposite t... ... the horrid souls to an afterlife in hell. Feminism is an unmistakable theme in this novel. Stowe portrays women as strong, independent characters and gives all of them very effective roles. In the end, it is the women who are the most religious. When readers are first introduced to Miss Ophelia they encounter a Vermonter who has beliefs about slavery but no emotions to back up her words. For all of her duty and religious piety, she must have love, emotion and feeling to back up her words for them to be of any significance. Then through interaction with other characters in the book, Miss Ophelia’s morals and beliefs slowly begin to solidify. By the end of the book she is deeply rooted and emotionally connected to everything she says. This is exactly the type of reader that Stowe wished to reach. Someone who maybe wasn’t too sure on how they felt about paying money for someone’s life would hopefully, once finished with Uncle Tom’s Cabin, realize their own ideals and opinions about life for Negroes i n the South and then try to do something to help them leave their lives of horror. Works Cited Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. W.W. Norton & Co, Inc. New York, 1994 Miss Ophelia in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin Essay Miss Ophelia in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Being the only Northerner to take a focal role in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Miss Ophelia is a realistic adaptation of the ideal woman that Harriet Beecher Stowe proposes with the images of the other perfect women. She is educated, single, independent, ambitious, and motivated by a certain sense of duty. Unlike the other women in the novel, she is the one with the most masculine mannerisms: she relies on her thoughts rather than her emotions to make decisions about her life and political beliefs. However Miss Ophelia also appears to be the audience that Stowe is partially addressing -- those who feel like they know something about slavery, but who haven’t truly analyzed their own mind about their prejudices. This was one of the reasons why Stowe wrote her book: to connect with people who hadn’t yet decided what side of the Mason-Dixon line they fell on. Ophelia is the perfect example of either Northerners or Southerners who at first don’t have a strong opinion about slavery but after an encounter, experience, or a revelation finally find their voice. For Miss Ophelia, she discovers herself with the help of a little girl.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Little Eva attempts to explain to Ophelia about how they should love all and follow Jesus’ love for everyone. â€Å"Don’t you know that Jesus loves all alike? He is just as willing to love you, as me. He loves you just as I do, -only more, because he is better. He will help you to be good; and you can go to Heaven at last, and be an angel forever, just as much as if you were white. (p.245-6)† Even though Jesus loves both black and white folks, that can’t necessarily persuade Miss Ophelia to kiss and hug the slaves. â€Å"’It puts me in mind of mother,’ he said to Ophelia. ‘It is true what she told me, if we want to give sight to the blind, we must be willing to do as Christ did, - call them to us, and put our hands on them.’ ‘I’ve always had a prejudice against Negroes,’ said Miss Ophelia, ‘and it’s a fact, I never could bear to have that child touch me; but I didn’t think she knew it. (p. 246)† Even though Miss Ophelia has people trying to persuade her to fully embrace the other race, for one reason or another she just can’t bring herself to do it. She believes that it is wrong because that is what she was raised to think. On the other hand, St. Clare is the polar opposite t... ... the horrid souls to an afterlife in hell. Feminism is an unmistakable theme in this novel. Stowe portrays women as strong, independent characters and gives all of them very effective roles. In the end, it is the women who are the most religious. When readers are first introduced to Miss Ophelia they encounter a Vermonter who has beliefs about slavery but no emotions to back up her words. For all of her duty and religious piety, she must have love, emotion and feeling to back up her words for them to be of any significance. Then through interaction with other characters in the book, Miss Ophelia’s morals and beliefs slowly begin to solidify. By the end of the book she is deeply rooted and emotionally connected to everything she says. This is exactly the type of reader that Stowe wished to reach. Someone who maybe wasn’t too sure on how they felt about paying money for someone’s life would hopefully, once finished with Uncle Tom’s Cabin, realize their own ideals and opinions about life for Negroes i n the South and then try to do something to help them leave their lives of horror. Works Cited Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. W.W. Norton & Co, Inc. New York, 1994

Anselm’s Monologion

Anselm’s Monologion is at first a detailed expansion of his more famous ontology – the proof of the existence of God – as expressed elsewhere. In this proof God is first equated with the most perfect being, and then it is demonstrated that such a being necessarily exists. The Monologion is concerned more with the nature of the most perfect being, and what else can be predicated about it, in relation to itself, and to created beings. The same line of argument is followed, where the oneness and the perfection of the Supreme Being are emphasized, but after a point we notice that the effort is diverted into explaining the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, so that God is said to be three persons in one substance, and yet indivisibly one. It needs to be remembered that Anselm does not attempt to ‘prove’ the doctrine of the Trinity. Therefore the latter part of the Monologion is really persuasive rather than demonstrative. The aim is to convince us of the reasonableness of the doctrine of the Trinity. It will be instructive to recall Anselm’s ontology here. In order to divert any suspicion of sophism, Anselm introduces the argument as taking place in the head of a fool. This fool denies the existence of a Supreme and Perfect Being. But when he tries to imagine something of the kind in his head, he cannot. Whatever great thing he imagines, it is not final, because the mind soars inexorably past it and imagines something even greater. The mind tries to grasp perfection, but cannot do so. Anselm argues that if there were no perfect being, then the mind chases after nothing, which cannot be so. So there must be a thing called Perfection, at least as an idea. Next he supposes the case where the Perfection is only in the mind and not in reality. If this were the case then it would not be the most perfect thing, because being only in the mind, the mind would then try to imagine something even greater than it. Therefore the Perfect Being has real existence. The Monologion opens with a variation on this ontology, postulating that all things that are good, or great, or virtuous in any way, are so due to the goodness, greatness or virtue of the Supreme Being, which must necessarily exist as the abode or perfection and being whereby everything else derives its qualities and its existence. It then tries to fix the nature of this Supreme Being, and concludes that whatever qualities it possesses it does so by itself, from itself, and through itself. And at the same time all created beings possess their qualities and their existence by, from and through the Supreme Being. So that a person can be said to be just, which implies a comparison. He is just because he has more justice in him then the next person. But with God there is no comparison, so that He is Justice itself. He is said to exist in all places and in all times, and this sense exists in the truest sense. In comparison all created being can be said not to exist at all, and at best