Compliance Strategies

This essay will look at examples of compliance strategies which will then be discussed to see what extent they relate to the relevant compliance theory. As someone who ran a door-to-door business, I have used many compliance strategies in a various ways: recruitment, opening-pitch, closing the sale, and training. However, in this essay I will focus on my experience from knocking on a door until I have closed the deal. In this pitch there are a variety of compliance strategies that I will point out, however, the main focus that will be related back to compliance theory will be the examples of ‘foot-in the-door’ and ‘door-in-the-face’.

I worked for the charities sector of Cobra, essentially I would sell charity. The job was 100% commission. A sign-up of £5 per month would earn me £5; however, a sign-up of £6.50 would earn me double - £10. The commission continued to rise compared to sign-up but since remaining signed up for at least 3 months was a condition for us to get paid we aimed for the magic number £6.50. Here are the techniques I used to achieve this.

When the door opens there tended to be someone there who was not too impressed to see a guy in a suit selling something. So first thing you have to do whilst wearing a genuine smile and maintaining eye-contact is greet them and wait for a response. This is part foot-in-the-door; engaging them in conversation vastly reduces the likelihood of the door being slammed in your face. Second, you are setting them up for your ice-breaker because almost everyone will ask:

 ‘What are you selling?’ This is where you laugh while saying:

 ‘Don’t worry! I’m not as bad as I look….. I promise you, I’m not selling anything!’

Technically this is true but it is an example of low-balling because I’m giving the impression that I don’t want anything from them when actually I want them to commit to a long-term direct debit.

Next comes the classic foot-in-the-door technique, however, for us it was called ‘card-in-the-hand’. The card was just a laminated A4 brightly coloured information card with the charity logo and some pictures, but getting it in the customers hand was highlighted as the most crucial aspect of the pitch. The reason why this card is given is not to give the person information; actually, you don’t want them to have more than a glance at it. If they are looking at the card that means they are not looking at you. If they are actually reading the card; not only are they not looking at you, they aren’t listening either. The reason the card is placed in their hand is so they cannot shut the door without giving you it back.

In this situation, the card is the foot. It serves as a physical barrier stopping the door being shut. Furthermore, by placing it in their hand a small request has been agreed to; your request that they hold your card. In theory by complying with this small request, they are more likely to agree to a larger one. Freedman and Fraser (1966) investigated this phenomenon by contacting suburban housewives in their homes first with a small request and later with a larger more consequential request. They found that subjects who had complied with the trivial request were much more likely to comply with the larger one two weeks later. From my own experience, this is true; if the person does not take the card, there is no chance of a sale and most often your pitch will be interrupted and door abruptly closed. Whereas, in most instances where someone takes the card; they will at least hear you out. The small request of ‘hold this’ facilitates the larger request of ‘listen to me for a few minutes’ in this instance, and in combination with the various other compliance strategies may even lead to a sale. 

Freedman and Fraser believed that happened because people perceive their own compliance with the initial task and rationalise that they are the type of person ‘who does that sort of thing’ (p.201) which may result in an attitude change. Daryl Bem (1972) described individuals coming to know their own attitudes, emotions and internal states by inferring them from observations of their own behaviour and circumstances in which they occur. He states that when the individual’s internal cues are weak, ambiguous, or confused; they are in the same position as the outside observer. He called this the ‘self-perception theory’.

So far we have covered the ‘introduction’, where you establish a conversational tone and break the ice and the ‘presentation’ where you get the card in their hand. Now begins the ‘short story’ which is filled with compliance strategies.

‘I’ve just been running round letting all your neighbours know about a big-fundraiser that kicks off in a month for these kids (point to pictures on card). Have you heard about it?’ 

This one in sales is called ‘keeping-up-with –the-Joneses’; where you speak about all the neighbours getting involved.

Next tell them a little about what the charity does but finish the short-story with:

‘…but to keep up all these local projects up and running, we need raise £50,000 from this community fundraiser….Have you got a few grand you can help us out with?’

This is the ‘door-in-the-face’ technique and can actually have that effect. I have been reported as a con-man a few times because I got to this stage of the pitch before having my card thrown at me and the door slammed in my face. However, the more common response is laughter at such a ridiculous request.  

‘No? You sure you don’t have a few grand in your back pocket? Hahaha….

Funnily enough, your neighbours couldn't spare that much either… 

But since we want to keep these projects running for as long as we can, they felt that they could spare a couple of quid a week and keep it going for as long as possible… 

I take it like everyone else that’s ok with you?’

Door-in-the-face can be understood through the theories of ‘perceptual contrast’ and ‘reciprocal concession’. The contrast effect is a psychological phenomenon that has been shown in countless situations. Dating as far back as John Locke (1690) who noted that lukewarm water felt hot or cold depending whether the hand was previously exposed to cold or hot water. Cialdini (1985) states that if we see two related things in sequence that are in some way different, we tend to see the second as being more different from the first than it actually is. Compared to thousands of pounds, £2 seems like nothing.

Cialdini claims that we are socialised to feel uncomfortable if someone has given us a gift or done us a favour that we have not returned. In this instance, a concession was made. The smaller figure does not sound like that much money when compared with the larger sum on the table a moment before. In addition, the person may feel that by accepting a lower number they “owe” you and make the small donation wanted all along.

References

Bem, D.J. (1972) Self-Perception Theory. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 4, 1-62

Freedman, J.L. and Fraser, S.C. (1966) Compliance without pressure: The foot-in-the-door technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 195-202

Locke, J. (1690/1964). An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Fontana Library, London, (5^th ed). A. D. Woozley (ed.), Abridged

Effect of violent song lyrics.

This essay will investigate the paper Exposure to Violent Media: The Effects of Songs with Violent Lyrics on Aggressive Thoughts and Feelings (Anderson, Carnagey and Eubanks, 2003). The paper claims a strong link between violent lyrics and subsequent aggression; this essay will examine the claim. We will begin with a general definition of aggression before looking at how it was operationally defined in the study. Next will be a look at the papers findings. Finally, with the help of other relevant articles the findings will be critically examined.

