FOUR QUESTIONS TEST

FOUR QUESTIONS TEST

Question #1

1.

Means of production are the non-human or physical inputs that are used in the production process. These include equipment or tools, raw materials, and industrial units.

When workers own the means of production, it means they have total control over all the means of production, and thus they cannot be exploited in any way.

Controlling means of production enables workers to have control over their work processes and management over their work.

Accordingly, the sharing of profits is based on the individual contribution of the workers. Thus they are motivated to work for long hours if they intend to receive more, and in this way, production is increased.

Also, there is equal access to social amenities like healthcare and education, and those who do not work are also provided with basic needs since natural resources are preserved for the whole society.

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2.

In a capitalist economy, the degree of manipulation is both commercial and sociological since it articulates capital’s societal and administrative control above labour, and also, capitalism’s essential predisposition toward an awareness crisis, or the predicaments of capital over-production (Feldman, 2019, May). However, when capital manoeuvres much authority over employment, there will be a rapid intensification in the level of mistreatment, and the peril of recognition will also be excessive. Therefore, there is a necessity for a large credit organization, antagonistic marketing, continuous product modernization, and strengthened competition will increase too.

The capitalist industry has immensely exaggerated the process of military development based on the continuous revolution of the military equipment from massive weapons to very minute arms that can fit in a bag. Therefore capitalism has largely instigated the automation of armaments, as well as their manufacture, plan, and carriage of the weapons. However, the mechanism of development of the weaponry equipment was mainly as a result of the rivalry of private manufacturers, and the regime provided a ready market for them.

In a capitalist economy, corporations have more supremacy such that they charge amounts that are immensely greater than can be reasonably based on the expenditures of inputs. This is stimulated by the absence of competitors in the economy. Therefore the firms have less productivity with higher costs, and the resulting price of the output is also increased.

5.

Capitalism does not always provide useful work for all those who want to work and allows many people who are physically and mentally able to stay idle without work.

Again, it is inefficient and wasteful in its concern for augmented value and cost-effectiveness of its products and is not apprehensive about human needs. This, however, consents the thoughtful damage of goods due to their unaffordability by ordinary people.

 6.

Capitalism entails a class conflict since the society is alienated into classes with disparate welfares. In contrast, for socialism, resources are shared equally, such that there are no conflicting interests in the community, and there is no partition of classes.

Socialism is concerned with establishing shared freedom among the working class to ensure that all workers are treated the same, and natural resources are distributed uniformly. In capitalism resources and all means of production are owned by private organizations and based on the existing classes in the society, there is no even distribution of resources, and therefore many people remain unemployed.

The sensible planning and ownership of the factors of production by a socialist society help to advance the level of output. This is because the inefficiencies and waste of workforce, equipment, and money, related with capitalist societies or economies are eliminated by the establishment of intercontinental concord and thus hastening the swiftness of technical advancement which stimulates the production of goods and services. Therefore the people’s standards of living improve.

Question #2

Precarious work is a demonstration of occupations that are indeterminate, erratic, and dangerous. It is a form of dependent work and is always not a long term work but very periodic. Precarious jobs are characterized by a lack of control over the working hours allocated for workers, and prospective risks may be associated with such work, thus posing job constraints in the future.

An instance of precarious work is illustrated by the full-time secondary scholars in Australia, who hold casual works in the trade sector. The part-time jobs are a good illustration of precariousness, although the adverse effects on the student-workers are diffident. Mutually since involvement in precarious work is restricted, commonly in rapports of weekly or daily hours assigned for work, and the allied risks are mitigated by operational forces like access to substitute sources of income and vocation paths. Also, a longitudinal perception discloses that the same set of student-workers faces main threats in the prospect, based on the progressively apprehensive workforce markets.

2.

Unions act as monopolies such that workers who are not members of the association cannot compete against them in securing job opportunities, and the union workers are much protected such that they are termed as very influential (Dawson, 2018). Their jobs cannot be easily outdone. This poses their claim for higher wages and even does very little work than they could do if there were competition.

Also, when workers threaten to stop work if their salaries are not toped up, the union’s vigour corporations to dismiss some employees who are mostly the new union workers but safeguards those with more seniority, the elder in the association. This is a form of discrimination since they do a selective pitting of employees against consumers, or even their employers.

Again, union work positions are shared concerning the workers’ membership period in the union, whereby those that joined the union earlier are given priority. This shows that there is no democracy in unions.

Hiring part-time employees will help the company to reduce the cost of operation. This is the payroll cost since they only hire a worker with the required skills, and once the work is finished, they dismiss the person (Ehrenreich, 2016). Hiring a full-time employee for this work will lead to continuous spending to pay the person even when he or she does not work.