that they exist in a limited sense. They are mutable, so that whatever existence they have is fleeting – nothing is ever what it was a moment ago. Therefore, the Supreme Being not only brings them into existence, but sustains their existence too. These are things demonstrated in the first part of the Monologion, and all the arguments follow the same pattern as in the ontology, i. e. it employs the oneness and perfection of God. But then Anselm comes to consider the Expression of the Supreme Being. All created existence is but a manifestation of the Expression. We must next consider whether this Expression is also a creature. But it cannot be so, because all creatures come to existence through the Expression, and the Expression cannot come into being through itself. If it is not a creature then it can only consubstantial with the Supreme Being. Here it is established that the Expression of the Supreme Being cannot be anything distinct from it. It must therefore be sufficient in itself, and need not depend of created beings, having existence before creating things came into being, and even after the final dissolution of things. So we need to find a way to describe the Expression to relation to God alone. Anselm describes it as the understanding of God. It can be seen as a means by which God comes to understand Himself. It is plain that God cannot be in the dark about his own nature, says Anselm, and he points out that even the human mind understands itself. The mind is conscious of itself, can remember itself, can reason with itself. This is but the mind understanding itself. If the mind can understand itself to some extent, there is no doubt that the Supreme Being understands itself, and does so not partially, but wholly. It is indeed the aspect we know as divine wisdom. The next step is to equate the Expression with the Word. In truth, an analogy is here being drawn between â€Å"words†, which are the units of human language, and the essence of expression. In a word is the image of the thing as we sense it. Therefore, in words are the expressions of all things, and as words all things are represented in the human mind. There are, no doubt, other carriers of expression, for example, pictures, sculptures, tastes, smells, etc. But the word is the purest and most powerful medium. It is the building block of language, and thus is the bearer of culture and civilization. We have many words, and these exist so that all things may be represented in the mind, and even then it is inadequate to bring the whole diverse splendor of the universe to us. Anselm asks the question whether the divine expression employs many words. But quickly demonstrates that such diversity would detract from the perfection of the divine expression. If the Expression is one, and the word is made consubstantial to it, then the word is also one, and this is the Word. It is the supreme image of the divine, but it also forms an identity with the divine. From it is derived all other words, and indeed all other images. Since all things are created in the image of the divine, the Word is indeed the source of all Creation. Anselm thus far has arrived at the Biblical assertion, as found in the Gospel of John: â€Å"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God† (John 1:1). Anselm points out a possible difficulty at this point. If it is true that the Word brings all things into existence in the manner of lending to them its own image, then it must be somehow like the things which are created, being in its own image. He considers the three mutually exhaustive cases. Either the likeness is (1) exact, (2) partial, or (3) non-existent. It is obvious that there cannot be an exact likeness, because created things are mutable, and the Word is not. A partial likeness implies that some aspects of the creating being do not derive from the Word, which is also plainly false. If there no likeness at all then there is no creation either. Anselm suggests that we come over this difficulty by using the comparison the other way. This means that we should compare created beings to the Word, and not the other way round. All created things must compare to the Word is some degree. And the degree to which they do compare is the degree of their existence. To elaborate on the theme of ‘degrees of existence’, Anselm asks us to consider the gradated nature of all created things. The rational human mind is certainly superior to the sensual human body; the sensual animals are certainly superior to the non-sensual plants; the sentient plants are superior to the non-sentient and material substances. Each created being is an effulgence of the Word, and it must necessarily be so, because the Word is the expression of the divine. But there seems to be a gradation that rises to make the image of the divine truer and truer. When we arrive at the rational human mind we have self-reflexive understanding, which is an attribute we apply properly only to the divine mind. But then, human reason does not comprehend itself finally, and neither can it come to an understanding of what it sees as God and the universe. On the other hand, the Spirit that is God comprehends itself fully, and this through the means of the Word. Therefore we must conclude that the human mind is an effulgence of the Word, but it is not the Word itself. Through a multiplicity of ‘words’ the human mind can grapple with the infinite expanse that it finds before it, and can come to know of the existence of the Word, thus of God, though it cannot know the Word itself. We may assert that the rational mind is the greatest among all created things, and therefore bears the greatest likeness with the Word, and consequently possess more reality that anything else in the phenomenal world. Though none can deny that it is a created, and thus limited thing. This much Anselm attempts to prove. Much of the latter part of the Monologion is not proof but suggestion. The starting point of such suggestion is when Anselm insists that the Expression be construed as something distinct from the Supreme Being. Having already proved that there cannot be any distinction, Anselm seems to be taking liberties now. He wants to be reasonable instead of rational. It is as if he is encountering God as a person instead of a matter of logic. In the sense that we would not mistake the expression of a person with the person himself, so Anselm describes the Word as distinct from the Supreme Being, And further on he will give the description a more personal character by saying that the Word in begotten by the Supreme Being in the way that the son is begotten of the father. He is at pains to point out, though, that it is an â€Å"ineffable plurality. To be sure, ineffable—because although necessity compels that they be two, what two they are cannot at all be expressed† (Anselm 53). In the end it is an article of faith that he is espousing. To think in this way is to gain a glimpse into the deepest mysteries of the divine, and this is what increases devotion and strengthens faith. Once we admit two distinct beings in God, there issues by necessity a third, with is Love, which is that by which the Son is united with Father and the Father with the Son. This is the doctrine of the Trinity, that which Anselm has been aiming at from the beginning. We draw the following conclusion. In the Monologion it is Anselm’s task to prove the existence of God and to elaborate on the perfection of His nature. The proofs that he provides for the existence and perfection of God are thorough and irrefutable. He elaborates on the Expression of God as the source of all created existence. But even though he establishes that, in a strictly logical sense, we cannot apply predicates to God, he nevertheless goes on espouse the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. He is careful to point out that this latter assertion is not a proof, but is rather the most reasonable predicate that can be applied to God.