Aggression is an ambiguous term; in sport and business aggression can be synonymous with relentless competitiveness. In psychology, we describe this as ‘instrumental’ aggression; proactive rather than reactive means of attaining some goal other than hurting the target (Anderson & Carnagey, 2004). ‘Hostile’ aggression on the other hand, is defined by Anderson and Bushman (2002) as any conduct directed at another individual with the immediate intention to cause harm. Furthermore, they note that the perpetrator must believe that they will cause harm and motivate the target to avoid the behaviour. It is this ‘hostile’ aggression that is of interest to the researchers of the article. The authors use the General Aggression Model (GAM) developed by Anderson and Bushman (2002). This model states that any aggressive behaviour can be categorised according to four dimensions: degree of hostile or agitated affect present; automaticity; degree to which the goal is to harm the victim versus benefit the perpetrator; and degree to which consequences are considered. At the fundamental level, GAM focuses on how aggression develops within an on-going social interaction. At this level the model highlights three main issues: person and situation inputs, present internal state (i.e., cognition, arousal, affect), and outcomes of appraisal and decision-making processes (DeWall and Anderson, 2009).

In their article, Anderson et al (2003) concluded that violent content can increase feelings of hostility when compared with similar but non-violent rock music. In the first experiment they took two songs by the same artist and of the same genre; one with explicitly violent lyrics and the other with no or minimal violent lyrics. Afterwards, they had participants complete the State Hostility Scale (SHS); which contains statements describing current feelings which had to be rated. However, the respondents’ results for the statement ‘I feel wilful’ were dropped from the final result because it showed a low item-total correlation.

The second experiment was designed to measure aggressive cognition. It was identical to the first experiment but instead of filling out a SHS the participants were asked to rate out-of-7 how similar word pairs were. They consisted of aggressive-aggressive; aggressive-ambiguous; and ambiguous-ambiguous word pairs. The researchers hypothesised that if violent lyrics increased the accessibility of aggressive thoughts in the semantic memory then the aggressive-ambiguous word pairs would score significantly higher than with the non-violent lyrics. Their results supported their hypothesis; there was half a point difference from the control pairs.

The third experiment took into consideration trait hostility. First, they had the participants complete a modified version of the Caprara Irritability Scale; excluding those who scored at the top and bottom ends of the scale. The recalled participants were to read aloud aggressive and non-aggressive words on a computer screen which had a programme measuring their reaction time for each word. They also had to complete a SHS and two other questionnaires measuring arousal and if the participants understood the lyrics. Significantly, the researchers found that task order was important. Those who filled out the SHS immediately after listening to the songs backed up the results from the first two experiments. However, when combined with the participants who completed one of the other tasks first the results showed no significant difference from the control. This infers that the effects of the songs are only in the short term and can be interrupted by other activities.

A clear flaw in the research is that the researchers set-out to measure ‘hostile’ aggression which in its definition explicitly states that the perpetrator must believe that they will cause harm to a target. Therefore, measuring ‘hostile’ aggression from aggressive cognition and affect inferred from participants response to aggressive words or ‘I feel’ statements seems rather ridiculous; there is clearly no victim involved. However, it is clear that conducting a true test of ‘hostile’ aggression by measuring the subsequent aggressive behaviour towards a target would be difficult to attain ethically.

In conclusion, we can see that the researchers found that listening to music with violent lyrics is likely to prime aggressive words in the word completion test, aggressive associates in the ambiguous word test, and lead to a higher score on the SHS. However, evidence of priming is not sufficient to conclude that violent lyrics make someone more aggressive. As shown in the third experiment, the effect on hostility of listening to violent songs ‘can be disrupted fairly easily by intervening activities’ (Anderson et al, 2003 p966)

The real world has a broad mixture of words and ideas; as a result, individuals contextualise aggression (Savage & Yancey, 2008) that may arise from listening to music with violent lyrics. Rather than contradict the catharsis theory, the authors may have actually shown evidence of how the catharsis theory works; through the contextualising and calming down that comes soon after the initial peak of aggressive thoughts and feelings arising from listening to violent songs. Of course, this is speculation and more research in this direction would be required. As to the extent that violent lyrics make someone more aggressive; the evidence suggests that violent songs can prime aggressive thoughts and feeling in the immediacy after listening to the song but these effects are easily disrupted. Nevertheless, it seems apparent that if someone lacked the ability to contextualise this arising aggression through some internal defect, from living in an overtly aggressive environment or perhaps even partaking in an aggressive event (Felson, 1996); the escalating effect of the violent music may in these instances be significant in the longer term, but again, this is speculation and more research is needed.

   

Words - 998

  

References

Anderson, C.A, & Bushman, B.J. (2002). Human aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 27-51.

Anderson, C.A. & Carnagey, N.L. (2004). Violent evil and the general aggression model. In A. Miller (Ed.), The social psychology of good and evil (pp. 168-192). New York: Guilford Press.

Anderson, C. A., Carnagey, N. L., & Eubanks, J. (2003). Exposure to violent media: The effects of songs with violent lyrics on aggressive thoughts and feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 960-971.

DeWall, N.C. and Anderson, C.A. (2009) ‘The General Aggression Model’. In M. Mikulincer & P. R. Shaver (Eds.) Understanding and reducing aggression, violence, and their consequences. Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association.

Felson.  R.B. (1996).  "Mass Media Effects on Violent Behavior."  Annual Review of Sociology Volume 22: 103-128

Savage, J. & Yancey, C. (2008) ‘The Effects of Media Violence Exposure On Criminal Aggression: A Meta-Analysis’, Criminal Justice and Behavior; 35; 772

Social construction of society, space and place.

In this essay I will be looking at how the theory of social constructivism requires us to rethink the ways in which we make use of the spaces and places around us. I will illustrate this by looking at two themes which are closely related, Globalisation and the global food supply. Before discussing the two examples I will first investigate the term ‘social constructivism’. To explore this subject I have drawn material from documentaries, particularly the BBC’s new ‘Human Planet’ series from journals covering economics, sociology and geography; text-books and news sources  - the BBC and the Guardian.

Social constructivism emphasizes the importance of culture and context in understanding what occurs in society and constructing knowledge based on this understanding. This perspective is closely associated with many contemporary theories, most notably the developmental theories of Vygotsky (Kim, 2001).

Fundamental to Vygotsky’s theoretical system is the central role of the social environment in learning. Students are believed to be acculturated into their learning community and appropriate knowledge, based on their existent understanding, through their interaction with the immediate learning environment. Learning is thus considered to be a largely situation-specific and context-bound activity (Woolfolk, 2001).

The implications of this theory have been far reaching particular because we can now critically look at the spaces and places around us noting how they have been physically and socially constructed and think how they could be reconstructed to resolve any associated problems. To illustrate this I will now look at the example of globalisation.