This is because housework is virtually invisible, and nobody can identify it till it is through and again, being regarded as women’s obligation contributes to the predominant social arrogances in the society whereby women are allied with the homestead and are minor beings in the community (Capper & Austin, 2018). Also, the perception of the organisation that any duty done by women is not essential, and is not hard, leads to a devaluation of housework.

Question #3

1.

According to Tony Weis, the subtleties of the industrialized grain-oilseed-livestock composite is the suitable way of appreciation of the course of gratification, the power of its drive, as well as its prevailing influences of industrial livestock production.

The developed grain-oilseed-livestock compound is, however, the principal system of agriculture across the moderate regions and is slowly spreading to substantial parts of the tropics. However, its backgrounds can be attributed to the isles of stanch livestock within the oceans of grain and oilseed monocultures.

These isles of concentrated livestock and oceans of monocultures are then reshaped by hefty flows of crops such as maize or corn, barley, sorghum, soybeans, and rapeseed or canola recycling over livestock. This dislodgment is, and reshaping is facilitated by a collection of machinery, inputs, and big companies, and marked by the damage of vast capacities of proper diet.

Consequently, radical proliferation in yield and productivity per agrarian have been essential to this system, which thus reinforces global foodstuff refuge and has reconfigured nourishments in very irregular means (Weis, 2016). The rise in output has strengthened the uneven meatification of nourishments, and otherwise, it has propagated a firm reliance upon economical grain importations in numerous deprived nations.

Again, augmented productivity of livestock has modelled intensified rivalry amid small farm livings due to the improvisation of agro-industries and is a biophysical illogicality since the livestock output overtakes the organic and physical basics of agriculture. Tony Weis comments by stating that global food disasters may be defined in terms of the liveliness of grain and oilseed markets, as well as the associated issues of food insecurity, which can be traced in the weak states.

When nutrition difficulty is assumed in terms of the biophysical discrepancies of the developed grain-oilseed-livestock complex and how it is hastening, the meat befits the fundamental feature and continuously undermines the agricultural development course. Industrial livestock production is the stirring control for the cumulative meat ingestion on a global scale, and the method of recycling huge bulks of industrialized grains and oilseeds. This is accomplished by intensifying populations of concerted livestock to assist in expanding the terrestrial and resource tactics, wealth, and greenhouse gas discharge supplementary to farming.

The industrial yield of livestock is superseded in ways that centre on the unmaintainable usage of non-renewable resources, mainly fossil energy and produce incredible discharges and wastes. Also, the rationality of proficiency aggregates to a massive impression, as it decides the pricing of low-priced food, and more so, plays a significant part in modelling configurations of international food refuge. Though this impression has now began to fissure between escalating and congregating complications of biodiversity damage, soil deprivation, lessening freshwater convenience, deteriorations in crucial non-renewable resources, and climate variation.

The prolonged biophysical ambiguities are presently hastening and is marked by the bounding of the formerly low-priced industrial merchandises to convert more costly, and with the utmost susceptibility pinpointed in the world’s Low Food Import Dependent Countries (LIFDCs), of which most of the LIFDCs are situated in the semi-arid regions, where the change in climate is anticipated to affect agriculture first and nastiest (Efstathiou et al, 2019). Presently, ample serious consideration is assumed to international food inequities is engrossed on the unambiguous discrepancies allied with the manufacturing agro-fuel affluent and the new land snatches. Industrial agro-fuels want increasing shares of agrarian land and crop production, with doubtful energetic plans in which there is very restricted energy reimbursed comparative to the power capitalized in production. And there is an apparent regressivity to the rising rivalry amid people with cars and those stressed to secure sufficient nourishment.

Additionally, agro-fuels feature in the land snatching recounting through the south, particularly in Africa, in which fluctuating permutations of international companies, investment capital, and independent wealth resources, and national venture organizations are collaborating with native leaders and fraudulent regimes to snatch vast areas of land for mutually prolific and hypothetical usages. Nevertheless, as vital as the agro-fuel affluent is, it must not diminish from the discrimination and environmental effects of industrialized livestock production, which founds an elder, more significant, and correspondence reverting jerk on world grain and oilseed yields.

The cumulative measure and mechanization of livestock production and the inherent feedstuff conversion inadequacies have an amplifying influence on the land region, marine, energy, and further resources that need be dedicated to grain and oilseed monocultures. The contaminants and the greenhouse gas discharges result from them. Added to this, our water, energy, and other inputs successful into factory supports and feedlots, and the contamination torrential out of them. This signifies that the irregular meatification of foods is not only a replication of international insecurity but also a key aspect aggravating it, main by climate change.

