Workforce Obsolescence

Workforce Obsolescence The loss of critical skills, i.e., the disappearance of non-replaceable workforce, is a problem faced by many product sectors tasked with supporting critical systems. This problem is common for organizations that must manage the DMSMS-type obsolescence problems for hardware, software and materials discussed in the other chapters of this book. For some products, the loss of worker skills and experience can be mitigated by simply adjusting hiring rates and instituting training of younger workers, however, in other sectors experience can be very difficult to replace. This chapter focuses on the loss of critical skills that are either non-replaceable or take prohibitively long times to reconstitute. 13.1 Defining Workforce Obsolescence Mismatches between the skills possessed by the workforce and the skills needed by employers create a number of issues that complicate the long-term manufacturing and sustainment of systems. These mismatches have been classified into the following three general categories: skills obsolescence, skill shortage, and critical skills loss. Skills obsolescence (also referred to as human capital obsolescence) describes situations in which workers lack the skills needed to either become employed or remain employed, (De Grip and Van Loo, 2002). This often includes the segment of the workforce that have skills, but those skills are obsolete requiring retraining of the worker. Where obsolete skills refer to skills that are no longer needed. Skill shortage describes situations where there are insufficient available skill competences to fill the needs of an organization, e.g., (Green et al., 1998). Skills shortage articulates the need to identify, train and retain the workforce to fill current and expected future skill needs. Skills shortage has many causes including the speed of technology advancement, e.g., (Duan et al., 2002), training and education gaps (Skinner et al., 2004), and can also be the result of an organizations inability or failure to protect its core skill competencies over long periods of time or during economic downturns (Melymuka, 2002). Critical skills loss is relevant to this book and is the focus of this chapter. Critical skills loss refers to the loss of skills that either cannot be replaced or require a prohibitively long time to reconstitute, (Sandborn and Prabhakar, 2015). In this case reconstitution of the skills may require many years if possible at all. Critical skills loss is a special case of organizational forgetting, i.e., the loss of knowledge gained through learning-by-doing. Organizational forgetting can be caused by labor turnover, periods of inactivity, and/or failure of an organization to institutionalize tacit knowledge (Brsanko et al., 2010). Critical skills loss is a permanent and involuntary form of organizational forgetting that may be unrecoverable. Critical skills loss (in the context of legacy system support) is the result of long-term (20+ years) of workforce attrition where highly-skilled workers retire without a sufficient number of younger workers to learn their skills and take their p lace.[1] Critical skills loss is not necessarily the result of poor planning or lack of foresight (and although activity is light, it is not nonexistent); rather it is an inevitable outcome of the organizations dependence on a highly-specialized highly-critical skill set for which there is small, but non-zero, demand, (Sandborn and Prabhakar, 2015). It should be stressed that critical skills loss is a long-term phenomenon it occurs gradually over 20+ years, i.e., over the span of several generations of management coupled with mergers, acquisitions, and product line changes, critical skills often diffuse and eventually disappear. In the context of this book, the salient issue that defines workforce obsolescence for legacy mission-, infrastructure-, and safety-critical systems is critical skills loss. 13.2 How Critical Skills Loss Impacts Systems and Where it Comes From Critical skills loss is rarely a problem in high-volume low-skill manufacturing applications, e.g., assembly-line workers. For these applications, an appropriate workforce nearly always exists or can be readily constructed through training programs. However, managing human skills obsolescence is becoming a significant problem for organizations tasked with supporting legacy systems. These support organizations need to be able to understand, forecast and manage a highly-specialized workforce with potentially irreplaceable skill sets. The system support and management challenges created by the loss of critical human skills have been reported in many industry sectors including: healthcare (Waldman, 2004), nuclear power (Nuclear Workforce Planning, 2008), aerospace (Testimony of Elliot Pulham, 2002), and other enterprises(Leibold and Voelpel, 2002). In the IT industry, the shortage of mainframe application programmers experienced in legacy applications is very problematic, (Goodridge and McGee, 2002) and (Hilson, 2001); in this case the necessary skills are no longer being taught because demand has dropped and younger workers interests are elsewhere. The loss of critical skills is most troublesome for organizations that must provide long-term support for legacy systems. For example, for defense systems, the loss of critical skills is potentially devastating: Even a 1-year delay in funding for CVN-76 [aircraft carrier] will result in the loss of critical skills which will take up to 5 years to reconstitute through ne w hires and training. A longer delay could cause a permanent loss in the skills necessary to maintain our carrier force. (Congressional Record, 1994). The causes of critical skills loss include: education and training declines (e.g., universities no longer educate engineers in the programming languages that are used in many legacy systems, (Shead, 2013); younger workers may perceive that certain occupations are in decline, e.g., nuclear power (Nuclear Workforce Planning, 2008) and are therefore discouraged from entering them; similarly younger workers may perceive certain occupations as not cutting-edge and therefore not enter them (Ahrens et al., 1995) (Adolph, 1996); younger workers may leave jobs supporting legacy systems to pursue other positions that appear to be more lucrative and exciting (Figure 13-2 in Section 13.3.3 shows an exit age distribution for a legacy control system); the shrinkage of feeder occupations, e.g., historically the U.S. Navy has provided highly-skilled workers to the nuclear power industry (Nuclear Workforce Planning, 2008); older workers protecting their jobs by not passing knowledge along to younger workers, e.g., (AndolÃ…Â ¡ek, 2011); and fundamental differences between young and old workers regarding job perceptions (i.e., social and cultural influences) (Goodridge and McGee, 2002). 