Globalisation can usefully be conceived as processes which represent a transformation in the spatial organisation of social relations and trades, interaction, creating flows and networks of activity and power. It can be thought of as the widening, escalating, speeding up, and growing impact of global interconnectedness (Held, McGrew, Goldblatt, and Perraton, 1999).

Although globalisation can refer to an increase in international collaboration through organisations such as the United Nations and the European Union, it usually describes the world-wide growth of market capitalism in the early 1990’s. In Milton Friedman’s view, the more you let market forces rule and the more you open the economy up to free trade and competition, the more efficient and thriving your economy will be. Globalisation means the spread of free-market capitalism to practically every country in the world. Therefore, it also has its own set of economic rules — rules that are concerned with opening, deregulating and privatising one’s economy, in order to make it more attractive to foreign investment (1999). This resulted from international agreements reducing the barrier to trade and capital flow, the development of information technology, and, with the collapse of the USSR, the apparent elimination of any practical alternative to corporate capitalism (Heertz, 2001). The result was a global search for natural resources, markets, cheap labour and production costs, and, leading to a swift industrialisation of Third World countries and the global spread of technology (Honderich, 2005)

Supporters such as Joseph Stiglitz (2002), argue that opening up to international trade has helped many countries grow far more quickly than they would have otherwise as a direct result of stimulated economic growth and increased wealth. He points out that many people in the world now live longer than before and their standard of living is far better because globalisation has reduced the cost of living and made available a greater variety of goods to consumers.

Additionally, globalisation has brought the world together and reduced the sense of isolation felt in much of the developing world by giving people in the developing countries access to knowledge well beyond the reach of even the wealthiest in any country  a hundred years ago. Ironically, values such as self-interest and greed have come to be seen as promoting social good because they have been the main catalysts driving these changes; corporations are now considered important instruments for international development (Held et al, 1999). Corporate success has given enormous economic and military power to the industrialised West, the United States in particular (Honderich, 2005).

Despite this rosy view of apparent prosperity, it seems that every year there is a new appeal to help a nation experiencing famine, charity adverts quoting old proverbs like “Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, give a man a fishing pole and he can continue to feed his family forever” convey the message that the problem is that the region experiencing the famine does not have enough food; that the solution to the famine is infrastructure and tools to create more food. But is this really the case?

The World Bank advises these countries to shift from ‘food first’ to ‘export first’ policies, consequently, these Third World countries compete with each other leading to collapse in prices. Trade liberation and economic reform also include devaluation of currencies. Thus exports earn less, and imports cost more (Vidal, 2011). Since the Third World is being told to stop growing food and instead to buy food in international markets by exporting cash crops, the process of globalisation leads to a situation where agricultural societies in the southern hemisphere become increasingly dependent  on food imports, but do not have the foreign exchange to pay for imported food (Shiva, 2000).

For non-industrial countries economic globalisation has brought imports that undercut prices for locally produced goods; this in turn has forced workers to move to urban centres for jobs. These are often available only in harsh sweatshop working conditions for very low pay with long hours, and without union representation (Heertz, 2001).  Whereas salaries for management and technically trained professionals have greatly increased, pay for untrained labour has declined sharply. These changes have increased the gap between the rich and the poor (Honderich, 2005)

Vandana Shiva (2000) argues that the global food supply has been hijacked and is in just a few hands. Only six corporations control 90 per cent of the exports of grain from the US, Canada, Europe, Argentina and Australia; two, Cargill and Continental, each control 25 per cent. The world soybean crop is in the same hands. A few companies now control the world seed industry, a few others major sections of marine and aquaculture fisheries. The consequences are not beneficial to producers or consumers, says Shiva, but only to shareholders. The apparent benefits of cheaper food in the northern hemisphere, standardised production and the availability of previously seasonal and luxury products are outweighed by the calamitous destruction of communities, industries, habitats and groundwater supplies in the South.

Although underdeveloped countries can qualify for loans from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, usually they must agree to trade deregulation, privatisation of state industry, reductions in public welfare, limited government, and fewer environmental restrictions and protections for workers’ rights – restricting the authority of borrowing countries in these areas (Held and McGrew, 2002).. The World Trade Organisation, which oversees economic globalisation, can require compensation from member nations, including wealthy ones, for loss of profit due to laws protecting the environment or health for example, thus further eroding local democratic control (Honderich, 2005).

Because of these negative consequences of capitalist globalisation, the word itself has been appropriated to the extent that whole groups of people object to something that is quite fundamental to their beliefs. The term has been seized by the powerful to refer to this specific form of international economic integration. Consequently, supporters of other forms of globalisation are described as ‘anti-globalisation’; and many of the left and the workers movements, accept this term. Movements which were built on the principle of international solidarity, globalisation in a form that attends to the rights of people, not private power system (Chomsky, 2002)

Agriculture remains central to the economy of many countries, including the US, Canada and Australia but, more importantly, to the so-called developing countries. All are affected by increasing globalisation and its attendant rules and restrictions on production and trade. However, if the welfare and social fabric of many millions of rural people, who are already amongst the poorest in their societies, are to be undermined by external and largely unaccountable corporate organisations, the world should be prepared for tragic consequences (Vidal, 2011). Perhaps the charity advertisement should say “Give a man a fish, because soon the corporation that exploits him will rape every piece of goodness from the soil in the pursuit of profit leaving a poisoned wasteland for his family to starve to death on before they move on to taking advantage of the next guy”

So in reality, current food shortages and famine happen not from lack of production but from the globalised corporate capitalist method of distribution. So we have seen that with both the topic of globalisation and global food supply, corporate capitalism is heavily featured in discussion of the flaws and structured inequalities. They have been socially constructed through the eyes of capitalism but this is not the only form that globalisation can take. Globalisation as Chomsky pointed out may be in a form that attends to the rights of the people. Globalisation can be socially constructed to favour any values we as a society choose. Social constructivists argue that the facts do not speak for themselves; that scientific observations are not independent from social influences and preconceptions; that the truth value of scientific statements is not determined by the degree to which they correspond to a world external to them (Demeritt, 1996).

This brings us back to the question of how we can rethink the ways we make use of the spaces and places around us. As we have seen, there are many great advantages to globalisation and many of those who object to ‘globalisation’ are actually against the particular capitalist model and not the idea of international solidarity or a fair global distribution of food. Stiglitz sums up the globalisation conflict when he writes, "Globalisation itself is neither good nor bad. It has the power to do enormous good. But in much of the world it has not brought comparable benefits. For many, it seems closer to an unmitigated disaster” (Stiglitz, 2002, p20) 

As city-dwellers in the UK we don’t have to look far to see the effects of corporate globalisation, from the keyboard I’m typing on that was shipped in from China to the constant war with corporate pop-up ads on my screen; From the trainers I’m wearing sewn together in India to the beef that I had for dinner all the way from Argentina. But how can we rethink how globalisation and the food supply are constructed?

