This essay discusses Michael Taussig's ethnography of plantation and tin mine workers in South America in his book, The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America. The work deals mainly with the structure of society and the problems existing among the Columbian plantation workers and the Peruvian and bolivian tin mine workers when a capitalist economy is introduced. Taussig's perspective for interpretation of ... a byproduct of a system void of "the ideals of a use-value economy in which man is the aim of production."(p.121) It is also interesting to contrast Taussig's observations with t...

• Word Count: 3233
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... believes that through strict specialization, a person is being individually hurt by being devoid of greater experiences. A repetitive task makes a person seem more like a machine than a human. Smith notes in his "Wealth of Nations" that the division of labor betters society. Things can be produced more quickly by a greater number of laborers specializing in a single skill than by a single worker attempting various tasks ... that one capitalist may employ a few men who are all skilled at a certain craft (he notes the craft of making paper, twain, or needles, it doesn't matter which craft...

• Word Count: 1081
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... capitalism. Weber also shows how religion and capitalism represent different aspects of his theory of rationalization- the replacement of norms, traditions and values as behavioral motivators in society by rational thoughts. In his introductory chapter, Religious Affiliation and Social Stratification, Weber notes how occupational statistics indicate that, in societies with mixed religions, "people who own capital ... , employers, more highly educated skilled workers, and more highly trained technical or business personnel tend to be overwhelmingly Protestant." (Weber in Calhoun 2012:291) ...

• Word Count: 660
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Graduate

... victim to the landlord and the shopkeeper. In addition to describing the evils of capitalism, Marx elaborates the social changes communists hope to effect on behalf of the proletariat. Marx notes firstly that the interests of communists do not differ from the interests of the proletariat. Unlike other working class parties, communism has an international basis and consistently represents the working class interests. The primary objective of communists and the revolutionary proletariat ... is the abolition of private property ... ...

• Word Count: 742
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... reforms that Sinclair thought were needed. It does provide many historical events in vivid descriptions which supported the contrasts between capitalist views and socialist reforms. The book begins with the wedding of Jurgis Rudkus and Ona Lukeszaite. In a flashback the explanation of the characters coming to America is described. Ona decides to come to America after her father dies and leaves her with ... received his bachelor's degree from CCNY. He wrote a few novels before he wrote The Jungle. He had problems getting The Jungle published in book form. He decided to publish the book h...

• Word Count: 1116
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... ironically an instrument employed by the author to highlight the exogenous demands put on the proletariat in the capitalist system. During each phase of the book, Jurgis's status as immigrant and working man allow his persona to endure the necessary transformation that will lead him to his acceptance of socialism at the book's closure. While this technique helps the author to achieve his ultimate ... for actual consideration of the characters. As such, the reader learns from Jurgis the ways in which capitalism stifles the working class. Upton Sinclair strategically subjects Jurgis to t...

• Word Count: 1109
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... developed characters. Sinclair wrote the book so that the conditions of the workers lives grew larger than the lives or the workers, however, it would have been more effective to write the book along the lines of a story, or documentary of a family. This way, the reader is able to follow and relate to the troubles of the family on a personal level. The public would have a greater understanding of the book if they could follow a realistic ... audience focused. If Sinclair would have left out the detail of the meat packing process, the book's purpose would be clearer. Instead, Sinclair gi...

• Word Count: 597
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... the author could synopsize the book it would consist of three sections. The events leading up to the collapse, up to chapter 7, were discussing the boom and its components as well as the elements of the disaster that was brewing on Wall Street. The middle section of the book discussed the crash itself, and its date, time, and immediate reaction from America. The ending section of the book was discussing the effects that the ... collapse had on Americans, future trading, and society as a whole. In a sentence, The Great Crash 1929 was an economical examination of the stock market collapse ...