13.3 Quantifying the Impact of Critical Skills Loss Critical skills loss impacts the sustainment of mission-, infrastructure- and safety-critical systems. As the human capital that possesses the skills to support a system shrinks, the time that the system is down (non-operational) when the system requires support will increase. Downtime increases lead to increased business interrupt time, which results in a loss of revenue for manufacturing systems. Increases in downtime in the transportation, defense and service industries decreases system availability, which can lead to a loss of revenue, safety compromises, property damage, and loss of life (e.g., emergency vehicle unavailability). In this section, we briefly review the applicability of some existing models to quantifying the impact of critical skills loss and then describe one modeling approach that estimates the financial impact of the problem. 13.3.1 Existing Approaches Nearly all of the existing modeling and quantitative treatments address the problem of skills obsolescence, which is a different problem than the critical skills loss problem addressed in this chapter. Most skills obsolescence treatments assume that workers skills become outdated or are otherwise no longer useful, possibly as a result of automation and other advances in technology. These works focus on the mitigation of skill decay in a workforce over time. The only existing work applicable to critical skills loss focuses on knowledge preservation, i.e., the capture of non-replenishable knowledge, (Joe and Yoong, 2004) (Hailey and Hailey). Some applicable work has also been done on retirement wave planning (Friel, 2002); however, this work focuses on head count rather than skill content. The modeling performed by Bohlander and Snell (2010) addresses a situation that is similar to critical skills loss, however, worker attrition and the costs associated the unavailability of the workers is not considered. In Bordoloi (1999), a model for different skill level workers that enter and exit a company is developed; the model takes into account the rate at which the company gains and loses workers. However, the model in(Bordoloi, 1999) does not estimate workers experience as a function of time and therefore does not determine the impact of critical skills loss on supporting systems. In the planning model developed by Huang et al.(2009) the goal is the determination of an ideal hiring rate using differing worker skill levels. While this model uses workforce simulation and determines the ideal hiring rate, the model does not take into account the costs incurred by the unavailability of workers. The basis for most workforce planning models is the physical sum of people employed, (Holt, 2011). However, the model developed by Holt, however, does not consider the aging of individual workers over time. There are models that have some applicability to critical skills loss in the maintenance workforce planning literature, e.g., (Koochaki et al., 2013) (Martorell et al., 2010) (Ait-Kaki, et al. 2011) and (Ahire et al., 2000). These models focus on optimizing maintenance scheduling and resource allocation. Maintenance policies have the goal of maximizing plant or process line availability while concurrently minimizing cost through the timely presence (and appropriate skill set) of maintenance workers. Koochaki et al., 2013) points out that maintenance workers are usually highly skilled and therefore difficult to recruit and that the efficient and effective use of a scarce maintenance workforce is very important. The model in (Koochaki et al., 2013) addresses the impact of limited ma intenance workers (i.e., maintenance resource constraints) on the grouping of maintenance activities while comparing age-based replacement and condition-based maintenance (CBM). In (Ahire et al., 2000), the makespan (which is the total length of the schedule) is minimized for a groups of preventive maintenance tasks constrained by workforce availability. Other papers treat the influence of CBM on maintenance scheduling and workforce planning, for examples see (Koochaki et al., 2013) and the references contained therein. In general these references focus on the determination of the optimum size maintenance workforce. 13.3.2 Modeling Human Skills Loss A detailed model for the loss of non-replinishable maintenance resources has been developed in (Sandborn and Prabhakar, 2015) and (Sandborn and Williams, 2016). The technical development of the model is briefly summarized here, see (Sandborn and Prabhakar, 2015) and (Sandborn and Williams, 2016) for more detail. The model uses historical workforce data to forecast the size and experience of the workforce pool as a function of time. The workforce experience pool is then used to determine the cost of supporting (sustaining) a system as a function of time. The model was created to address the questions: what will todays skills pool look like in the future? and what impact will the future skills pool have on the organizations ability to continue to support the system? A key assumption in this model is that sufficient experience exists today to adequately support the system, and we wish to forecast the future workforce skills pools experience relative to todays skills pool. The model has four primary inputs: a current age distribution (fC), a hiring age distribution (fH), an exit age distribution (fL) and the hiring rate (H). Assuming a stationary analysis, the distribution of exit ages (fL) and the distribution of hiring ages (fH) and are constant. This does not mean that the same number of people are hired each year, but rather that the hired peoples ages are always distributed equivalently. The same assumption is made for fL. The distribution of current ages (fC) is used as an initial condition. To assess workforce pool size and experience over time, we must project the experience of the workers in the pool into the future. This projection starts with the initial conditions in the pool and accounts for age related loss and subsequent hiring. The level of experience within the skills pool changes over time and can be determined from: 1) the new hires added to the skills pool; 2) the attrition (loss) rate of skilled workers; and 3) the varying skill levels of the workers in the pool and how those skill levels (experience) increase as workers remain in the pool. The net frequency of people in the pool of age a during year i relative to year 0 is given by, (13-1) where, i is the number of years from the start of the analysis, a is age, and Hi is the fraction of new hires per year (fraction of the pool size at the start of the analysis period i = 0). The first term in the brackets in Equation 13-1 is the current workforce pool size (relative to year 0), the second term in the brackets in Equation 13-1 is the number of new hires (relative to year 0), and the multiplier accounts for the retention rate. Note, Equation 13-1 assumes that the hiring rate, Hi is the same for all ages, a. The initial condition for the model is that the fraction of people of age a relative to year 0 in year 0 is given by,. The cumulative net frequency of people in the skills pool, NNET, in year i is determined by summing Ni(a) over all the ages (y = youngest to r = retirement), (13-2) Calculating the size of the workforce pool (head count) over time is necessary but not sufficient to capture an organizations future ability to support a system because workers have different levels of experience. Because of the varying experience, not all