Grades already available in CRS

We have submitted the grades already to Pol Sci Department. It should be available in the CRS by now.

Thank you and good luck with your studies!

Reminders for Final Exam

Please be reminded that final exam will be on October 18, 2010, Monday at 1:45-3:45 PM same room. Please bring 1 blue book. Format of the exam will be the same as the second exam.

Although the focus of the exam will be from Smith up to our last discussion in class, it is better to review everything as some of the questions may require knowledge of earlier Philosophical thinkers discussed in class.

Do bear in mind that those who ought to take the final exam will run the risk of bringing their grades down than their present one. Please assess carefully and study well. Otherwise you will have the grade we gave you as your final grade (except for those who are required to take the final exam). We do not give a grade of 4 or incomplete so those who are at the low end will get a grade of 3 or 5.

Thank you and good luck!

The following short excerpt exemplifies how bureaucracy should work as well as the problem often attributed to it.

A man went to knock at the king's door. . .

A man went to knock at the king's door and said, Give me a boat. The king's house had many other doors, but this was the door for petitions. Since the king spent all his time sitting at the door for favors (favors being offered to te king, you understand), whenever he heard someone knocking at the door for petitionss, he would pretend not to hear and only when continous, pounding of the bronze doorknocker became not just deafining, but positively scandalous, disturbing the peace of the neighborhood (people would start muttering, what kind of king is he if he won't even answer the door), only then would he order the first secretary to go and find out what the supplicant wanted, since there seemed no way of silencing him. Then the first secretary would call the second secretary who would give order to the second assistant, and so on all the way down the line to the cleaning woman, who, having no one else to give orders to, would half-open the door and ask through the crack, what do you want. The supplicant would state his business, that is, he would ask what he had come to ask, then he would wait by the door for his request to trace back, person by person to the king. The king occupied as usual with the favors being offered him, would take a long time to reply, ang it was no small measure of his concern for the happiness and well-being of his people that he could, finally, resolve to ask his first secretary for an authoritative opinion in writing, the first secretary, needless to say, would pass on the command to the second secretary, who would pass it on to the third secretary, and so on down once again to the cleaning woman, who would give a yes or no depending on what kind of mood she was in.

Excerpt from "The Tale of the Unkown Island" by Jose Saramago (Nobel Prize Winner for Literature). As translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa. Hardcourt Brace and Company, 1998. pp1-3

Characteristics of Bureaucracy:

1. Fixed and official jurisdictional areas/ Specialization and division of labor

a. regular activities and fixed duties

b. there are rules on authorities to give commands

c. only qualified persons are employed

2. Hierarchical positions

a. system of super and subordination, where there is a supervision of lower office by higher ones- unity of command; authority

b. serves a formal system of communication

3. System of abstract rules-rules persist whereas personnel change

a. exhaustive, stable and can be learned

4. Impersonal relationship

a. seperates the private (personal life) from the public (office life)

b. make rational desicions; avoiding emotional attachment

c. official activity demand the full working capacity of the individual

5. Merit principle (promotion and selection)

a. special examination are pre-requisite to employment

b. presupposes thorough and expert training

The position of individual:

1. Office is a vacation

a. loyalty to office is pure and does not establish a relationship to a person

2. Position is patterned in the following:

a. rules of rank order

b. appointed by a superior authority

c. tenure for life

d. regular compensation

e. official is set for a career

Ang Gerilya ay Tulad ng Makata

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtvXXTcT56

I cant find the gerilya song (youtube) that i keep on singing when i was grade 3, I only found this gerilya video, but I think this video is also helpful in relation to our last discussion (Oct 1, 2010 - friday) . In connection to this i am willing to sing (as long as I remember the lyrics) the "gerilya song" in class =).

This is a video I found last week. I think it can relate to what we've been learning over the weeks.

I know it isn't stated in the video. But while I was watching this, I remembered the industrial revolution. This was a time when manufacturing and technology was advancing forward.

I thought about if there could come a crisis along with the use of the internet?

All over the world (in my opinion) the biggest advance in mankind's achievement was the advance in communication. It's become become extremely influential in almost everything we do. The market has even moved on to the internet. It's even gone to a point where it could be a source of easy money.

Let me put it this way, when a web developer creates an application for a phone or the internet he could could sell it over the internet. When people buy that application using their credit cards (this includes foreign countries too) that money would be sent to the country of the web developer. This makes the internet a source of income for an economy right? Please note that successful applications could earn $200,000 in a few months. If people did this on a large scale just like the industrial revolution would there come a crisis?

Could there be a consequence to connecting the world. There are some terrorism threats that could arise from the net. Could there be more.

Karl Marx Explains the Labor Theory of Value

- The main points of the labor theory of value are stated here. It was said that the worker is just being paid enough to survive, while the extra goes to the employer. Out of the labor of the worker, the employer makes far more than what he pays the worker. This makes the employer richer and the worker becomes poorer.

Exploitation nowadays

Exploitation is the act of using something for another purpose or the act of using something in an unjust or cruel manner. In exploitation, people are being mistreated and unfairly used for the benefit of other people. Their talents, skills and work are being used for the benefit of others and little or no benefit for themselves.

With this definition, I think there are a lot of workers at present who are being exploited. What is the government doing about this situation? Are they aware of this and just simply allowing it?