According to the movie, livestock keeping is a crucial cause of the rampant cases of water scarcities since animals drink large volumes of water, which is incomparable to the water consumed by human beings. Also, a lot of water is used for growing animal feed (Green, 2016). However, the want for meat is the primary motive of why people choose to do livestock farming. Since farmers require high quality products, they have to provide much food and water for the animals. Conservation of water will eliminate these shortages. Therefore people will have to reduce the amounts of meat and animals they consume; however, this is not logical for this generation.

Additionally, this film declares that the human nourish for animal products is obliterating the earth quicker due to the increased desire and market for animal products, mainly meat, which encourages the increasing number of livestock kept by farmers, and thus water consumption rises correspondingly.

Humans are absolutely omnivores. Our teeth well demonstrate this; our sets of teeth are, biting, slitting, and breaking incisors and canines; like carnivores and chewing and grinding molars, like herbivores. Logically, omnivores are the only animals with such miscellaneous sets of teeth, which enable them to feed on both flesh and vegetables.

Additionally, the chemical composition of body cells and organs of omnivores is a bit contrary to those of herbivores and carnivores. The cells of omnivores lack cellulose, which herbivores have, and also omnivores lack proteases which carnivores have, but rather have sucrases which allow us to digest fruits.

Also, humans only require vitamin B12 to survive, and this may be obtained from animal products or even certain microorganisms. Contrary, herbivores have to complement their nutrition. Again, humans ‘ essential vitamin C, which is extant in citrus fruits and tissue meat. However, the second, the flesh, was the chief source of vitamin C for our evolutionary intimates.

Subsequently, human beings have very potent livers, which are the detoxification or cleansing organ. The liver also has a powerful capability to odour rot or decay or decomposition comparative to other animals, herbivores and carnivores. This is a good illustration that we may have been developed as hunters, eating deceased, and a bit rotten carcasses murdered by other animals.

Furthermore, based on the illustration of the closest kinsfolks of human beings, the Chimpanzees, who are omnivores, a foremost theory has been used to demonstrate the course of human evolution. Firstly, anciently, humans were long-distance runners and usually hunted food by running other animals down till they became tired and fell. This marks the beginning of the predatory nature of human beings. However, the access to meat and proteins by the primitive humans led to the development of their brains to the extent that they could reason about things they never knew previously, and make viable decisions. This illustration portrays that meat-eating is in the history of human beings and their DNA and physiology too.

Consequently, the herbivorous nature of human beings was initiated by the development or evolution of their brains after eating too many proteins and meat when they survived as scavengers. Now the human brains had developed yonder hunting since they learned that fishing was not the only way of obtaining food, since it was very tiresome. Thus they looked for other means of securing food other than meat; the only option they had was vegetables since, in the forests, there were a lot of fruits that were edible even while raw.

This marks the course of how humans began ingesting vegan diets since, after some time, they realized that it was even nutritious than meat since it has relatively all vitamins that, to some extent, provide immunity to the body (Fox, 2018). Thus they could not be affected by diseases easily. However, they did not abandon the meat diet since some organs like the liver are rich in vitamin B12, which is essential for keeping the body’s nerves and blood cells very healthy, and also contributes to the genetic makeup of all cells in the body. Also, vitamin B12 was essential for ancient humans since it regulates skin pigmentation and provides the cobalamin, which initiates the metabolism of proteins and consequently promotes the growth or development of healthy skin cells, as well as helping in the repair of damaged skin. This was essential for the ancient humans who habited in the bush where they were prone to injuries, especially when running down animals for food.

Additionally, the meat diet provided a wide range of other vitamins and amino acids, which aided in developing the muscles of humans. Therefore their hands and limbs became very strong enough to pursue animals for long distances, especially during hunting and gathering. Human beings are thus justified to be omnivores. They have a variety of foods that they can pick and choose, this is contrary to the carnivores since they only feed on meat, and if they lack it, they die of hunger since they cannot feed on a vegan diet. Human beings are thus justified to be anciently carnivorous since feeding on meat initiated their evolution course.

Question #4

The Anthropocene is analyzed in a geological perception whereby human beings are regarded as the main force of nature; that is control over the quality, and therefore, it is concluded that our present geological epoch. And is dominated by human activity, whereby it points out the emission of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases which retain heat to the earth’s surface, and the earth’s temperature rises accordingly.

This concept, however, makes an assumption that generalizes the earth living tissue, or the biosphere, and focuses it as a whole, and asserts that the global visualization of the future is very dehumanizing rather than reformist (Bonneuil & Fressoz, 2016). Since the exploitation of the earth’s natural resources has reached the tipping point whereby the forecasts of the steadiness of human life are problematic due to the high chances of intensified global warming.

However, this generalization is regarded as a cause of destructive spurs of collaboration among actors in the development of the global system. Thus it fuels the appeal of the illogicality of the building of various aspects of international relations, such as capital, trade, security, human rights, and climate change, which articulates the collapse of biodiversity, and the elimination of humanity due to water scarcity which is grounded on global warming.