workers provide an equivalent level of value to the support of the system. In this model, experience is defined as the length of time that a worker has spent in a particular position. The cumulative experience in the workforce pool in year i, Ei, is calculated using, (13-3) where, RE and IE map age to the experience measured in years (RE and IE are determined using a parametric model from actual data). Note, while experience has the units of time, Ei, which is used in this model, represents the cumulative experience relative to the initial condition. The time to perform maintenance in year i is found from the cumulative experience using, (13-4) where, is the time to perform a maintenance activity with a skills pool having E0 experience at i = 0. In Equation 13-4 the time required to perform maintenance increases as experience decreases due to the following factors: 1) less-experienced workers require more time to perform maintenance (learning curve effects), and/or 2) if the pool of workers capable of performing the required maintenance task shrinks, appropriate workers may not be available at every site and may have to travel from a different location, which takes time. The most significant impact of the loss of critical human skills for legacy systems is the ability to perform system support (corrective maintenance) in a timely manner. Corrective maintenance costs consist of: spare parts, labor, downtime, overhead, consumables/handling, and equipment/facilities. When a corrective maintenance event occurs, the cost of performing the required maintenance action is, (13-5) where is the fraction of the maintenance events of severity level j that result in a business interrupt, is the cost of replacement parts (if replacement parts are needed) in year i,is the cost of labor (per unit time) in year i (with appropriate overhead applied), and is the cost of business interrupt (per unit time) in year i. , and are assumed to be discounted using an appropriate discount rate. 13.3.3 Example System Support Case Study A detailed case study was previously published in (Sandborn and Prabhakar, 2015) and (Sandborn and Williams, 2016). In this section we only provide a few highlights from that case study. The case study considered the support of a legacy control system for a chemical product manufacturing company (the system was originally developed and deployed in the 1970s) and has over 2000 instances (plants) installed and currently operating and supported worldwide. In this case, because the process line availability is very important, unscheduled downtime cannot be tolerated. The model overviewed in Section 13.3.2 requires three distribution inputs: the current age distribution (fC), the distribution of hiring age (fH) and the distribution of exit age (fL). Two of these distribution inputs are readily available from organizations field data: the hiring age (fH) and a current age distribution (fC), Figure 13-1. The current age distribution (in Figure 13-1b) has a mode of 55 years, which is very close to the early retirement age in the organization, thereby demonstrating the issue that this chapter is focused on. The exit age distribution (fL) shown in Figure 13-2 for this case study was synthesized using the distributions for fH(a) and fC(a) in Figure 13-1 along with the assumption of a stationary process. Figure 13-2 is a bathtub curve. It indicates that workers either exit early or exit late (but few exit between ages 45 and 60. The younger workers exit because they are changing jobs within the company. The company modeled in this case study, has had difficulty retaining young workers (engineers) to support the legacy system. The younger engineers have a tendency to relocate to other job opportunities within the company that they perceive as having better long-term career prospects. Above age 60 the workers are retiring. Figure 13-2 supports the critical skills loss observation made in Section 13.2 that younger workers leave legacy system support jobs (presumably for other positions). The number of workers (pool size) is shown in Figures 13-1 and 13-2, but the experience contained within the pool is not reflected in these distributions. To get from pool size to the workforce pool experience, the mapping from age to applicable experience is needed. The parameters for the mapping function in Equation 13-3 were generated from the years of experience (on the control system) and the years of service to the company. The net pool size (number of workers) over time as a fraction of the pool size in 2010, NNET, is shown in Figure 13-3a. Figure 13-3b shows the experience relative to 2010, and Figure 13-3c shows the average age of the workers in the pool. The results in Figure 13-3 assume no hiring, H = 0. Figures 13-3a and 13-3b indicate that although a 10% drop in head count occurs in the first 6 years, the experience remains approximately constant (existing workers are gaining enough on-the-job experience to offset the drop in head count). After 2016, the experience drops as the oldest and most experienced workers leave and are not being sufficiently replenished. Assuming that the lost skills are replenishable (they are not for the real company treated in this case study), we can estimate what the future hiring rate, Hi, would have to be to preserve the initial level of experience, E0, in the skills pool. Equation 13-1 is used to determine the annual hiring rate, Hi, that is required to replenish the cumulative experience lost as a result of attrition and retirement. Figure 13-4 shows results for hiring rate, Hi, relative to the initial pool size P0as a function of the number of years from the start of the analysis. Figure 13-4 shows that no hiring is required in the first five years (we are not allowing hiring to drop below 0, a hiring rate below 0 would reflect a layoff situation). A hiring rate of over 6% is required starting in 2017 for 9 years and then settles to 2-5% for all the years thereafter. When H is greater than zero in (4), the hiring rate is applied to the entire hiring age distribution, fH. The required hiring rate solved for in Figure 13-4 accounts for both the time required for new workers to learn the skills necessary to support the system and the exit age distribution in Figure 13-1. Figure 13-5 shows the annual cost of supporting the legacy control system through year 2040 (all 2000+ instances of the system are costed here). The cost modeling is performed using a stochastic discrete-event simulator that samples time-to-failure distributions for the components of the control system to obtain maintenance events (determining the maintenance event dates and the components that need replacement). Subsystem-specific (and severity category specific[2]) failure distributions are sampled to obtain failure dates for the system. At each maintenance event, maintenance resources are drawn and a cost is estimated using Equation 13-5. Most of the maintenance events do not result in business interrupt time because they only impact one of the two parallel control systems and = 0, however, a small fraction (the most severe events) result in dual control system failures where > 0. The risk of dual failures and the resulting