To achieve this seems easy but has proved difficult to implement; we simply have to readjust our values and place fairness above greed. If we socially construct fairer and sustainable methods for producing and distributing food and produce then we avert the road to the Malthusian disaster that we are on.

The first call must be to ensuring local supplies are prioritised for local people and only when there is excess can it be used in international trade or to be more efficient, supply the nearest cities that are incapable of self-sufficiency. This would ensure that the ‘carbon footprint’ of each commodity is kept as low as possible.

Combined with prioritising the locals, there would have to be the re-diversifying of the produce grown/created. Along with ensuring a range of products with a low ‘carbon footprint’ this will stop the practice of mono-cropping - where a single variety of a specific crop is used repeatedly over a wide area – which is known to be harmful to soil quality over time.

Sufficient amounts of staple foods should be produced to ensure that prices are kept down. However, this may present a catch-22 because what is to stop the population of the world continuing on its present exponential rate of growth to some point in the future where food production does peak with several converging problems such as depletion of global fish stocks and environmental degradation from pollution and over-farming, forcing an inevitable boom in food prices leading to mass worldwide starvation on an unimaginable scale. However, with an ethos of fair distribution of food combined with human ingenuity who can predict the population capacity of future generations after all ‘necessity is the mother of invention’.

However, a move towards a sustainable existence relying solely on renewable sources for all our products is the ideal goal for a globalised world. It would mean that even if we can’t find some way of plateauing the population growth. Our imposing numbers have the least detrimental effect on the earth and future generations that rely on it. 

For a sustainable existence I think that we will have to find some other way of filling our time than needless consumerism. For this we may have to redesign our town centres which are currently just sprawling shopping centres. There is currently an ambitious project being built in Abu Dahbi – the first carbon neutral city. Featured on the ‘Cities’ Episode of ‘the Human Planet’ (BBC, 2011) The genius of the city of Masdar will be combining 21st Century engineering with traditional desert architecture to deliver ecologically friendly comfort. The architects are turning the desert's greatest threat into their greatest advantage – the sun. They are building the largest solar farm in the Middle East to power the city.  

The UAE has seen building booms only made bearable by air conditioners, which use a lot of oil-guzzling energy. But Masdar will have to be low temperature and low carbon. Part of the solution is the city wall. Unlike the upward and outward sprawl of Dubai or Abu Dhabi, Masdar is compact like ancient Arab cities. Streets are narrow so buildings shade each other, and the walls and roofs of buildings will do their bit to shed heat too. The vertical faces are dressed with screens which keep the sun out but let the breeze in. And as architect Gerard Evenden says: "Lunar technology has begun to influence our thinking." (bbc.co.uk)

These are not the only innovations for this future-proof city but it serves as an example of how awareness of dangers posed to future generations allows for an entire new city to be purpose built with a social construct towards sustainability. Obviously we cannot rebuild and redesign existing towns and cities around the world on the same scale that is being tried in Abu Dahbi but with enough people trying new ways to achieve a sustainable living hopefully we can find out what works and methods to practically redesign our existing spaces and places.

Words – 2376

References

BBC NEWS (2011) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8586046.stm - accessed 10/03/2011

Chomsky, N. (2002). The Croatian Feral Tribune 27 April 2002 ZMAG.org  accessed 07 March

Demeritt, D. (1996) Social Theory and the Reconstruction of Science and Geography, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 21, No. 3,pp. 484-503: Blackwell Publishing Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/622593. Accessed: 10/03/2011

Friedman, T. (1999) The Lexus and the Olive Tree, New York: Anchor Books.

Heertz, N. (2001) The Silent Takeover. Global Capitalism and the Death

of Democracy, Heinemann, London

Held, D. and McGrew, A.. (2002) Globalization/anti-globalization, Cambridge: Polity.

Vidal, J. (2011) Food speculation: 'People die from hunger while banks make a killing on food, 23 January 2011. The Observer

Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D.  and Perraton, J. (1999) Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture, Polity: Cambridge.

Human Planet (2011) BBC,  Episode 8: Thursday 3 March 2011: Cities.

Kim, B. (2001). Social Constructivism.. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Stable URL:http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/ Accessed: 10/03/2011

Nanda, M. (1997) ‘Restoring the Real: Rethinking Social Constructivist Theories of Science’. In Panitch, L. The Socialist Register – Ruthless Criticism of All that Exists. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997.

Stiglitz, J.E. (2002) Globalization and its Discontents, New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

Woolfolk, A. (2001). Educational Psychology (8th ed.). Allyn and Bacon.

Discuss the reasons for the growth of large scale organisations in both the private and public sector within market capitalist societies.

Capitalism has become a loaded term in contemporary society; it is used in reference to wide ranging, differing and sometimes opposing perspectives. Consequently, there is a need to pin a working definition on this term and describe the forces at work which account for the growth of large scale organisations. Also in need of some description is society before capitalism to allow for comparison. The views of Marx and Weber on capitalist development will be critically examined using a variety of more contemporary sociologists, economists and historians. With reference of the forces within capitalism, next will be an investigation into the reasons for large scale growth of the private sector; followed by showing the symbiotic relationship of the public sector that accounts for its mutual expansion.

According to some historians, the modern capitalist system originated in the ‘crisis of the fourteenth century,’ where there were widespread conflicts between the land-owning aristocracy and the agricultural producers (Brenner, 1977). The subsequent decline of the feudalistic manorial system in England allowed tenant-farmers more freedom to market their goods and consequently incentivised investment in new technologies. Lords who did not want to rely on rents could evict tenant farmers or buy them out; then hire free-labour to work their land instead (Brenner, 1977).

According to Karl Marx, this rise in contractual relationship is intimately bound to the end of the obligatory relationship between serfs and lords. Marx characterises this transformation as ‘the historical process of divorcing the producer from the means of production.’ It was this ‘divorcing’ that turned the serf’s land into the lord’s capital. According to Marx, this reorganisation led to a new division of classes (Marx, 1867 cited in Fowkes, 1976).