Employment and Unemployment in the 1930s

The Great Depression is to economics what the Big Bang is to physics. As an event, the Depression is largely synonymous with the birth of modern macroeconomics, and it continues to haunt successive generations of economists. With respect to labor and labor markets, these facts evidently include wage rigidity, persistently high unemployment rates, and long-term joblessness. Traditionally, aggregate time series have provided the econometric grist for distinguishing explanations of the Great Depression.Recent research on labor markets in the 1930s, however, has shifted attention from aggregate to disaggregate time series and towards microeconomic evidence. This shift in focus is motivated by two factors. First, disaggregated data provide many more degrees of freedom than the decade or so of annual observations associated with the depression, and thus may prove helpful in distinguishing macroeconomic explanations. Second, disaggregation has revealed aspects of economic behavior hidden in the time series but which may be essential to their proper interpretation and, in any case, are worthy of study in their own right.Although the substantive findings of recent research are too new to judge their permanent significance, I believe that the shift towards disaggregated analysis is an important contribution. The paper begins by reviewing the conventional statistics of the United States labor market during the Great Depression and the paradigms to explain them. It then turns to recent studies of employment and unemployment using disaggregated data of various types. The paper concludes with discussions of research on other aspects of labor markets in the 1930s and on a promising source of microdata for future work.My analysis is confined to research on the United States; those interested in an international perspective on labor markets might begin with Eichengreen and Hatton's chapter in their edited volume, Interwar Unemployment in International Perspective, and the vario us country studies in that volume. I begin by reviewing two standard series of unemployment rates, Stanley Lebergott's and Michael Darby's, and an index of real hourly earnings in manufacturing compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).The difference between Lebergott's and Darby's series, which is examined later in the paper, concerns the treatment of persons with so-called â€Å"work relief† jobs. For Lebergott, persons on work relief are unemployed, while Darby counts them as employed. Between 1929 and 1933 the unemployment rate increased by over 20 percentage points, according to the Lebergott series, or by 17 percentage points, according to Darby's series. For the remainder of the decade, the unemployment rate stayed in, or hovered around, double digits. On the eve of America's entry into World War Two, between 9. and 14. 6 percent of the labor force was out of work, depending on how unemployment is measured. In addition to high levels of unemployment, the 1930s w itnessed the emergence of widespread and persistent long-term unemployment (unemployment durations longer than one year) as a serious policy problem. According to a Massachusetts state census taken in 1934, fully 63 percent of unemployed persons had been unemployed for a year or more. Similar amounts of long-term unemployment were observed in Philadelphia in 1936 and 1937.Given these patterns of unemployment, the behavior of real wages has proven most puzzling. Between 1929 and 1940 annual changes in real wages and unemployment were positively correlated. Real wages rose by 16 percent between 1929 and 1932, while the unemployment rate ballooned from 3 to 23 percent. Real wages remained high throughout the rest of the decade, although unemployment never dipped below 9 percent, no matter how it is measured. From this information, the central questions appear to be: Why did unemployment remain persistently high throughout the decade?How can unemployment rates in excess of 10 to 20 perc ent be reconciled with the behavior of real wages, which were stable or increasing? One way of answering these questions is to devise aggregative models consistent with the time series, and I briefly review these attempts later in the paper. Before doing so, however, it is important to stress that the aggregate statistics are far from perfect. No government agency in the 1930s routinely collected labor force information analogous to that provided by today's Current Population Survey.The unemployment rates just discussed are constructs, the differences between intercensal estimates of labor force participation rates and employment-to-population ratios. Because unemployment is measured as a residual, relatively small changes in the labor force or employment counts can markedly affect the estimated unemployment rate. The dispute between Darby and his critics over the labor force classification of persons on work relief is a manifestation of this problem. Although some progress has been made on measurement issues, there is little doubt that further refinements to the aggregate unemployment eries would be beneficial. Stanley Lebergott has critically examined the reliability of BLS wage series from the 1930s. The BLS series drew upon a fixed group of manufacturing establishments reporting for at least two successive months. Lebergott notes several biases arising from this sampling method. Workers who were laid off, he claims, were less productive and had lower wages than average. Firms that went out of business were smaller, on average, than firms that survived, and tended to have lower average wages.In addition, the BLS oversampled large firms, and Lebergott suspects that large firms were more adept at selectively laying off lower- productivity labor; more willing to deskill, that is, reassign able employees to less-skilled jobs; and more likely to give able employees longer work periods. A rough calculation suggests that accounting for these biases would produce a n aggregate decline in nominal wages between 1929 and 1932 as much as 48 percent larger than that measured by the BLS series.Although the details of Lebergott's calculation are open to scrutiny, the research discussed elsewhere in the paper suggests that he is correct about the existence of biases in the BLS wage series. For much of the period since World War Two, most economists blamed persistent unemployment on wage rigidity. The demand for labor was a downward sloping function of the real wage but since nominal wages were insufficiently flexible downward, the labor market in the 1930s was persistently in disequilibrium.Labor supply exceeded labor demand, with mass unemployment the unfortunate consequence. Had wages been more flexible, this viewpoint holds, employment would have been restored and Depression averted. The frontal attack on the conventional wisdom was Robert