business interrupt is captured by the differing severit y categories. The specific data associated with the system count, the subsystem/severity category reliabilities, and the cost of business interrupt time is proprietary to the customer and therefore not included here. For this case study, was determined to be 0.54, meaning that when the number of people in the pool drops below 54% of the number that are in the pool initially (in 2010), the extra maintenance time penalty (modeled by (15)) is applied. Figure 13-5 shows two support cost results. The results demonstrate that there is minimal effect of skills loss prior to 2030. In year 2028 existing lifetime buys of spares parts (hardware) start to run out resulting in the cost step between 2028 and 2030. We obtain the lower curve in Figure 13-5 when there is no skills loss, Ei/E0 = 1 for all i in Equation 13-4. In this case there is still an annual cost increase caused by part obsolescence that is mitigated via lifetime buys of parts (these buys commit significant capital to the pre-purchase of spare parts and long-term holding costs). The higher cost curve in Figure 13-5 is the case where no replenishment of lost skills is possible (H = 0), this is close to reality for the company considered in this case study. 13.4 Discussion Workforce planning means ensuring that you have the right number of people, with the right skills sets, in the right jobs, at the right time. This chapter presents a model that enables workforce planning in cases where the workforce is non-replenishable. The model developed estimates both the number of skilled employees (workforce pool size) and the cumulative experience in the workforce pool. This information is used to determine the resources available to maintain a system as a function of time. Cumulative experience dictates the time (and the resultant cost) required for workers to perform the maintenance activities necessary to support the system. Because of the prohibitively large cost of legacy system replacement, these systems are rarely replaced unless a catastrophic failure occurs or their support costs become impractical. The model can potentially be used by companies to support the development of business cases for system replacement, see (Sandborn and Prabhakar, 2015). Numerous important assumptions were made in the development of the model. In the solution presented here, we assume that years on the job is the only way workers can gain experience. We have not accounted for methods that could be used to accelerate the rate at which workers become more experienced, e.g., capturing older workers knowledge in knowledge bases [29,30] could accelerate experience. We have performed a discrete-time analysis because the input data that was available to us only exists annually. A continuous-time solution could also be developed, but one must be careful to match the model to the form of the input data. There are several indirect consequences of the loss of critical skills that we have not addressed, and which would be challenging to quantify in terms of cost. The workers that are maintaining systems (particularly engineers) are likely to be performing other beneficial tasks in addition to corrective maintenance. Besides corrective maintenance, they may also perform: preventative maintenance, projects intended to upgrade the reliability and/or performance of the system, and knowledge transfer activities. As workforce resources decrease, it is reasonable to assume that all tasks, except corrective maintenance, would decrease. Even if sufficient resources remain available for corrective maintenance tasks, an inability to perform the other tasks that the engineers might do results in a loss of: maintenance efficiency improvements, system reliability improvements that could decrease future maintenance requirements, and system performance. Further, if the job satisfaction amongst the eng ineers that are forced to only perform maintenance decreases then their retention may be negatively impacted. There are other factors that may modify the case study presented herein. These factors include location (culture certainly impacts the likelihood that highly-skilled workers remain in system support jobs), gender, the product sector, etc. These effects could be analyzed with the presented in this chapter model if sufficient data existed. [1] For many types of legacy systems, 5 or more years of on-the-job experience may be required to become competent. [2] The level of maintenance required (which dictates the maintenance resources required) and the degree of business interrupt associated with the maintenance event are governed by the severity categories. See From (Sandborn and Williams, 2016) for details.

Imperialism Fueled By A Dubious Sense Of Capitalism Politics Essay

Imperialism Fueled By A Dubious Sense Of Capitalism Politics Essay Imperialism is a developing world concept taken on by the strongest powers on the globe. The idea of colonizing or occupying another nation or territory for economic or territorial purposes is an overarching idea that resonates with occidental powers. Intellectuals such as Karl Marx, Nicolai Lenin, Joseph Schumpeter, and John Hobson each have their own views on imperialism that all mange to be intertwined and unequivocally potent to the modern day understanding of imperialism. Despite a specified piece designated on imperialism, Marxs contributions were attributed during points in his writings on India and in the Communist Manifesto. His views on imperialism are understood as the expansion of capitalist relations throughout the globe. Lenin and Hobson despite some diverging ideas both spear headed the concept that imperialism was a product of capitalism. Schumpeter, on the other hand, believed that imperialism is a pre-capitalist phenomena and it is based on the simple desire for con quest. Because of his tangential view on imperialism, this paper will highlight the divergence and congruence of Schumpeters ideology, once studied against Marx, Lenin, and Hobson. Additionally, the political realm continuously seeks the theory most adherent to Marxs original intentions; the paper will continue to elaborate on how Lenins ideas are more on target with orthodox Marxism than that Hobson. Karl Marx, one of the greatest thinkers and philosophers in modern time, impacted and continues to impact millions of people around the globe in combating the oppression set forth by an overpowering bourgeoisie on a suffering proletariat. In identifying that capitalism leads to more surplus labor than value, he took matters upon himself to empower the working class and abolish all means of class separation. Marx believed that the power of capital rests on the ideological and organizational degree of unity among workers (Prof. Stephen Bronner, personal communication). In the Communist Manifesto, Marx stated that, The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. (Tucker 477) Marx is ensuing that the developed world has taken complete control over the world market and in doing so they can over produce their products at a cheap prices and force their consumption upon the underdeveloped world. T his means of exploitation batters down