Also incentivised was investment in production, along with the ‘enclosure movements,’ which transferred public lands to private landowners; land increasingly became viewed as a commodity that could be used to create wealth through grazing sheep rather than simply to provide sustenance for the peasants (Devine, 1999; Hobsbawm, 1968).

Marx and Weber recognised that capitalist activity has occurred in various forms and historical settings. However, both were more concerned with the modern phenomenon of capitalist activity being a principal factor in the organisation of entire societies. Marx’s emphasis is on the way in which the property-owning bourgeois class buy the labour power of the landless proletariat to meet their own ends. Weber on-the-other-hand stresses the organisational rationalism that sets Capitalism apart from its predecessors; the work of free citizens is now managed on a routinised and calculative manner unlike any other system (Watson, 1995).

According to Marx, the treatment of labour as a commodity led to people valuing things more in terms of their price rather than their usefulness, and therefore stimulating an expansion of the capitalist ‘system of commodities’. Marx observed that while some people bought commodities in order to use them, others bought them in order to sell them on at a profit. Weber counters Marx’s one-sided materialist and determinist view on the rise of capitalism by showing the part played by new ideas and social change that came from the rise of Protestantism (Watson, 1995).

The Reformation profoundly affected the view of work, dignifying even the most mundane jobs as adding to the common good and thus blessed by God, as much as any ‘sacred’ calling (Weber, 1930). The Roman Catholic Church assured salvation to individuals who submitted to their authority. However, the Reformation removed such guarantees. In the absence of such reassurances from religious authority, Weber argued that Protestants began to look for other ‘signs’ of their salvation. Worldly success became one measure of God’s grace; this had a profound impact on the way society viewed work and capital accumulation (Weber, 1930). In pre-capitalist societies, entrepreneurs often tried to encourage harder or longer work by offering a higher wage, with the expectation that labourers would see time spent working as more valuable and so engage it longer. However, the more common result was labourers spending less time working (Weber, 1930). At this time hard work was done simply because survival demanded; it was not a ‘duty’ to work hard nor was it seen as a way of improving oneself. (Watson, 1995).

Weber therefore introduced the idea of modern capitalism growing out of the religious pursuit of wealth; which meant a switch to a rational means of existence, wealth. At some point the Calvinist rationale informing the ‘spirit’ of capitalism became independent of the underlying religious movement behind it, leaving only rational capitalism. Essentially, Weber's ‘Spirit of Capitalism’ is actually more generally speaking a ‘Spirit of Rationalization’ (Bendix, 1977).

Surprisingly, Weber missed perhaps the most crucial ‘unintended consequence’ Protestantism had on the development of Capitalism; the promotion of mass literacy. Literate people provided greater opportunities for modernisation, development, rational organisation and therefore economic growth. Empirical tests have confirmed the presence of a rather strong and highly significant correlation between the early introduction of mass literacy and subsequent high rates of capitalist economic development (Korotayev, Malkov , Khaltourina, 2006). Furthermore, mass literacy facilitated the ‘Scottish Enlightenment’. A period in British history that not only provided industrial geniuses like James Watt, who is responsible for the engine driving the Industrial Revolution; but also many individuals pivotal in the founding of the social sciences. Individuals such as Adam Smith, David Hume and Adam Ferguson who were all applying Newtonian scientific principles – a central part of their higher education – to their insights on religion, economy and society in general. In effect they were fundamental to the process of rationalising society as a whole (Devine, 1999).

Marx and Weber agree that Capitalism generally refers to an economic system in which the means of production are all or mostly privately owned and run for profit, and in which investments, distribution, income, and pricing of goods and services are determined through the operation of a market economy. It is usually considered to involve the right of individuals and groups of individuals acting corporations to trade capital such as goods, labour, land and money (Marshall and Barthel, 1994).

The factory system and subsequent Industrial revolution arose from industrial inventions and innovations of the 18th century. Marglin (1980) argues that factories came from the need to secure control over the labour-power of the existing decentralized ‘putting out’ system. However, It could be argued that this was as Weber would call an ‘unintended consequence’ of industrialisation; seized upon and used initially by British colonialists to organise manual workers in this more administratively efficient manner (Hobsbawm, 1968); rather than being an actual root cause. Furthermore, the resilience of the cottage industries until late into the 19th century (Hounshell, 1984) reveals that the drive to secure control over labour-power was not as dramatic a proponent as Marglin suggests.

Nevertheless, industrialisation and the factory system produced a significant rise in what Marx calls ‘the organic composition of capital’ because machines and procedures were introduced dramatically increasing the output capability of workers. This initiated the phenomenon known as mass-production; the resulting drop in production cost and the increase in the speed in which products could be manufactured allowed commodities to be more affordable to the general population.

Thus the industrial capitalists had a seemingly insatiable ‘mass-market’ that they could not produce fast enough to satisfy. An impetus to extend the scale of production to accommodate this mass-market developed. The decline of the individual owner entrepreneurial business resulted as owners opted to raise the capital they needed for scaling up and expansion of their operation. They either sold shares which lead to the emergence of joint stock companies; and/or approached the bank for investment and thereby fused their industrial interests with the financial sector. This attempt to accommodate the mass-market is central to understanding the huge growth of private organisations from this period onwards.

However, within a capitalist society there exists a basic inequality in the distribution of resources. Particular social groups are in charge of the means in which wealth is produced; whereas for most social groups, their only means of earning a living is the capacity to work for a wage under the direction of others. These groups are subject to the calculated and systematic pursuit of profit by those who own or control that capital (Watson, 1995).

In a market capitalist society, increased competition leads to the growth of fewer but larger firms because organisations with access to most resources are able to marginalise weaker organisations and take over their markets. As a result of these large companies swallowing up the market, a process of concentration and centralisation of capital follows. Rationality is calculation, a force advancing the development of science and technology with an associated expansion of the technical division of labour and the bureaucratic organisation of work. (Watson, 1995)

Paradoxically, it is competition itself which fuels the growth in the `organic composition of capital’ and subsequently leads to monopoly, the rise in cartels and market rigging which stands in direct opposition to the principles of free-market capitalism (Lane, 2011). Weber notes that this rationalisation and its accompanying individualism, materialism and acquisitiveness are a threat to social solidarity because they create basic tensions within capitalist societies (Watson, 1995).

From the perspective of the market, organisations that run with lower productivities are penalised; they take longer to produce than those with higher productivities. Accordingly their products tend to be more expensive because they contain a higher labour cost. Consequently, they will not be able to access the mass market and therefore be relegated to niche/specialist markets where less profit is made (Lane, 2011).