E. Lucas and Leonard Rapping. The original Lucas-Rapping set-up continued to view current labor demand as a ne gative function of the current real wage. Current labor supply was a positive function of the real wage and the expected real interest rate, but a negative function of the expected future wage.If workers expect higher real wages in the future or a lower real interest rate, current labor supply would be depressed, employment would fall, unemployment rise, and real wages increase. Lucas and Rapping offer an unemployment equation, relating the unemployment rate to actual versus anticipated nominal wages, and actual versus anticipated price levels. Al Rees argued that the Lucas-Rapping model was unable to account for the persistence of high unemployment coincident with stable or rising real wages. Lucas and Rapping conceded defeat for the period 1933 to 1941, but claimed victory for 1929 to 1933.As Ben Bernanke pointed out, however, their victory rests largely on the belief that expected real interest rates fell between 1929 and 1933, while â€Å"ex post, real interest rates in 1930-33 were the highest of the century†. Because nominal interest rates fell sharply between 1929 and 1933, whether expected real rates fell hinges on whether deflation — which turned out to be considerable — was unanticipated. Recent research by Steven Cecchetti suggests that the deflation was, at least in part, anticipated, which appears to undercut Lucas and Rapping's reply.In a controversial paper aimed at rehabilitating the Lucas-Rapping model, Michael Darby redefined the unemployment rate to exclude persons who held work relief jobs with the Works Progress and Work Projects Administrations (the WPA) or other federal and state agencies. The convention of the era, followed by Lebergott, was to count persons on work relief as unemployed. According to Darby, however, persons with work relief jobs were â€Å"employed† by the government: â€Å"From the Keynesian viewpoint, labor voluntarily employed on contracyclical †¦ government projects should certainly be counted as employed.On the search approach to unemployment, a person who accepts a job and withdraws voluntarily from the activity of search is clearly employed. † The exclusion of persons on work relief drastically lowers the aggregate unemployment rate after 1935. In addition to modifying the definition of unemployment, Darby also redefined the real wage to be the average annual earnings of full-time employees in all industries. With these changes, the fit of the Lucas-Rapping unemployment equation is improved, even for 1934 to 1941. However, Jonathan Kesselman and N. E.Savin later showed that the improved fit was largely the consequence of Darby's modified real wage series, not the revised unemployment rate. Thus, for the purpose of empirically testing the Lucas-Rapping model, the classification of WPA workers as employed or unemployed is not crucial. Returning to the questions posed above, New Deal legislation has frequently been blamed for the persistence of high unem ployment and the perverse behavior of real wages. In this regard, perhaps the most important piece of legislation was the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933.The National Recovery Administration (NRA), created by the NIRA, established guidelines that raised nominal wages and prices, and encouraged higher levels of employment through reductions in the length of the workweek (worksharing). An influential study by Michael Weinstein econometrically analyzed the impact of the NIRA on wages. Using aggregate monthly data on hourly earnings in manufacturing, Weinstein showed that the NIRA raised nominal wages directly through its wage codes and indirectly by raising prices.The total impact was such that â€Å"[i]n the absence of the NIRA, average hourly earnings in manufacturing would have been less than thirty-five cents by May 1935 instead of its actual level of almost sixty cents (assuming unemployment to have been unaltered)†. It is questionable, however, whether the NIRA really this large an impact on wages. Weinstein measured the direct effect of the codes by comparing monthly wage changes during the NIRA period (1933-35) with wage changes during the recovery phase (1921-23) of the post-World War One recession (1920-21), holding constant the level of unemployment and changes in wholesale prices.Data from the intervening years (1924-1932) or after the NIRA period were excluded from his regression analysis (p. 52). In addition, Weinstein's regression specification precludes the possibility that reductions in weekly hours (worksharing), some of which occurred independently of the NIRA, had a positive effect on hourly earnings. A recent paper using data from the full sample period and allowing for the effect of worksharing found a positive but much smaller impact of the NIRA on wages (see the discussion of Bernanke's work later in the paper).Various developments in neo-Keynesian macroeconomics have recently filtered into the discussion. Martin Bai ly emphasizes the role of implicit contracts in the context of various legal and institutional changes during the 1930s. Firms did not aggressively cut wages when unemployment was high early in the 1930s because such a policy would hurt worker morale and the firm's reputation, incentives that were later reinforced by New Deal legislation. Efficiency wages have been invoked in a provocative article by Richard Jensen.Beginning sometime after the turn of the century large firms slowly began to adopt bureaucratic methods of labor relations. Policies were â€Å"designed to identify and keep the more efficient workers, and to encourage other workers to emulate them. † Efficiency wages were one such device, which presumably contributed to stickiness in wages. The trend towards bureaucratic methods accelerated in the 1930s. According to Jensen, firms surviving the initial downturn used the opportunity to lay off their least productive workers but a portion of the initial decline in e mployment occurred among firms that went out of business.Thus, when expansion occurred, firms had their pick of workers who had been laid off. Personnel departments used past wage histories as a signal, and higher-wage workers were a better risk. Those with few occupational skills, the elderly (who were expensive to retrain) and the poorly educated faced enormous difficulties in finding work. After 1935 the â€Å"reserve army† of long-term unemployed did not exert much downward pressure on nominal wages because employers simply did not view the long-term unemployed as substitutes for the employed at virtually any wage.A novel feature of Jensen's argument is its integration of microeconomic evidence on the characteristics of the unemployed with macroeconomic evidence on wage rigidity. Other circumstantial evidence is in its favor, too. Productivity growth was surprisingly