all Chinese walls because all nations seeking to improve upon their economic problems are willing to compel any nation to abide by its own mode of production, thus taking on the bourgeois stance (Tucker 477). Marx believed this bourgeois nation creates a world after its own image. (Tucker 477) The underdeveloped world sees in the developed world the image of its own future. Hence, the bourgeois becomes an international class, in contradiction with the current view of globalization. Under the Marxist view, imperialism is embedded within capitalism having an omnivorous character that is engaged in an assault on traditional society. Hence, Marx suggested a non political position in which a society would take on basic structures of productions or die. (Prof. Stephen Bronner, personal communication) Any anti-imperialistic revolts that emerged were seen as anti-capitalistic, once more resulting that each are essential for the other and are not establ ished separately. Schumpeter, an Austro-Marxist, dealt with universal nationalism and was embraced by the main stream. Schumpeter argues that the conquest for expansion is pre-capitalistic yet it no way is it subordinate. Imperialism, under Schumpeter is viewed as the objectless disposition on the part of a state to unlimited forcible expansion. (Schumpeter 7) Thus meaning that it is human nature for a state to seek expansion while capitalism in an indigenous phenomena of the West. Capitalism will inevitably eliminate imperialism and result in the diminishing of ideological concerns. Unaddressed under Schumpeter, capitalism may be a post-imperialistic thought but it does not ensure stability. Additionally, a dominant economic power is an essential base for an imperial power thus proving that most economically advanced nations are those who are engaged in capitalism. (Prof. Stephen Bronner, personal communication) Schumpeter believed that as capitalism develops the quest for imperialism slowly disinteg rates. In a style of dichotomy, the differences between Schumpeter and Marx showed a clear divide in the theory of class domination, oppression, and struggle as the mainspring of history. Schumpeter believed that the ambitions of many people are minimal because they compromise a larger majority of the world populace but those in the upper class sect of society are thrust with greatness because they are the minority. This, Schumpeter emphasized, is natural and has nothing to do with the Marxian idea of class struggles. Yet the main thing he did share with Marx was the economic interpretation of history, without the Marxian supplements of class struggles. The economic interpretation of history included the ideas that the countries would attain wealth based on productivity and profit. One of Marxs fundamental mistakes to Schumpeters, was to take that power and will to power of the captains and generals of industry of the early and middle nineteenth century to be outstanding in the character of the entire, much larger class, the bourgeois as a whole and sure to continue to characterize it in undiminished degree as long as the class should exist.  [1]  For Schumpeter on the contrary, the forceful or potent character was always confined to the group of leading entrepreneurs.  [2]   Schumpeter had a more unorthodox view on imperialism then other thinkers. Lenin and Hobson both shaped the framework for the clarification on how imperialism has made an imprint on the world and its people. Hobson defines imperialism as the endeavor of the great controller of industry to broaden the channel for the flow of surplus wealth by seeking foreign markets and foreign investments to take off the goods and capital they cannot sell or use at home. (1) This denotation projected by Hobson illustrates a strictly productive and profit seeking state. Hobson, a classical Fabian, focused his criticism of imperialism on the industrial aspects and neglected the older quests for imperialism based on expansion. While Marx stated that capitalism does generate imperialism, Hobson believed they were connected but one must take into account the parasitic sectors involved in imperialism. Hobson had a strong belief that capitalism can be reformed but there must be the existence of both capitali sm and imperialism or the country allows the two to run rampant. Hobson viewed imperialism as an economic taproot and it served as the parasitical sector of capitalism. In order for capital to move the conquest of territories are essential and all great powers engaged in the imperial enterprise are colonial. Imperialism, Hobson writes, is the natural product of economic pressures of a sudden advance of capitalism which cannot find occupation at home and needs foreign markets for goods and investments. (65) As the nations become more industrialized, the growth of productions exceeds the growth in consumption; more goods are produced than can be sold at a profit; more capital exists that can find remunerative investment.  [3]  Since it becomes more difficult for manufacturers, merchants, and financiers to dispose of their economic resources, they bring pressure to bear on the government to secure for their particular use some distant, underdeveloped country by annexation and protection. It is these economic conditions which form the taproot of Imperialism (85-86). Thus being, Hobsons view projects that the next and final stage in the imperialism process is capitalism. According to Hobson, the causes of imperialism would be eliminated if there were better distribution of wealth. (91-92) If the surplus wealth, that is over savings, were distributed either to the workers in the form of higher wages or to the community in the form of taxes, so that it were spent instead of being saved, serving in either of these ways to increase consumption, there would be no need to fight for foreign markets or foreign areas of investment. If incomes were distributed so as to enable all groups in the economy to increase their consumption, there could be no overproduction, no underemployment of capital and labor, and no necessity for the state to pursue a policy of imperialism. Lenin on the other hand had a three-fold objective: to save revolutionary Marxism; to annihilate the opportunists, namely, Kautsky, who is painted as the villain for his defilement of Marxism; and to provide a truly Russian or Eastern version of socialism which would be applicable to backward, agricultural, semi-colonial and colonial countries.  [4]  Stalin defined Leninism as, Marxism in the epoch of imperialism and proletarian revolution.  [5]  Imbedded in his goals and policies Lenin does not let go of the Marxist foundation that are essential to formulate a successful revolution. Lenin believed that the only way to combat the colonially imperialistic powers is through war and in doing so Marx should lie at the base. Lenin goes on to say that imperialism is the stage of development in which the domination of monopolies and finance capital has taken shape; in which the export of capital is important, in which the division of the world by the international trusts has begun, and in which the partition of all the territory of the earth by the greatest capitalist countries has been completed. (Lenin 88-89) The view illuminated here by Lenin does not address imperialism as an ends for a means but an essential stage of development that is undergone once capitalistic countries take control of the sphere. According to Lenin, the economic persona of imperialism is monopoly capitalism. Monopolies grow out of the concentration of production into a conglomerate of businesses and trusts which play a very important role in modern economic life. These monopolies have captured the most important sources of raw materials, which fact in turn has enormously increased the power of big capitalists and have sharpened the antagonism between cartelized and noncartelized industry. (Lenin 123-127) In his discussion of cartelized and industries not cartelized, Lenin shows that because there is a cluster of business dominating the price margin of products the tension between them and uncartelized industries increase leading to an imperialistic nature. The growth of these powerful monopolies and oligarchies, with their striving for domination, annexation, and ruinous exploitation of backward area, has given rise to imperialism, which, as Lenin puts it, is parasitic or decaying capitalism. Thus capitalism has grown into a world system of colonial oppression and of financial control of the overwhelming majority of the people of the world, by a handful of large capitalist countries, which involves the whole world in their war over the sharing of their booty. (Lenin 10) Because imperialism is placed by Lenin as one in the same, the establishment of a powerful capitalist country inevitably leads to an imperialistic nature. Under capitalism, Lenin wrote, the only way to remove or set an end to the problems caused by highly productive and capitalistic forces leading to the division of colonies and spheres of influences for finance capital on the other, is through war.  [6]  In terms of imperialism, Lenins theory does not contradict Marxs analysis of capitalism. Both men believed in and witnessed the formation of monopolies. Yet Lenins theory contradicts Marxs doctrine of the lumpen proletariat because he believes that capitalism will not generate the adequate amount of money needed to employ all those not working. (Marx Communist Manifesto) Lenin fails to acknowledge to Hobson approach that entails that excess capital causes capitalistic countries to invest overseas and in doing so sustained full employment is not a factor. In comparison to Marx they both addressed that in adherence to capitalism state will search for new markets that can increase profit. Since the bottom line for monopolies is to increase profit, Lenin was right insofar as imperialism is caused by the search for new markets.  [7]   While Hobson and Lenin looked to the basic causes of imperialism in the market place, Schumpeter disputed their views greatly and felt that imperialism was built on a negative connotation. Schumpeter presents a theory which exonerates capitalism from the charge of being inherently imperialistic. He discards the attempts of Hobson and Lenin to ascribe a purely economic interpretation to the phenomenon of imperialism. Such an interpretation is incomplete, as non-economic factors must also be considered. Wars, conquests, annexations are not necessarily a result of imperialism. The desire for power for its own sake, the actions of rulers, the desire to subject a people to a specific though, the fight for freedom, all have been causes of war. Furthermore, in analyzing the writings of Lenin, Hobson, and Schumpeter the congruence in thought are stronger between Hobson and Schumpeter than that with Lenin. Even though Hobson still traces the causes of imperialism to economic problems causing a capitalistic country to seek foreign markets, he believes that in tackling this issue the bond between imperialism and capitalism is broken. This would ensue that capitalism is apart from imperialism rather than a reason to be imperialistic. In Lenins philosophy capitalism is in the same cesspool as imperialism and an attack on imperialism is an attack on capitalism. For this reason Lenins model proved to be crucial for anti-imperialistic movements. Schumpeters ideas, though abstract, are based stronger on sociological and psychological paths, two details that Lenin and Hobson did not mention in either of their writings. Moreover, imperialism is a complex topic that is understood differently by different scholars and in contradiction Sc humpeter, without capitalism a state would not seek to expand and alter the lives of underdeveloped states seeking their own sustainable lives.

The Mythical Divine :: Art Artistic Architecture Essays

The Mythical Divine It is the mystery of the past which sparks the imagination of the future. The remnants of lost cultures, ever enticing with their fractured story, have continually piqued the interest of humankind. Ancient Egypt reflects 3000 years of splendor, serenity and mystery. This enigmatic civilization has become the focal point of scholarly study and artistic reproduction over the last 200 years. It has been unsurpassed in use and depiction as a model to convey many differing images. One, most unique, replication of dynastic Egypt is Pharaoh's Lost Kingdom amusement park in Redlands, California. It is a composite of ancient art and architecture used to recreate a world of mystery and intrigue in a modern day setting. The park rises seemingly out of nowhere just as the Giza pyramids project from a barren desert floor. As you enter, you embark on a journey from the monotony of everyday life to a sacred mystical landscape. In his book, Spiritual Path, Sacred Place, Thomas Barrie states: "The sacred place was never an impassive backdrop;... it was a dynamic place, often charged with emotional energy and experienced spatially and temporally as its users moved through its spaces or entered its sacred enclosures." (p.54) For the participant, especially children, this emotion of complete awe mixed with fantastic delight is evoked as soon as one gazes upon the central building of the park complex. The entrance to the park, the line separating what is real from the imaginary (the constructed), is guarded by a huge sphinx. Here, as in Egypt: "[Its] essential function has been to embody welcome and protection." ("Egyptomania" p.22) Yet the creators of the theme park have gone further. They have deliberately replaced the Pharaoh Khafre's head with the funerary mask of King Tutankhamun. This coupling is an attempt to immediately give the visitor two extremely recognizable images. The typical traveler is left mystified by the immensity of the statue, unaware of the mixed icons. In many types of building plans: "The demarcating of sacred ground was typically accomplished architecturally by the form and geometry of the sacred place." (Spiritual Path, Sacred Place p.56) The central building of Pharaoh's Lost Kingdom applies this ideal to announce the grandeur and monolithic proportions of its premises. Five large pyramids sit atop the rectangular building pointing toward the sky. Some are reminiscent of Djoser's stepped pyramid while the central one is a smaller version of the great pyramids of Giza.