According to Bonneuil and Fressoz, Thanatocene is a concept which deliberates the commercialization of poisonous products that initiated from the warfare industries during disastrous worldwide wars whereby emission of these products to the atmosphere led to the ruin of the environment (Turnbull, 2018). They stress that the “petrolization” of the western humanities owes a dominant obligation to, and maybe absurd without, the international enlistments of the Second World War.

The description of the concept of Thanatocene interlinks the idea of Anthropocene since they are both based on the destruction of the environment caused by human activities.

Greenhouse gases are gases that absorb and emit infrared radiation, which is emitted from the earth to the atmosphere. Since the gases are usually accumulated in the atmosphere, they block this radiation from escaping to space. Therefore the heat is retained in the atmosphere, thus causing a lot of heating on the earth.

The increased temperature of the earth is called the greenhouse effect and arises when the gases reach the earth’s surface (De Wever & Finney, 2018). The main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, which is much concentrated in the atmosphere and prevents the heat released from the ground from escaping. Thus, the weather is reserved in the earth’s atmosphere, and thus the temperature of the planet increases accordingly.

Naomi Klein mentioned that the predominant climate ruin is not caused by human activities and the average emissions that are released to the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide—but rather rooted by the principal aspects or features of a capitalist economy since it regulates the entire access and exploitation of resources and the necessary measures for conservation of the environment.

Degrowth is an administrative, commercial, and societal association which is centred on environmental economics, anti-entrepreneurial, and anti-industrialist concepts and is aimed at plummeting consumption.

Degrowth researchers and protesters have persuasively contended that degrowth in industrialized nations will requisite to be a fragment of an international struggle to challenge climate change and to reserve the circumstances for prospect generations’ approval of basic wants. Nevertheless, the obstructions to constructing a broader degrowth program seem to be much embedded at current. To advance the political viability of degrowth, it is significant to comprehend these impediments well and develop influences and tactics to discourse them.

To subsidize degrowth on present generations in wealthier nations, and their apprehensions about likely short-term to medium-term welfare results of degrowth, in specific, they are highlighting the growing lock-in of current humanities and how a shift away from this typical might thus distress the welfare (Herbert et al, 2018). Also, enchanting the elementary human wants context as a new assessing tool for welfare results is appropriate for a degrowth situation but probable to clash with societies’ present prospects of ever enlightening healthiness and welfare results.

I thus recommend that the operationalization of degrowth may be done by organizing premeditated mediums on potential wants contentment to aid in founding a discourse amid present and prospective generations. This might back ethnic changes on welfare discerning, which will be much necessary for progressing the basis for degrowth.

References

Bonneuil, C., & Fressoz, J. B. (2016). The shock of the Anthropocene: The earth, history and us.   Verso Books.

Capper, B., & Austin, A. (2018). “Wages for Housework Means Wages Against Heterosexuality”             On the Archives of Black Women for Wages for Housework and Wages Due Lesbians. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 24(4), 445-466.

Dawson, J. (2018). Book Review: Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The             Climate. Journal of Sustainability Studies, 1(1), 11.

De Wever, P., & Finney, S. (2018). The Anthropocene: a Geological or Societal Subject?. In Biodiversity and Evolution (pp. 251-264). Elsevier.

Efstathiou, S., Korsnes, M., Gabrielsen, A. M., Finstad, T., Giæver, F., Driessen, C., … & Wethal, U. (2019). Investigating the elasticity of meat consumption for climate mitigation: 4Rs for responsible meat use. In Sustainable governance and management of         food systems: Ethical perspectives (pp. 447-492). Wageningen Academic Publishers.

Ehrenreich, B. (2016). Class matters. Anglican Theological Review, 98(1), 15.

Feldman, B. (2019, May). In Search of the Socialist Subject: Radical Political Economy and the   Study of Moral Incentives in the Third World’. Including a Symposium on 50 Years of          the Union for Radical Political Economics (p. 65). Emerald Group Publishing.

Fox, M. A. (2018). The Ideology of Meat-Eating. The Harvard Review of Philosophy, 25, 37-49.

Green, J. (2016). Cowspiracy [Book Review]. Chain Reaction, (128), 50.

Herbert, J., Barlow, N., Frey, I., Ambach, C., & Cigna, P. (2018). Beyond visions and projects:    The need for a debate on strategy in the degrowth movement.

Turnbull, T. (2018). Review of: Bonneuil, Christophe and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz: The shock of the Anthropocene. London: Verso, 2017.

Weis, T. (2016). Industrial livestock and the ecological hoofprint. International Handbook of        Rural Studies. New York: Routledge.