• Word Count: 624
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... be as convincing as what was hoped, the style of writing proves to be successful in exposing the truth of the meatpacking industry. A combination of the reporter-style third person narrative and the abundance of factual information dug up by Sinclair gives the book the shocking reputation that it has earned. "To this part of the yard [the fertilizer room] came all the "tankage" and the waste products of all sorts; her ... they dried out the bones,--and in suffocating cellars where ... ...

• Word Count: 704
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... of this better life. Upton Sinclair, author of the book The Jungle, narrates the actual realities of American life during this time, through the eyes of an immigrant family from Lithuania. Sinclair with intentions of writing the book solely for the purpose of promoting socialistic ideology ended up writing a novel that alarmed the public and forced our government into taking action. The Jungle represents America's coming of age. America was ... owners valued their profits more then the health of the nation. From this brief glimpse into the meat packing world developed the Pure Food and Dr...

• Word Count: 953
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... socialist movements all working in the same conditions and for better payments. They thought they should own the industry. The Jungle causes a great deal of commotion in the United States, it caused the government to investigate the food industry and create the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. The author purpose on the book is clearly understood, Sinclair was disagreed with the ideas of capitalism and he ... wanted to convince people that the Socialist movement is better. Capitalism is ... them and make rich themselves. He clearly states that socialism is the only solution in the book to...

• Word Count: 544
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... are as corrupt as the businesses. The corrupt capitalists value wealth more than the workers and the consumers. During this time, many workers vowed to help the laborer and ended the book by stating, "Chicago will be mine!" This book was very enlighting. History has always stated the deplorable conditions of the average worker at the turn of the century. Not until reading this book, has made the realization of the trauma that people went ... through. But at the same time, how much has the world changed? Most are still working at the hands of the capitalists. While the conditions at the ...

• Word Count: 1592
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... non-Capitalist societies, he came across a link between the occurrence of Capitalism and the fact that it occurred in tandem with the protestant reformation. The reformation was a sixteenth-century religious movement that led to the creation of Protestantism, beginning with the protests of Martin Luthor against the Catholic Church in 1517. Max Weber wrote a book called, "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism". Even though Weber was greatly influenced ... himself and openly critics Marx's theories within his book. His book is the study of the relationship between the ethics o...

• Word Count: 1427
• Approx Pages: 6

... that Chicago will be theirs. So yes, at the end Jurgis did get what he wanted and he had to work very hard for it, as well. Upton Sinclair's objective was to show the real working situation in Chicago during that period of time. Sinclair shows the failure of capitalism throughout the whole book, the author showed what happened to Jurgis as well as ... his whole family because of the poor working conditions (capitalism) in factories such as the meat packing industry. The author, was successful at portraying the idea of capitalism, he not only ... showed the hazard of factory work on the...

• Word Count: 386
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... are all farmers with varied beliefs and behaviors. There is no main character or first person perspectives, but rather third person perspectives, highlighting certain characters at certain points throughout the book. Tom Joad is a straightforward, strong willed and direct character, but he still retains some of his violent tendencies which he assimilated in prison. Tom's mother referred to as " ... were harsh. It is questions such as this that the novel raises that make it such an interesting book. I enjoyed the novel for many reasons. The novel gave dramatic and explicit descriptions t...

• Word Count: 1425
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... harshly according to Zinn. Upton Sinclair and Jack London were some of the many writers that wrote of the socialist ideas. Upton Sinclair wrote a novel called The Jungle in 1906. This book was read by millions and translated into 17 different languages. It talked about the meat packaging plants of Chicago and how the working conditions there were unbearable for people. It also spoke of socialism ... and how life would be so much better if everyone worked to help everyone else. The people that read Upton Sinclair's book spoke up and demanded laws to regulate the meat packaging plants. Ja...

• Word Count: 1134
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... to some extent, Smith claims that it will only interfere and disrupt balances. Although Smith believes in free markets, he doesn't necessarily need the government to be inactive, but limited. In his book Wealth of Nations, Smith states that the government has three functions and none initiated any kind of government-regulated market or economy. However, Smith emphasizes on education as a public ... good. To some extent, education can be a form of indirect interference by the government. If your society is better educated, they are more skilled, allowing ... . He also claims that state i...