Judaism Essay example -- essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"When people around the world were worshiping thunder and wind, the Jews had but one word to say - God.† Judaism is one of the three major religions in our society today along with Islam and Christianity. Judaism believes there is only one God who created and presides over the world. Their God is all powerful, all knowing and is in all places at all times. He is also compassionate and just. The Jewish religion is passed on via the mother of a child. If the mother is Jewish, the child is 100% Jewish. According to Jewish law, one will remain a Jew even if they don’t practice Judaism or they do not believe in God.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Israelites accepted the Ten Commandments from God at Mount Sinai therefore they devoted themselves to following a code of law which regulates both how they worship and how they should treat other people. The Ten Commandments were given to Abraham and they serve as a moral code not only for the Jews but for all of society. The Ten Commandments are as follows: 1.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I am the Lord your God 2.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  You shall not recognize the gods of others in My presence 3.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain 4.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Remember the day of Shabbat to keep it holy 5.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Honor your father and your mother 6.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  You shall not murder 7.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  You shall not commit adultery 8.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  You shall not steal 9.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Do not give false testimony against your neighbor 10.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  You shall not covet your fellow's possessions (http://godstenlaws.com/commandments.htm) The Torah is the Jewish holy book. Jews believe that it is God's instructions to the Jews with guidelines on how they should act, think and even feel about life. It includes every aspect of life, from birth through death. The Torah contains 613 commandments, but the Ten Commandments are considered the most important commandments. There are two parts to the Torah; The written and the oral Torah. The Written Torah contains:  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  1. Five Books of Moses   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  &nb... ... and ending after dusk on the day of Yom Kippur. Jews refrain from eating and drinking anything on Yom Kippur. The Jews fast to atone for the sins they have committed through out the past year. Passover is the most widely observed Jewish holiday. On Passover, Jews all over the world conduct a Passover Seder. Seder means order or organization. The Passover Seder is a celebratory meal that is performed in an organized way so that all the commandments of Pesach will be performed. The Torah commands Jews on Passover to tell the story of the Exodus and to eat matzah. On Passover Jews must eat bitter herbs this is done to remind them of the Israelites' suffering. They must also eat extra matzah called afikoman to remind them of the sacrifice of Passover. They must recite Hallel psalms of praise, drink four cups of wine, and demonstrate acts of freedom such as sitting with a pillow.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Believers of Judaism await the coming of the Messiah. The importance placed on a future occurrence is one of the strongest factors that is responsible for the continuance of any religion. It supports the need to follow the customs, ethics, morals of the particular belief system.

The Preprogrammin of a Child Essay -- essays research papers

A child is a blank book and a parent is the pen. A parent or elder makes a remark or takes action, and a child often will respond by mimicking what has been said or done. The essence of a child is one of innocence as well as gullibility. Adults serve as an abundance of knowledge, rules, and regulations, which a child is supposed to live and abide by. Not all children will obey the regulations expected of them, yet certain rules are more critical than others. When disciplining children, parents and adults take rules pertaining to gender specifications much more seriously than most other topics of obedience, without acknowledging they are practicing such behaviors. Gender distinctions are apparent within the way children are spoken to, how they are treated in certain situations, and the toys they play and interact with. Ultimately in a media driven society, such as America, it would be nearly impossible to raise a child free from gender stereotyping. Over the course of more recent yea rs the distinct gender defined world of toys has been lessened, yet most of these stereotypes still seem to appear to be engrained into a child’s brain almost from birth.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As early as the birth of a child there are specified gender separations. Once born, a child is distinguished by either the color blue or pink. You can see a pink stork on the corner for a new baby girl or a blue stork for a new baby boy. Of course these colors are not comprehensible to the child, yet children throughout the rest of the neighborhood view these signs. A parent may make a comment pertaining to the neighbors having a new baby boy simply because of a blue sign. This could be one of the initial unconscious comments a parent or adult may make, which instills such beliefs that color defines gender. Throughout adolescence it is a rarity to see a young boy wearing a pink shirt, because there is a stigma associated with a young boy wearing the color pink. We take such an ineffectual concept, a color, and place behind it prejudice. Later on in life wearing the color pink can conjure up assumptions of homosexuality. These judgments have no validation to them, except the stigma American’s associated with this color throughout childhood experiences and understandings.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another example of the emphasis of color on gender can be directed at the legos toy.... ...bsp;Children are blank books who need direction; it is obvious that parents are not the only ones holding the pen to dictate their knowledge. Other adults, peers, and society take their turn in marking their territory. In order to raise a child free from gender stereotypes, that child must be home schooled, not allowed to entertain themselves with most reading material available, and could not be permitted to socialize with anyone outside their â€Å"regulator.† The way in which society has been constructed restricts the level of censorship available outside the home. In other words this society has such an immense amount of gender stereotypes within every aspect of the outside world that it would be just about impossible to out run their impact. Ideally each person should be able to get past what society dictates, yet it is much easier to fall into the trap of acceptance. It is very difficult to parade a boy of two years old, in a pink outfit without feeling the stare of disapproval from outsiders. People must use the term acceptance rather than exclusion, because the worst oppression is that which is placed on a child who does not have the capability to understand his or her choices.