strong after 1932, despite severe weakness in capital investment and a slowdown in innovative activity. Th e rhetoric of the era, that â€Å"higher wages and better treatment of labor would improve labor productivity†, may be the correct explanation.If the reserve army hypothesis were true, the wages of unskilled workers, who were disproportionately unemployed, should have fallen relative to the wages of skilled and educated workers, but there is no indication that wage differentials were wider overall in the 1930s than in the 1920s. It remains an open question, however, whether the use of efficiency wages was as widespread as Jensen alleges, and whether efficiency wages can account empirically for the evolution of productivity growth in the 1930s. In brief, the macro studies have not settled the debate over the proper interpretation of the aggregate statistics.This state of affairs has much to do with the (supreme) difficulty of building a consensus macro model of the depression economy. But it is also a consequence of the level of aggregation at which empirical work has been con ducted. The problem is partly one of sample size, and partly a reflection of the inadequacies of discussing these issues using the paradigm of a representative agent. This being, the case I turn next to disaggregated studies of employment and unemployment. In a conventional short-run aggregate production function, the labor input is defined to be total person-hours.For the postwar period, temporal variation in person-hours is overwhelmingly due to fluctuations in employment. However, for the interwar period, variations in the length of the workweek account for nearly half of the monthly variance in the labor input. Declines in weekly hours were deep, prolonged, and widespread in the 1930s. The behavior of real hourly earnings, however, may have not have been independent of changes in weekly hours. This insight motivates Ben Bernanke's analysis of employment, hours, and earnings in eight pre-World War Two manufacturing industries.The (industry- specific) supply of labor is described by an earnings function, which gives the minimum weekly earnings required for a worker to supply a given number of hours per week. In Bernanke's formulation, the earnings function is convex in hours and also discontinuous at zero hours (the discontinuity reflects fixed costs of working or switching industries). Production depends separately on the number of workers and weekly hours, and on nonlabor inputs. Firms are not indifferent â€Å"between receiving one hour of work from eight different workers and receiving eight hours from one worker. A reduction in product demand causes the firm to cut back employment and hours per week. The reduction in hours means more leisure for workers, but less pay per week. Eventually, as weekly hours are reduced beyond a certain point, hourly earnings rise. Further reductions in hours cannot be matched one for one by reductions in weekly earnings. But, when hourly earnings increase, the real wage then appears to be countercyclical. To test the mode l, Bernanke uses monthly, industry-level data compiled by the National Industrial Conference Board covering the period 1923 to 1939.The specification of the earnings function (describing the supply of labor) incorporates a partial adjustment of wages to prices, while the labor demand equation incorporates partial adjustment of current demand to desired demand. Except in one industry (leather), the industry demand for workers falls as real product wages rise; industry demands for weekly hours fall as the marginal cost to the firm of varying weekly hours rises; and industry labor supply is a positive function of weekly earnings and weekly hours.The model is used to argue that the NIRA lowered weekly hours and raised weekly earnings and employment, although the effects were modest. In six of the industries (the exceptions were shoes and lumber), increased union influence after 1935 (measured with a proxy variable of days idled by strikes) raised weekly earnings by 10 percent or more. S imulations revealed that allowing for full adjustment of nominal wages to prices resulted in a poor description of the behavior of real wages, but no deterioration in the model's ability to explain employment and hours variation.Whatever the importance of sticky nominal wages in explaining real wage behavior, the phenomenon â€Å"may not have had great allocative significance† for employment. In a related paper, Bernanke and Martin Parkinson use an expanded version of the NICB data set to explore the possibility that â€Å"short-run increasing returns to labor† or procyclical labor productivity, characterized co-movements in output and employment in the 1930s. Using their expanded data set, Bernanke and Parkinson estimate regressions of the change in output on the change in labor input, now defined to be total person-hours.The coefficient of the change in the labor input is the key parameter; if it exceeds unity, then short-run increasing returns to labor are present. Bernanke and Parkinson find that short-run increasing returns to labor characterized all but two of the industries under study (petroleum and leather). The estimates of the labor coefficient are essentially unchanged if the sample is restricted to just the 1930s. Further, a high degree of correlation (r = 0. 9) appears between interwar and postwar estimates of short-run increasing returns to labor for a matched sample of industries.Thus, the procyclical nature of labor productivity appears to be an accepted fact for both the interwar and postwar periods. One explanation of procyclical productivity, favored by real business cycle theorists, emphasizes technology shocks. Booms are periods in which technological change is unusually brisk, and labor supply increases to take advantage of the higher wages induced by temporary gains in productivity (caused by the outward shift in production functions).In Bernanke and Parkinson's view, however, the high correlation between the pre- and post -war estimates of short-run increasing returns to labor poses a serious problem for the technological shocks explanation. The high correlation implies that the â€Å"real shocks hitting individual industrial production functions in the interwar period accounted for about the same percentage of employment variation in each industry as genuine technological shocks hitting industrial production functions in the post-war period†.However, technological change per se during the Depression was concentrated in a few industries and was modest overall. Further, while real shocks (for example, bank failures, the New Deal, international political instability) occurred, their effects on employment were felt through shifts in aggregate demand, not through shifts in industry production functions. Other leading explanations of procyclical productivity are true