• Word Count: 1585
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Article Reviews As editor of the book, "Exploring Post-Development," Aram Ziai provides an introductory look at the discussions of post-development theory, taking a cursory look at the various arguments for, or against, post-development. Ziai expertly delivers an overview of the post-development movement, having arisen in the 1980s as a response to the dissatisfaction with the concept and practice of "development" already in place. Ziai more ... alternatives to development via grassroots, local and regional movements. Alongside support for post-development theory, Ziai also provides the criti...

• Word Count: 3546
• Approx Pages: 14
• Grade Level: Graduate

... for profit led capitalists to adopt labour-saving machinery, creating a 'reserve army of the unemployed'. Those would eventually rise up and seize the means of production. Capitalism would then be succeeded by a world without private property. John Maynard Keynes is best known for his classic book The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money that was published in 1936. His ... ideas on the causes of unemployment revolutionized economic theory and profoundly altered government's involvement in the economy. The Classical tradition assumed that in a recession, wages and prices woul...

• Word Count: 684
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... its proper price. Moreover it allows the proper price to be its value. In addition, the more the commodity demands on the machine labor, the more manual labor will cease to exist as a free-entrepreneur. However Carl Cohen states in his book, that "capitalism is not the whole of private enterprise." He explains that "the enterprise have the most fundamental importance to everyone who ... has his or her private enterprise." Therefore the free-enterprise is based on the individual building ... and making a valuable commodity in order to compete with the machine market. For example Mike and...

• Word Count: 683
• Approx Pages: 3

... immigrants and workers. Literature is timeless. It is often written to confront the problems of its day. However, many pieces of literature have truth in the present day as well. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle is a novel about the evils of capitalism and the struggles of an immigrant in America. This book had a great impact on the American Society and through Sinclair's words, he was able to spread ... the ways of the Socialist. This story of the struggle of Jurgis Rudkus touched the lives of many people when it was ... written, and it still continues to touch the lives of readers ... ...

• Word Count: 350
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... . So much so that the symbol of the parties fight for independence is that of the Eagle and the Condor, united in flight. While the government is nervous about the unrest in the region, it seems to do little to quell the anger of the people. Rather, it lets them continue in poverty, forces them to leave the good land, for the bad. Cutting down trees in the forest is forbidden and ... resurfaced in modern times, except Robin Hood is a movement rather than a man. One can understand the movement though. It is happening throughout the world, not just in the areas where NAFTA exists. As a for...

• Word Count: 534
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

In his book Ethics for the New Millennium, the Dalai Lama outlines what he sees as being necessary for a happy life. The key focus of the Dalai Lama's (DL) argument is the practice of altruism within every aspect of one's life "whether interacting with a friend or foe compassion is of utter importance. He states that "the more we truly desire to benefit others, the greater the strength and confidence ... we develop and the greater the peace and happiness we experience- (p. 130). But I question whether this idea can be put into practice in a capitalistic western world that depends ... can desc...

• Word Count: 956
• Approx Pages: 4

... ", which is self-explanatory. He is most often recognized for the expression "the invisible hand," which he used to demonstrate how self-interest guides the most efficient use of resources in a nation's economy, with public welfare coming as a by-product. And what drives this flow of goods and services? I quote Adam Smith from his book "The Wealth of Nations": "Every individual is continually exerting himself ... to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It ... is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view. But th...

• Word Count: 1299
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... In past times it made sense for economists to take the national economy as their main point of reference, yet this is no longer the case. Therefore, I argue that this denationalization of the market will benefit the world in a greater fashion than the nationalized markets of the past. According to economist Adam Smith in his book, The Wealth of Nations, there is an "invisible hand" ... that guides the activity of the markets. Smith believes that if people are allowed to ... pursue their own interest uninterrupted, the greatest good will be produced. Globalization is ... ...

• Word Count: 1065
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School