E-Business and E-Commerce Web Apps Essay

Transforming a brick-and-mortar business to an e business is not an easy task. The first step in creating an e-business is to conduct a market research on the competition we need to gather information such as shipping costs, price points, web navigation shopping cart procedures, and alternate revenue streams. The next step would be to create a detailed business plan with sales projections, budgets, goals, and actions. The third step is creating a Domain name that reflects your business for example: UNFO.com/ UNFO.ORG. After this step we have clearly identified the target market in the different fishing towns in Michigan, then an advertising budgets for online strategies, we also need to establish different distribution channels of the merchandise if shipping is required. Then we UNFO need to determine if the company is going to sell goods or services or advertising. One of the most important aspect of the customer information that is going to be handle would be Data Management, since we are handling customer data, such as credit cards information, mailing addresses, it is essential to have a published policy detailing how the information would be gathered, stored, and secured. A well effective return policy would be clearly stated and acknowledged by the customers. The other important aspect is weather the data will be updated and maintained in-house or outsource support. At last we will need to implement a Customer Service department and determine the methods for online customer service. Analyzing the market and the recent emerging technologies it would be recommended to implement a fully integrated ERP, UNFO will have a distinct advantage an internal transaction engine in place to deliver on the promises of the company’s Web pages, and the ability to truly show â€Å"one face to the customer,† not only in front-end Web-page design, but also in the way Web-based functions integrate with  internal â€Å"back-office† functions. This integration means that Web-based entry flows directly into real-time available-to-promise and order fulfillment. For suppliers, it means that the company truly is able to manage the flow of materials into the production process to the advantage of both parties rather than merely to push inventory onto the supplier. Implementing an effective Internet marketing strategy UNFO will follow the 10 online marketing avenues that craft-based Web site. Participate in craft-related forums building relationships. These relationships come from the customer. Drive articles to the web site with article links, issue an online press releases for new fishing products or services, develop a link exchange program with related web sites, use click based advertising on related sites , and register the bookmarks of your business online with companies. The enhancing the customer service delivery also involves ensuring security for communications and protecting customer information, using VoIP provides less-expensive alternatives for the different hubs, implementing a secure access for remote employees secure remote communication channels would need to be implemented , UNFO would need to use a virtual private link between the employees and the remote network or a VPN. Also secure web protocols to provide a way to authenticate the clients and servers on the web to protect the integrity of the communication, (PPTP) Point to Point Tunneling Protocol creates a secure communication tunnel between the two points it also enables authenticated and encrypted transmissions between the clients and the servers, we can also implement (L2TP) Layer two tunneling protocol and it uses tunneling to deliver the data, also implementing (IPSecs) Internet Protocol Security to secure communications between systems on the network as well as outside to the different hubs or towns. UNFO needs to maintain a highly available and secure E-mail and web site hosting using the most advance methods in today’s industry for example: using redundant hardware configuration such as (RAID) for hard disks, multiple memory, and failover servers, hardening applications using the latest service pack and patches to prevent software failure, have all up to date antivirus, intrusion detection and protection systems, use secure protocols like the ones mentioned earlier, implement and use (UPS) for power outages to protect the web servers , and use a remote network location if the primary location be compromised the second location  can take over. One important part of E-Commerce is maintaining stringent site security, confidentiality for the customers, integrity, and availability, also a secure system must contain authentication verification of the user, Authorization, allowing manipulation of the resources in a specific way and Encryption for records and transactions.

Criminal Punishment Essay

Given the different speeds at which people may develop both physically and intellectually, any form of explicit age limit may be arbitrary and irrational. Children do not deserve to be exposed to criminal punishment in the same way as adults. Children have not had experience of life, nor do they have the same mental and intellectual capacities as adults. Persons aged 15 to 19 years are more likely to be processed by police for the commission of a crime than are members of any other population group. In reference to the case with the 6 yr. old shooting his classmate, I believe he should have some sort of punishment. The young boy had a scuffle the day before and went home and because of his environment and upbringing he knew that a gun was dangerous and can cause harm to another person. The young boy at some point had to think about his actions and decided to take the weapon to school and later, shooting the young classmate which means the young 6 yr. old practiced on pulling the trig ger. Sure, you have an innocence factor here and each state sets the age limit on what age to charge a child with a criminal act. Age and criminal responsibility is a really touchy topic for many any children under the age of 7 and in the United States the criminal justice system can charge a youth with a criminal crime at the age of 6 years of age. I know of two cases where six year old boys were convicted on criminal charges in the state of California. I believe that the 6 yr. old in the course readings should’ve been court ordered to undergo professional counseling or treatment. If a punishment was not something the state wanted to issue, I definitely would argue that the youth was exposed to a household where guns and drugs were prevalent and the youth himself in my opinion may have suffered from some sort of PTSD. The classmate that was shot has a family and that family needs justice. Justice would not be served if the six year old walks away free. Charging the 19 yr. old in the house with guns and drugs does not solve the crime that took place at the school. There is an age limit for holing a child accountable for criminal responsibility and in this case, the youth should’ve been charged. The youth should’ve undergone a session to determine if he was mentally aware and then the state should’ve charged the young boy.