Furthermore, firms with ‘higher organic compositions of capital’ are capable of producing cheaper goods more efficiently than firms with lower `organic compositions of capital’. Baechler (1975) argues that the defining feature of the capitalist system is ‘the privileged position accorded the search for economic efficiency’. This often manifests in employees losing their livelihood as a consequence of their employers’ honest and diligent pursuit of efficiency (in Watson, 1995 p97). Consequently, the more capital intensive have a tendency to marginalise the more labour intensive (Lane, 2011).

Organisations reflect their rise in the ‘organic composition of capital’ as they grow in size. However, structural contradictions concealed within the system of value production begin to reveal themselves in the tendency for the rate of profit to fall and producing periodic crises of over production/accumulation requiring systematic destruction of capital values and the forces of production for their resolution. Marx saw these tensions as capitalism carrying ‘within it the seeds of its own destruction’ (Marx, 1850). However, Marx appears to have underestimated the social, political and bourgeois response to these tensions as they attempt to rebalance the system. Weber on the other hand accepts that constant adaption is as likely as revolution or collapse (Watson, 1995). Business bankruptcies, downsizing, rationalisations, redundancies all serve to initiate renewed rounds of capital accumulation through substantially wiping out weaker competition; at the same time socially and politically weakening the working class, so that new labour rates can be imposed (Lane, 2011).

A common misconception particularly among anarcho-capitalists is that the public sector ascended solely in response to the private sector; that they are incompatible and in constant conflict with one and other (Marshall, 1992). Upon closer inspection particularly at state level, we get an altogether different picture. The public and private sectors are far from being bitter enemies. One could argue that they are two heads of the same Hobbesian Leviathan dedicated to the exploitation of the working class. For example, the state has always been crucial in safeguarding terms of trade, granting licences and charters that facilitated the plundering of the colonies or dividing up the spoils of War; all of which expedited capital accumulation in the private sector (Lane, 2011).

Public organisations invest in and maintain infrastructure crucial to commercial interests, such as roads, railways, docks, airports, communication networks, policing and courts. Public health and educational organisations train the next generation of workers and keep them healthy enough to work. All this supports the private sector in their exploitation of the masses. Additionally, state involvement in regulating, managing or even rescuing ailing private businesses; bringing them into public ownership. Something many have argued since the recent banking bail-outs; the consequential ‘Age of Austerity’ and cuts in the social services, conflicts directly not only with the interests of the general public (Inman, 2011), but also with the basic principles of market-capitalism.

Throughout history public organisations have emerged to secure control over the developing working class. As far back as 1351 the English parliament introduced the ‘Statute of Labourers’ which prohibited the movement and wage increases of workers in an attempt to recover from the labour shortage and instability in the years following the Black Death (Ibeji, 2011).

Growth in activities of the state is strongly linked to dispossession of the peasantry exemplified by the various ‘Enclosure Acts’; often leading to brutal ‘clearances’ of the native peasantry (Devine, 1999). The requirement to accommodate and regulate this growing land-less working class and their trade unions led to the growth of multiple organisations concerning employment contracts, health, welfare and political representation (Lane, 2011).

The need to manage these paradoxes within the ‘Capitalist Mode of Production’ led to the growth of numerous organisations dealing with social deprivation, poverty, and uneven development (Lane, 2011). Such as the formation of Poor Houses arising from ‘The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834’ which swept away an accumulation of poor laws going back nearly five hundred years, and replaced them with a national work system for dealing with poverty and its relief based around the dreaded and deliberately unpleasant drudgery of the workhouse (Hobsbawm, 1975).

The importance of ideological campaigns to encourage work, thrift and duty has been highlighted in Weber’s analysis of the role of Protestantism. However, since the decline of religion various public organisation, not least the state have emerged to espouse similar ideological messages (Marshall, 1992).

In more recent history Globalization has fostered the need to regulate the terms of trade and competition between firms beyond national borders leading to the growth of multiple organisations concerned with trade and economic management. The growth of supranational organisations, like World Bank or the European Union as regulation of terms of trade becomes increasingly relevant in the interdependent globalized economy (Sweet and Sandholtz, 1997; Lane, 2011).

The above examples of the inducements to growth are focused primarily on the large state sector organisations. However, the forces within capitalism are not linear; rather they are fragmented and distorted by value relations and political agendas. As a result, there is still space for the existence of a wealth of smaller businesses and organisations operating within the nuances of the dominant economy. There are the various organisations of the working class themselves, such as trade unions and political parties; along with a whole range of other grass-roots level public organisations such as consumer groups, sports associations, environmental groups, neighbourhood associations and self-help groups (Lane, 2011).

In conclusion, the reasons for the growth of large scale organisations in the private and public sector within market capitalist societies is rooted in Protestant concepts of individualisation, self-improvement through work, capital accumulation as evidence of God’s grace, self-discipline, work ethic and most crucially, the ‘spirit of rationalization’.

These Protestant concepts in tandem with the resulting mass literacy played no small part in producing many of the geniuses, inventors and innovators that scientifically rationalized industrialised and modernised society.

The rationalising of society along with the technological inventions of the time were key factors in the evolution of large-scale public and private organisations. The increase in the ‘organic composition of capital’ caused by organisational and technological innovations of the factory system and subsequent affordability of products created a mass-market. The attraction of the mass-market serves as an impetus to borrow heavily in order to scale up operations, fusing industrial and financial interests allowing larger firms to swallow up the market ostracising independent traders and smaller firms.

Competition and rational pursuit of economic efficiency is responsible for the growth in this `organic composition of capital’ which is reflected in the growth of the organisation. Without state intervention this leads to the concentration and centralisation of capital in fewer hands. These paradoxical tendencies need to be regulated, managed and balanced through public organisations; which themselves grow to reflect the scale of the task they are required to undertake re-balancing the off-set created by the forces of Capitalism.


