I accept Peter's suggestion, so I decide to post my question about the essay whose topic is capitalism. Did everyone write an essay easily? For me, I feel that this essay is the most difficult one among the many assignment from Peter. Those are my idea how I approached to write my essay in the below.
I think that there is some senses in what the writer of article(I forget the name, but you guys know well) says, compared with Karl Marx. Maybe everyone heard about Karl Marx related to Marxism. Karl Marx argued about a negative side of capitalism, expecially seperating two part, capital and labor. I'm not a communist, but I agree with tragedies which can be occured by capitalism as Marx argued. I think the writer of article suggested about one of the tragedies in capitalist nation. From the Karl Marx arguement, I think, it is similar to the writer's opinion that Marx said, in modest, people go wrong to focuse on having enough money to buy products they want(1857~1858). However, this mentions is a small part of his whole argument about capitalism. He argued about complicated problems which are occered by relationship between capital and labor. Compared with Marx' idea, the writer of the article's opinion is too narrow. In addition, I don't agree with his idea that we should come back to the Thai religion to satisfy with our possession. The mention is conservative.
Actually, something is strange but I don't know what it is exactly. Could you help me? I really welcome any question of that and advises. I will deeply appreciate your comment.
I think that there is some senses in what the writer of article(I forget the name, but you guys know well) says, compared with Karl Marx. Maybe everyone heard about Karl Marx related to Marxism. Karl Marx argued about a negative side of capitalism, expecially seperating two part, capital and labor. I'm not a communist, but I agree with tragedies which can be occured by capitalism as Marx argued. I think the writer of article suggested about one of the tragedies in capitalist nation. From the Karl Marx arguement, I think, it is similar to the writer's opinion that Marx said, in modest, people go wrong to focuse on having enough money to buy products they want(1857~1858). However, this mentions is a small part of his whole argument about capitalism. He argued about complicated problems which are occered by relationship between capital and labor. Compared with Marx' idea, the writer of the article's opinion is too narrow. In addition, I don't agree with his idea that we should come back to the Thai religion to satisfy with our possession. The mention is conservative.
Actually, something is strange but I don't know what it is exactly. Could you help me? I really welcome any question of that and advises. I will deeply appreciate your comment.
Hi Soojin. I also was struggling to make it sure what my idea was. But yet I haven't come up with the idea because thinking about communism and capitalism, I don't know which is better exactly. But the reality is we've been living under capitalism for decades, and there might be a reason why the majority of people decided to do so. I'm still not sure, and this unsureness makes my essay get weak!! I'm sorry, I also need help:)
ReplyDeleteSoojin,
ReplyDeleteI agree that the belief that he mention is hardly to accept for reader who believe in other religions and no religion.
First time I thought, I am little confused. However, I tried to think again, "a negative side of capitalism" is only conquently of capitalism. The question asked the definition of capitalism, so I will intent only the definition.
So, as his definition, only Damnoen Saduak is capitalism. In contrast,as the real definition, both of floating markets are capitalism.
I liked a lot of the ideas in Soojin's post, but the sentence that I liked best is: "Actually, something is strange but I don't know what it is exactly." I like it because I think it's makes a good point to work from. It also reminds us why people write, especially why people write academic essays and such things. The main reason that people write is not to pass an exam or to get a degree!
ReplyDeleteI agreed with Mark about the level of difficulty: I thought it was challenging, but not as difficult as other essays I've given Soojin. Although if you want to argue for a Marxist definition and analysis to support Thanong, that might make it more difficult. But I like Soojin's approach to the question.
ReplyDeleteThanks, everyone~^.^
ReplyDeleteAs I know very little about Marx, so I have tried to read some article about his idea of capitalism. I also got some points the same as soojin's that there is some negative sides of capitalism. And that negative side seems to be the same as Thanong's observation that the sellers at Damnoen Saduak Floating Market (who are in the capitalism)seems to be less happier and more concern on money than those at Amphawa market. Based on "Karl Marx after Institutional Economics" article,it could be inferred that the workers under the capitalism are forced to be specialized in very narrowtive skills in order to produce more at the least cost by division of labour. This makes the labours indifferent from the machine which is only focusing on increasing profits or money. The author proposed that "the single-firm socialism was therefore the first project for a society alternative to capitalism...And self-fulfilment and the performance of interesting work is the fundamental of human right...". The author also stated that according to Marx, "work itself would become recreational in the sense that it would recreate the person and his/her capacity. So I think this is quite closed to what Thanong said about the sellers at Amphawa market who work with happiness rather than money.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I haven't finished reading the above cited article so I might have missed the whole idea of that article.
I am happy to discuss more about this.
Thanks Soojin for bringing this interesting topic.
Waew,
ReplyDeleteIs the article you referred to available online?
Oops! I forgot to put my reference on the last comment. Here it is;
ReplyDelete"Karl Marx after New Institution Economics"
http://c-faculty.chuo-u.ac.jp/~aruka/Nonlinear/pagano.pdf
As I said, I didn't finish reading it yet. I might miss the whole idea of the article.
Thank you Waew,
ReplyDeleteI thought Pagano's paper gives a well argued analysis supporting a way of understanding Marx, and his usefulness today, by splitting him in two; however, although I would not join the "many economists [who] dismiss Marx entirely", I do agree with them on "the failure of Marx I and the nebulous ingenuousness of his junior brother" (2007, p. 11). But that doesn't mean his ideas are not important and worth some careful consideration.
Some such split as Pagano proposes is often a useful way of approaching a famously prolific writer if for no other reason than that people's ideas change over time. Plato, for example, would seem to have changed his mind very substantially between youth and old age on a number of questions. In Euthyphro and more explicitly in the following Crito, he seems pro-democracy, whereas his mature Politics is definitely anti-democracy. Any comprehensive account of Plato and his work must address the apparent contradiction here. In Marx's case, which is not really as simple as Plato's, Pagano does a good job of reconciling what might appear to be inconsistencies within Marx's analyses of, especially, labour and production.
I also thought that his paper might prove a useful source for Soojin on some common ideas about Marx's thought. In his comments on the value of Marxism for traditional and modern theories of economics, Pagano gives a concise and fairly clear introduction to what most people would accept as major parts of Marx's thought. At 35 pages, it's a little long, but not extremely long, and most of the language is not a problem. In the later parts, his application to contemporary economics issues is also likely to be useful.
How did you come across Ungano's paper? Via a web search, or something else?
Anyway, thanks for bringing it to our attention.
References
Pagano, U., (2007, March). Karl Marx after New Institutional Economics. Paper presented at the meeting of the X JAFEE, Kyoto. Retrieved on March 11, 2009 from http://c-faculty.chuo-u.ac.jp/~aruka/Nonlinear/pagano.pdf
Wow, Waew, Thank you. How did you get it?
ReplyDeleteThe research is very useful for me to write my essay. Actually, I refer to another book introducing three classic sociologists. It is Korean book. But the most serious problem is I don't know the detail things about the book .....I think, I should refer to your source!
So, you guys means that there are some commen things between Karl Marx and Kangtong, right?
Thank you, Waew again, and thank you Peter ^^ and other guys!
It is good that this article seems to be useful for our essay.
ReplyDeleteI got this article by searching thru www.google.come/scholar. I think it is very useful for searching academic articles.
You know, before studying with Peter, I've never interested in this area but now this blog kick me off to be curious and want to know more and more.
Thanks Peter and my classmates!