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?

Alienation

As a fine arts student, what i learned to appreciate in Marx is the value he gave to creativity as the most important aspect of a person.

In his analysis of the capitalist mode of production, he showed the damaging effect of the division of labour to the being of a person.

I know the importance of seeing a creative product as a result of my imagination, but in a capitalist system the artist's work is treated more as a product.

i once saw a movie "Sea Biscuit" which begins with showing the making of cars as a product of the division of labour. i remember the lines saying "under the division of labour seamstresses became button-holers, furniture makers became knob-turners. The beginning of the division of labour was the end of imagination." These words struck me. I can now understand that if a seamstress just makes a part of a dress the whole day, like a sleeve or a collar, without seeing the whole dress, then how alienating that would be.

If i am an artist and i am hired to do only certain effects in an animation process and if I will never get to see the end product, i would feel that i am an alien to myself. This will surely result in the dulling of my imagination. Marx's idea of imagination has opened my eyes to what is happening these days. We and our works are being turned into commodities. Can artists live in such a condition? If my imagination would be dulled, will i still be a person?

Of Ideas, and Material Force and self-change.

In Dialectical Materialism, the spiritual world is not separated from the material world and thus, ideas and matter are always in the same plane. Matters can only be tackled by a material force but an idea can be a material force if it captured the allegiance of the masses.

Now with this, I am supposing that in terms of Dialectical Materialism an idea even if it captured an individual cannot be counted as a material force, if 1.) It cannot bring change in a certain phenomenon 2.) It cannot cause an impact to society.

An idea must capture a wide united audience, and unite in a way that the effort that will given by the mass for the idea is collective in nature and not individualistic.

So is the concept of "ako mismo." be counted as a material force, if it gives a freeway for individualistic paths to be constructed? Can real change in terms of dialectical materialism be reached with this concept?

On Privatization

According to Adam Smith, man's natural unending needs and wants are directed by an invisible hand, the rules governing the market, especially the law of supply and demand.

He proposed a let alone policy, on which the government only role in the economy is to provide security and stability and maintain the rules of the trade.

With this minimal government involvement in the market, privatization comes to play. Privatization, is the process of transferring a public service given by the public sector in the hands of the private sector of society. Privatization, being a concept of free market, aims to achieve the goals of a competitive market involving efficiency in terms of profit and usage. With this, is privatization good or bad?

Why did the old Hegel supported monarchies

In his early years, Hegel was a liberal who carries French revolutionary ideas. He supported the overthrow of all monarchies. Why is it that when he got old, he changed his views and became a conservative?

Dalisay Lecture

Please check your email and read Prof. Dalisay's speech. Thank you!

COMMUNIST MANIFESTO

Which chapter of the Communist Manifesto do you think holds the bulk of the manifesto?

Chapter 1-Bourgeois and Proletarians, Chapter 2- Proletarians and Communists, Chapter 3-Socialist and Communist Literature, Chapter 4- position of the communists in relation to the various existing opposition parties.

Minority vs Majority

Bigla ko lang naisip: In a democracy, where unanimity is not always possible, should the minority submit to the will of the majority? And if so, is it because it is what ought to be done, or is it just for the sake of preventing chaos?

Social Contract Theory.. Try watching this.

3 Natural RIghts

It was discussed that we citizens have three natural or in-born rights. These are: life, liberty and property. But at present, do you think that these rights are really retained by the citizens?

These rights are not surrendered to the sovereign and the sovereign cannot take away these natural rights. but at present, I think that the state or the sovereign somehow takes away these rights of ours. They may not take them away absolutely, but they sometimes abuse it.

State of Nature

Who's take on the state of nature do you agree with more? Hobbes' claim that because men are essentially evil, they will eventually enter the state of war or Locke's claim that because men are essentially good, they understood the need for national cooperation?

All For The Monarchy?

Machiavelli did propose a monarchy for uniting Italy. But i don't think it was the government that he truly wanted to build Italy on. Machiavelli did write a means to uniting Italy under a single ruler but he did also write about how a republic should be started and structured.

I think he wanted to unite Italy with a single ruler, but only to a point of uniting Italy and to see that Italy can see itself as one nation. Then, like he wrote on the Discorsi would build a republic of Italy, which was his main goal.

I find it amusing that Machiavelli was open to more than one form of government and that he was also a person who was quick to changing one means to another means (eg. when being cautious over others).

Zacarias Daniel A. Baricuatro

Machiavelli Being Loud

It was said in our lessons that Machiavelli had a reputation for praising himself.

I find it to be a very practical way to get noticed and to sell. It could have been Machiavelli's strategy for the public to buy his works. Machiavelli was a person who thought ahead of most people at his time. His strategy for marketing the works he wanted people to read would be this difference that he wanted people to know about.

But what I perceive through his writing in The Prince on a psychological basis was that Machiavelli was a man of little trust for acquaintances. He wrote about making alliances and he also wrote about how to stay on top of everybody else. I guess he believes in the achievements a self-made man can do.

This said I believe Machiavelli was a strong marketer of himself and that in order for a chance to achieve his dreams he had to set himself apart from everybody else.

Zacarias Daniel A. Baricuatro

Something I Found...

I thought this would help serve as a quick summary on Machiavelli before we move onto our next lessons. It's a Video Link to a Discovery Channel Video on the Machiavelli