Word count – 2703






References

Bendix, R. (1977) Max Weber: an intellectual portrait. University of California Press: Berkeley

Brenner, R, 1977, “The Origins of Capitalist Development: a Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism,” in New Left Review 104: pp. 36-76)

Devine, T.M. (1999) The Scottish Nation 1700-2000, Penguin Books: London

Hobsbawm, E.J. (1962) The Age of Revolution 1789-1848, Abacus, Clays Ltd: London

Hobsbawm, E.J. (1968) Industry and Empire, Penguin Books Ltd: Middlesex

Hobsbawm, E.J. (1975) The Age of Capital 1848-1875, Abacus, Clays Ltd: London

Hounshell, D. A. (1984), From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States, Baltimore, Maryland, USA: Johns Hopkins University Press

Ibeji, M. (2011) Black Death: Political and Social Changes. BBC History [accessed online at 23:10 17/10/2011 http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/blacksocial_01.shtml]

Inman, P. (2011) Bank of England governor blames spending cuts on bank bailouts. The Guardian, Tuesday 1 March [accessed online at 21:08 17/10/2011 http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/mar/01/mervyn-king-blames-banks-cuts]

Korotayev A., Malkov A., Khaltourina D. (2006), Introduction to Social Macrodynamics, Moscow: URSS (Chapter 6: Reconsidering Weber: Literacy and "the Spirit of Capitalism"). P.88-91. [accessed online at 20:45 16/10/2011 http://cliodynamics.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=187&Itemid=70]

Lane, S. (2011) Growth of public and private organisations in a market capitalist society, Lecture notes, Napier University, unpublished. [Accessed online at 10:00 8/10/2011 http://vista.napier.ac.uk/webct/urw/lc3314449300011.tp6331107575011/displayContentPage.dowebct?pageID=6598307952041&resetBreadcrumb=false&displayBCInsideFrame=true]

Marshall, G. and Barthel, D.L. (1994) The Concise Oxford dictionary of sociology, Oxford University Press: Oxford.

Marshall, P. (1992) Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. HarperCollinsPublishers: London.

Marglin, S. (1980), ‘The origins and function of hierarchy in capitalist production’, in Nichols (ed.), Capital and labour: Studies in the capitalist labour process. London: Fontana, pp. 237-54

Marx, (1850) Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League. London [accessed online at 22:26 17/10/2011 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm]

Marx, Karl [1867] 1976 Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Volume One trans. Ben Fowkes. Harmondsworth and London: Penguin Books and New Left Review. 875

Sweet, A.S. and Sandholtz, W. (1997) European integration and supranational governance. Journal of European Public Policy, 4:3 September: p297-317 [accessed online at 20:13 16/10/2011 http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=alec_stone_sweet&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fscholar.google.co.uk%2Fscholar%3Fq%3DThe%2Bgrowth%2Bof%2Bsupranational%2Borganisations%26hl%3Den%26as_sdt%3D0%26as_vis%3D1%26oi%3Dscholart#search=%22growth%20supranational%20organisations%22]

W2 Geobiography

Tutorial 1: Daily geographies of me

 21 January 2011

14:48

 

In this tutorial, you will start to think more critically about your own identity, how it is constituted in the places and spaces around you, and how it, in turn, co-produces those spaces and places.

 

Critical thinking - Putting it all together

 
 

Identify the assertion of the argument.

Does the author use any emotive or biased language?

What is the author asking you to accept or do?

Is this belief or action reasonable?

 
 

Identify the evidence used in support.

Is the evidence relevant to the assertion made?

Is the evidence from a credible source?

Is there additional evidence that would weaken the assertion?

 
 

Look for missing links between the assertion and the evidence provided.

If there is a missing link, is it reasonable?

 
 

Look for ambiguous words that require more precise definitions.

Do any words lack definitions?

Are those words used consistently?

 
 

Does the author compare one situation to another?

Are the items alike in the relevant respects?

 
 

Does the author apply a general principle to a specific case?

Is the principle applicable?

 
 

Does the argument recommend a particular action?

Would this action have any undesirable effects?

 

 

Your geobiography

 
 

Spend a few minutes thinking about your own geobiography – how do you exist in the world? You might want to focus on a specific day that you experienced recently, or consider more broadly your 'average' day.

After you've decided what you are focussing on, write a paragraph or two of this geobiography. You should write in the first person (i.e. use "I" and "me"), and try to use flowing prose. You can use poetry or pictures too, if that's what you want to do.

Consider the geographies of your everyday life (places, spaces, people, environments, cultural artefacts, landscapes, media, politics, interests, emotions, etc. that you are related to) – what makes you YOU? Why?

Choose a current or recent political event, and discuss it in terms of its relationship to relevant political theories.

In the wake of the furor created in response to Wikileaks,
I will discuss the developing role of Internet media in politics.



In this essay I will outline a few Internet sites that are changing the face of the media. The focus of this essay will be the political impact of the controversial website 'Wikileaks', however, I will also discuss social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook as they have become the favoured form in how information is dispersed. Also making the debate is the ubiquitous blog; the format that even China has found impossible to suppress despite their strict online controls.

An idealised view of the media would be that they report and represent the views of the people to those invested with decision-making powers; they inform society about the actions of government, educating voters on the issues of the day; and act as a public watchdog of the public interest, defending the ordinary citizen against a possibly over-mighty government through their powers of exposure, investigation and interrogation.

However, Marxist's view the media as integrated into the existing economic and political elites and therefore reflecting their interests. The liberal approach sees the media as facilitating social agreement through the dissemination of information and contrary opinion. The classical Marxist view sees one class as manipulating the media's content.

In the 1950s, television eclipsed newspapers and radio as the dominant source for information regarding politics for the British people. Since then politicians have worked hard to master this mode of communication. Thatcher led the way by being the first leading politician to go professional when it came to image for the cameras. An art that was mastered by chameleon like Blair and now Cameron with his note-less speeches appears to be a dab-hand.

Along with professional image gurus came the role of the spin doctor. To counteract slurs from the tabloid press, parties have built up strong press offices to match them. Over the years they have become more effective by being populated with former media high-flyers who have been embedded in the media for many years. However, what began as an asset capable of spinning media criticism soon became a catalyst for a widespread distrust of politicians and perception of them as professional liars.

With so much of the media in corporate hands and powerful government press offices many individuals noticed a void. A void that with the internet came a platform for them to fill in the blanks. Derived from its description web-log, the blog began the online journalist revolution by allowing ordinary people from all walks of life to write about anything they wanted and have a free platform from which anyone can follow what they were writing about. It wasn't long before these ordinary people started using this format politically; to report what was missing from the mainstream media or comment on what was in it. Nowadays, pretty much everyone and their cat has a blog. However, blogs can be quite wordy and with attention spans not what they used to be, the Internet 'newspaper' needed a format that reflected the headlines and captions that dominate majority of the mainstream media.

Enter the social networks of Facebook and Twitter, the format of these sites encourage short statements which other users can comment on. They have become phenomenal at the spreading of news and gossip; organising like-minded groups and showing support for causes. This has become especially the case when there is a lack of such a podium or exposure in the mainstream media.