increasing returns or, popular among Keynesians, the theory of labor hoarding during economic downturns.Having ruled out technology s hocks, Bernanke and Parkinson attempt to distinguish between true increasing returns and labor hoarding. They devise two tests, both of which involve restrictions on excluding proxies for labor utilization from their regressions of industry output. If true increasing returns were present, the observed labor input captures all the relevant information about variations in output over the cycle. But if labor hoarding were occurring, the rate of labor utilization, holding employment constant, should account for output variation.Their results are mixed, but are mildly in favor of labor hoarding. Although Bernanke's modeling effort is of independent interest, the substantive value of his and Parkinson's research is enhanced considerably by disaggregation to the industry level. It is obvious from their work that industries in the 1930s did not respond identically to decreases in output demand. However, further disaggregation to the firm level can produce additional insights. Bernanke and P arkinson assume that movements in industry aggregates reflect the behavior of a representative firm.But, according to Lebergott (1989), much of the initial decline in output and employment occurred among firms that exited. Firms that left, and new entrants, however, were not identical to firms that survived. These points are well-illustrated in Timothy Bresnahan and Daniel Raff's study of the American motor vehicle industry. Their database consists of manuscript census returns of motor vehicle plants in 1929, 1931, 1933, and 1935. By linking the manuscript returns from year to year, Bresnahan and Raff have created a panel dataset, capable of identifying plants the exited, surviving plants, and new plants.Plants that exited between 1929 and 1933 had lower wages and lower labor productivity than plants that survived. Between 1933 and 1935 average wages at exiting plants and new plants were slightly higher than at surviving plants. Output per worker was still relatively greater at surv iving plants than new entrants, but the gap was smaller than between 1929 and 1933. Roughly a third of the decline in the industry's employment between 1929 and the trough in 1933 occurred in plant closures. The vast majority of these plant closures were permanent.The shakeout of inefficient firms after 1929 ameliorated the decline in average labor productivity in the industry. Although industry productivity did decline, productivity in 1933 would have been still lower if all plants had continued to operate. During the initial recovery phase (1933-35) about 40 percent of the increase in employment occurred in new plants. Surviving plants were more likely to use mass-production techniques; the same was true of new entrants. Mass production plants differed sharply from their predecessors (custom production plants) in the skill mix of their workforces and in labor relations.In the motor vehicle industry, the early years of the Depression were an â€Å"evolutionary event†, perman ently altering the technology of the representative firm. While the representative firm paradigm apparently fails for motor vehicles, it may not for other industries. Some preliminary work by Amy Bertin, Bresnahan, and Raff, on another industry, blast furnaces, is revealing on this point. Blast furnaces were subject to increasing returns and the market for the product (molten iron) was highly localized.For this industry, reductions in output during a cyclical trough are reasonably described by a representative firm, since â€Å"localized competition prevented efficient reallocation of output across plants† and therefore the compositional effects occurring in the auto industry did not happen. These analyses of firm-level data have two important implications for studies of employment in the 1930s. First, aggregate demand shocks could very well have changed average technological practice through the process of exit and entry at the firm level.Thus Bernanke and Parkinson's reject ion of the technological shocks explanation of short-run increasing returns, which is based in part on their belief that aggregate demand shocks did not alter industry production functions, may be premature. Second, the empirical adequacy of the representative firm paradigm is apparently industry-specific, depending on industry structure, the nature of product demand, and initial (that is, pre-Depression) heterogeneity in firm sizes and costs.Such â€Å"phenomena are invisible in industry data,† and can only be recovered from firm-level records, such as the census manuscripts. Analyses of industry and firm-level data are one way to explore heterogeneity in labor utilization. Geography is another. A focus on national or even industry aggregates obscures the substantial spatial variation in bust and recovery that characterized the 1930s. Two recent studies show how spatial variation suggests new puzzles about the persistence of the Depression as well as provide additional degre es of freedom for discriminating between macroeconomic models.State-level variation in employment is the subject of an important article by John Wallis. Using data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wallis has constructed annual indices of manufacturing and nonmanufacturing employment for states from 1930 to 1940. Wallis' indices reveal that declines in employment between 1930 and 1933 were steepest in the East North Central and Mountain states; employment actually rose in the South Atlantic states, however, once an adjustment is made for industry mix.The South also did comparatively well during the recovery phase of the Depression (1933-1940). Wallis tests whether the southern advantage during the recovery phase might reflect lower levels of unionization and a lower proportion of employment affected by the passage of the Social Security Act (1935), but controlling for percent unionized and percent in covered employment in a regression of employment growth does not elimina te the regional gap. What comes through clearly,† according to Wallis â€Å"is that the [employment] effects of the Depression varied considerably throughout the nation† and that a convincing explanation of the South-nonSouth difference remains an open question. Curtis Simon and Clark Nardinelli exploit variation across cities to put forth a particular interpretation of economic downturn in the early 1930s. Specifically, they study the empirical relationship between â€Å"industrial diversity† and city- level unemployment rates before and after World War Two.Industrial diversity is measured by a city-specific Herfindahl index of industry employment shares. The higher the value of the index, the greater is the concentration of employment in a small number of industries. Using data from the 1930 federal census and the 1931 Special Census of Unemployment, Simon and Nardinelli show that unemployment rates and the industrial diversity index were positively correlated across cities at the beginning of the Depression.Analysis of similar census data for the post-World War Two, period, reveals a negative correlation between city unemployment rates and industrial diversity. Simon and Nardinelli explain this finding as the outcome of two competing effects. In normal economic circumstances, a city with a more diverse range of industries should have a lower unemployment rate (the â€Å"portfolio† effect), because industry-specific demand shocks will not be perfectly correlated across industries and some laid-off workers will find ready employment in expanding industries.The portfolio effect may fail, however, during a large aggregate demand shock (the early 1930s) if firms and workers are poorly informed, misperceiving the shock to be industry-specific, rather than a general reduction in demand. Firms in industrially diverse cities announce selective layoffs rather than reduce wages, because they believe that across-the-board wage cuts would caus e too many workers to quit (workers in industrial diverse cities think they can easily find a job in another industry elsewhere in the same city), thus hurting production.Firms in industrially specialized cities, however, are more likely to cut wages than employment because they believe lower wages â€Å"would induce relatively fewer quits† than in industrially diverse cities. Thus, Simon and Nardinelli conclude, wages in the early 1930s were more rigid in industrially-diverse cities, producing the positive correlation between industrial diversity and unemployment. Improvements in the quantity, quality, and timeliness of economic information, they conjecture, have caused the portfolio effect to dominate after World War Two, producing the postwar negative correlation.Although one can question the historical relevance of Simon and Nardinelli's model, and the specifics of their empirical analysis, their paper is successful in demonstrating the potential value of spatial data in unraveling the sources of economic downturn early in the Depression. Postwar macroeconomics has tended to proceed as aggregate unemployment rates applied to a representative worker, with a certain percentage of that worker's time not being used. As a result, disaggregated evidence on unemployment has been slighted.Such evidence, however, can provide a richer picture of who was unemployed in the 1930s, a better understanding of the relationship between unemployment and work relief, and further insights into macroeconomic explanations of unemployment. To date, the source that has received the most attention is the public use tape of the 1940 census, a large, random sample of the population in 1940. The 1940 census is a remarkable historical document. It was the first American census to inquire about educational attainment, wage and salary income and weeks worked in the previous year; nd the first to use the â€Å"labor force week† concept in soliciting information about labor f orce status. Eight labor force categories are reported, including whether persons held work relief jobs during the census week (March 24-30, 1940). For persons who were unemployed or who held a work relief job at the time of the census, the number of weeks of unemployment since the person last held a private or nonemergency government job of one month or longer was recorded.The questions on weeks worked and earnings in 1939 did not treat work relief jobs differently from other jobs. That is, earnings from, and time spent on, work relief are included in the totals. I have used the 1940 census sample to study the characteristics of unemployed workers and of persons on work relief, and the relationship between work relief and various aspects of unemployment. It is clear from the census tape that unemployed persons who were not on work relief were far from a random sample of the labor force.For example, the unemployed were typically younger, or older, than the average employed worker (u nemployment followed a U-shape pattern with respect to age); the unemployed were more often nonwhite; and they were less educated and had fewer skills than employed persons, as measured by occupation. Such differences tended to be starkest for the long-term unemployed (those with unemployment durations longer than year); thus, for example, the long-term unemployed had even less schooling that the average unemployed worker.Although the WPA drew its workers from the ranks of the unemployed, the characteristics of WPA workers did not merely replicate those of other unemployed persons. For example, single men, the foreign-born, high school graduates, urban residents, and persons living in the Northeast were underrepresented among WPA workers, compared with the rest of the unemployed. Perhaps the most salient difference, however, concerns the duration of unemployment. Among those on work relief in 1940, roughly twice as many had been without a non-relief job for a year or longer as had u nemployed persons not on work relief.The fact that the long-term unemployed were concentrated disproportionately on work relief raises an obvious question. Did the long-term unemployed find work relief jobs after being unemployed for a long time, or did they remain with the WPA for a long time? The answer appears to be mostly the latter. Among nonfarm males ages 14 to 64 on work relief in March 1940 and reporting 65 weeks of unemployment (that is, the first quarter of 1940 and all of 1939), close to half worked 39 weeks or more in 1939. Given the census conventions, they had to have been working more or less full time, for the WPA.For reasons that are not fully clear, the incentives were such that a significant fraction of persons who got on work relief, stayed on. One possible explanation is that some persons on work relief preferred the WPA, given prevailing wages, perhaps because their relief jobs were more stable than the non-relief jobs (if any) available to them. Or, as one WP A worker put it: â€Å"Why do we want to hold onto these [relief] jobs? †¦ [W]e know all the time about persons †¦ just managing to scrape along †¦ My advice, Buddy, is better not take too much of a chance. Know a good thing when you got it. Alternatively, working for the WPA may have stigmatized individuals, making them less desirable to non-relief employers the longer they stayed on work relief. Whatever the explanation, the continuous nature of WPA employment makes it difficult to believe that the WPA did not reduce, in the aggregate, the amount of job search by the unemployed in the late 1930s. In addition to the duration of unemployment experienced by individuals, the availability of work relief may have dampened the increase in labor supply of secondary workers in households in which the household