Finally we come to the most important aspect of the news organisation, the source. For the ordinary person blogging away, passing on interesting stories using Facebook, they have only been able to report on information gleaned from their own experiences because unlike professional journalists, they don't usually develop confidential sources from which the derive their story. With the creation of the Wikipedia began the concept of a virtual evolving encyclopedia that is in the hands of anyone who is willing to create, edit, update or verify the information. This allows Wikipedia to have its finger on the pulse of the ever changing world of information. In 2006, the Wiki-format inspired something new, a whistle-blower site known as Wikileaks which upload any and all leaked documents within this format to allow users to verify the data themselves and for the first time individuals from around the world had a massive database of source data.

The latest major release has been accompanied by a chorus of disapproval from the establishment. Politician's instantly sprang to action. The mainstream media's response was less predictable, with many pointing out that the West will be a more dangerous place if politicians cannot communicate with each other secretly. However, it could be argued that the world becomes a far more dangerous place when they do.
As a result of being shunned by the mainstream media journalists' who are toeing the government/corporate line; coming under attack by computer viruses; and finding that support from companies such as Amazon and PayPal have been withdrawn. WikiLeaks recorded a huge growth in its social media following through Twitter and Facebook.
As calls grew from many political figures around the world for the WikiLeaks website to be closed and its founder Julian Assange to face legal charges, the Twitter and Facebook accounts have become the central hubs for supporters to remain informed of the latest revelations released, the plight of the founders and to donate money towards the cause.
Although the importance of social media has become a rather overused early 21st Century buzz phrase, with regard to a subversive organisation such as WikiLeaks, it is easy to see just what important tools Twitter and Facebook are.
And with much of the ‘truth’ cleverly put in the hands of mainstream media organisations and hundreds of thousands of active and engaged social network supporters ready to respond instantly to spread the word it’s very hard to see how any individual, government or army can stop the leaks from continuing (beehivecity.com).

The simple ability to leak this much information is a result of radical advances in data storage. On a purely physical level, it's very hard to leak hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper. These memos were simply put on a USB stick. By making it so easy to transfer information, the whims of individual whistle-blowers are more easily realised than they ever have been before.
The central attack is that Wikileaks puts lives at risk, by potentially revealing sources. It seems a fair concern, but so far the Government has been unable to show any repercussion from Wikileak's releases. It's certainly not an attack which can be utilised today, where embarrassment is the most likely outcome.
Politicians shouldn't be the only people with egg on their face. The media should be embarrassed as well. Large parts of it have mistaken their role of truth-seeker for that of the establishment's press office.
The condemnation from the mainstream media of course would not be a surprise to Marxists' who consider the media part of the 'state apparatus'. The reality may be a little more complex than this but the reaction to the Wikileaks dilemma reveals there is some substantial truth to it, or at least more truth than those working in the media would like to admit. The genuine role of the media, the role it must adopt if society is to function in a practically and morally coherent way, is to reveal power, to pester power, to hound it with questions. Because power cannot be trusted.
The only difference between Wikileaks and other news organisations is that Wikileaks is doing its job properly. Nowadays, news broadcasts are saturated with what are little more than transcripts of government briefings. Just this week, much of the content about the student protest outside parliament read like an internal memo from the Met police, complete with flat-out inaccuracies. Very occasionally the police inaccuracies are so glaring that it becomes impossible to maintain the pretence. This is what happened with Ian Tomlinson. But it doesn't always happen.
Wikileaks represents the latest development of the new online media, one that cuts out the middle man to reveal the documents in full. As corporations and governments strengthen their control over the mainstream media, the Internet has become the light in the darkness by giving individuals the power to do the job that our journalists' should be doing.





references



http://www.beehivecity.com/hightech/wikileaks-supporters-embrace-twitter-facebook-as-accounts-boom114012132/

Discuss the relationship between ideology and political parties.

In this essay I will begin by outlining what we mean by the concept ideology. I will then discuss the political parties related to these particular ideologies. In the scope of this essay I will focus on the Conservative and Labour parties only.

It is helpful to think of ideology as 'applied philosophy' because it takes philosophical ideas out of the realms of theory and applies them to the real world. It provides a perspective for understanding human society and a schema from which policies can be developed. As with all philosophical perspectives, there are arguments for and against as well as competing and opposing perspectives.

The most common way of classifying ideologies is the left-right continuum. Right-wingers value freedom and the right for the individual to do as they please and develop their own lives without interference, particularly from governments. Left-wingers on the other hand, believe that this kind of freedom is won by the strong at the expense of the weak. They value equality as the more important value and highlight the collective interest of the community above that of the individual. In terms of the economy, the Right strongly support Capitalism; the right of individuals to form their own businesses to reap what rewards they can from the provision of goods and services. However, the Left argue that Capitalism is a flawed system that creates poverty where there is plenty and that it is much better to have collective ownership of industries so that workers get the full benefit of their labour. In the Centre, politicians dismiss both these positions as extreme and damaging to the harmony of national life. They tend to argue for combinations and compromises between them: in practice a mixed economy combined with efficient welfare services.

As we will see for the two main UK parties: Conservative and Labour which once upon a time represented the right and left, there has been a dramatic shift to the centre.










Dispatches

On the same day the British public heard details of the unprecedented cuts in government spending that will affect almost everyone in the country, taxpayers also learnt they'd have to pay extra hundreds of millions of pounds a year to Brussels, as MEPs voted in favour of an increase in their budget.
Calling the proposed 5.9% increase 'completely irresponsible and unacceptable', David Cameron has just managed to get the EU to limit the budget rise to 2.9%.
Dispatches reveals that, despite the worldwide credit crunch, it's still possible to get rich out of Europe. The programme details the exceptionally generous package of salary, pension and expenses that MEPs receive and how some have abused the rules to pocket as much cash as possible. While Westminster has tightened up on the expenses system, Brussels still hands out some cash allowances without the need for receipts.
The programme also looks at the system of agricultural payments, which are supposed to help those British farmers struggling to earn a livelihood and continue producing food. Dispatches shows how millions of pounds in grants have ended up going to some of the best known - and richest - landowners in the country.
Dispatches also examines how money meant to help deprived areas has actually been spent. In one case the programme discovers that hundreds of UK workers are being laid off and their jobs moved to Poland, funded in part by a multi-million-pound European grant.
In another case the programme investigates allegations of fraud when a man with a criminal conviction for dishonesty ended up running a project given hundreds of thousands of pounds of EU money.