head was unemployed, the so- called â€Å"added worker† effect.Specifically, wives of unemployed men not on work relief were much more likely to participate in the labor force than wives of men who were employed at non-relief jobs. But wives of men who worked for the WPA were far less likely to participate in the labor force than wives of otherwise employed men. The relative impacts were such that, in the aggregate, no added worker effect can be observed as long as persons on work relief are counted among the unemployed.Although my primary goal in analyzing the 1940 census sample was to illuminate features of unemployment obscured by the aggregate time series, the results bear on several macroeconomic issues. First, the heterogenous nature of unemployment implies that a representative agent view of aggregate unemployment cannot be maintained for the late 1930s. Whether the view can be maintained for the earlier part of the Depression is not certain, but the evidence presented in Jensen and myself suggests that it cannot.Because the evolution of the characteristics of the unemployed over the 1930s bears on the plausibility of various macro economic explanations of unemployment (Jensen's use of efficiency wage theory, for example), further research is clearly desirable. Second, the heterogenous nature of unemployment is consistent with Lebergott's claim that aggregate BLS wage series for the 1930s are contaminated by selection bias, because the characteristics that affected the likelihood of being employed (for example, education) also affected a person's wage.Again, a clearer understanding of the magnitude and direction of bias requires further work on how the characteristics of the employed and unemployed changed as the Depression progressed. Third, macroeconomic analyses of the persistence of high unemployment should not ignore the effects of the WPA — and, more generally, those of other federal relief policies — on the economic behavior of the unemployed. In particular, if work relief was preferred to job search by some unemployed workers, the WPA may have displaced some growth in private sector emplo yment that would have occurred in its absence.An estimate of the size of this displacement effect can be inferred from a recent paper by John Wallis and Daniel Benjamin. Wallis and Benjamin estimate a model of labor supply, labor demand, and per capita relief budgets using panel data for states from 1933 to 1939. Their coefficients imply that elimination of the WPA starting in 1937 would have increased private sector employment by 2. 9 percent by 1940, which corresponds to about 49 percent of persons on work relief in that year. Displacement was not one-for-one, but may not have been negligible.My discussion thus far has emphasized the value of disaggregated evidence in understanding certain key features of labor markets in the 1930s — the behavior of wages, employment and unemployment — because these are of greatest general interest to economists today. I would be remiss, however, if I did not mention other aspects of labor markets examined in recent work. What follow s is a brief, personal selection from a much larger literature. The Great Depression left its mark on racial and gender differences.From 1890 to 1930 the incomes of black men increased slightly relative to the incomes of white men, but the trend in relative incomes reversed direction in the 1930s. Migration to the North, a major avenue of economic advancement for Southern blacks, slowed appreciably. There is little doubt that, if the Depression had not happened, the relative economic status of blacks would have been higher on the eve of World War Two. Labor force participation by married women was hampered by â€Å"marriage bars†, implicit or explicit regulations which allowed firms to dismiss single women upon arriage or which prohibited the hiring of married women. Although marriage bars existed before the 1930s, their use spread during the Depression, possibly because social norms dictated that married men were more deserving of scarce jobs than married women. Although the y have not received as much attention from economists, some of the more interesting effects of the Depression were demographic or life-cycle in nature. Marriage rates fell sharply in the early 1930s, and fertility rates remained low throughout the decade.An influential study by the sociologist Glen Elder, Jr. traced the subsequent work and life histories of a sample of individuals growing up in Oakland, California in the 1930s. Children from working class households whose parents suffered from prolonged unemployment during the Depression had lower educational attainment and less occupational mobility than their peers who were not so deprived. Similar findings were reported by Stephan Thernstrom in his study of occupational mobility of Boston men.The Great Depression was the premier macroeconomic event of the twentieth century, and I am not suggesting we abandon macroeconomic analysis of it. I am suggesting, however, that an exclusive focus on aggregate labor statistics runs two risk s: the facts derived may be artifacts, and much of what may be interesting about labor market behavior in the 1930s is rendered invisible. The people and firms whose experiences make up the aggregates deserve to be studied in their diversity, not as representative agents.I have mentioned census microdata, such as the public use sample of the 1940 census or the manufacturing census manuscripts collected by Bresnahan and Raff, in this survey. In closing, I would like highlight another source that could be examined in future work. The source is the â€Å"Study of Consumer Purchases in the United States† conducted by the BLS in 1935-36. Approximately 300,000 households, chosen from a larger random sample of 700,000, supplied basic survey data on income and housing, with 20 percent furnishing additional information.The detail is staggering: labor supply and income of all family members, from all sources (on a quarterly basis); personal characteristics (for example, occupation, age , race); family composition; housing characteristics; and a long list of durable and non-durable consumption expenditures (the 20 percent sample). Because the purpose of the study was to provide budget weights to update the CPI, only families in â€Å"normal† economic circumstances were included (this is the basis for the reduction in sample size from 700,000 to 300,000).Thus, for example, persons whose wages were very low or who experienced persistent unemployment are unlikely to be included in 1935-36 study. A pilot sample, drawn from the original survey forms (stored at the National Archives) and containing the responses of 6,000 urban households, is available in machine-readable format from the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan (ICPSR Study 8908). Robert A. Margo Vanderbilt University