Blog Posts - Independent News & Commentary

Auroville in India was created as an intentional community or ashram by “the Mother” a follower of Sri Aurobindu near Pondicherry, India in Tamil Nadu, established as a model world peace village. This community would lead to the creation of a protective environment for intra-religious study, and give long term residents the ability to live “free of possessions or property ownership” by pledging all of their property to the collective and receiving their needed food, housing, sustenance, community resources, utilities, etc. from the ashram....

The State inherently plays a more decisive role in socialist forms of government than democratic organizations, primarily due to the need of redistribution of income or wealth but also because of the responsibility entrusted to it for building enterprise and industry for the betterment of society. Soviet, Eastern Block, and Nazi versions of State Socialism became historically notable for the development of a police state apparatus, which is often used to paint this form of government as statist and undemocratic by opponents. Yet, socialism works in Europe or India on...

Criminologists remain divided and in debate over the root causes in human psychology and social development that cause crime, violence, and adjustment issues in human individuals. Some suggest that childhood characteristics are formed through biological, anatomical, or genetic factors and that these may predispose a person to become a robber later on in life, while others posit that social programming, cultural education, and personal relationships may be the cause of creating violence in individual behavior.

Utilitarianism is often summarized as “the greatest good for the greatest number” being used to calculate the moral correctness of an action, decision, or policy for both individuals and society on a common standard.  Utilitarianism ideally judges actions based upon their outcome in producing the greatest happiness or pleasure for the greatest number of people, and therefore the ‘utility’ of an action can be calculated through its use in the production of the social good. Utilitarianism as a guide to personal behavior can relate to...

The State, as it exists in international law and common practice today, is a means of social organization which is based in a belief system, operating with elements of a coercive monopoly of force, which contains an inherent threat to personal liberty. Freedom, in the natural law tradition, is fundamentally present as human identity but is limited by either the State or other citizens who may use force individually or in groups to coerce others socially.

Federalism leads to increasingly decentralized and inherently local government, which can efficiently manage healthcare cooperatively out of natural care and compassion, as opposed to the national implementation that is doomed to failure due to the size of the bureaucracy and apathy of official policy. Dr. Harold Pease has illustrated this issue with his discussion of California’s energy policy in the 1990’s, which led to frequent breakdowns and “brownouts” rather than the propounded goal of the central planning committee.

The policy of the criminal justice system related to the use and distribution of illicit drugs in society has traditionally been one of prohibition, similar to past historical attempts to ban alcohol on moral grounds through temperance campaigns, with subsequent consequences in the rise of violence associated with the black market. The economic forces related to illicit drug prohibition increases the market price of these substances by forcing the trade underground, reducing supply, and increasing the amount of risk associated with distribution. The unregulated cash...

One of the major concerns for independent regulation of the financial services industry relates to the structure of large investment banks, where multiple divisions within the same company structure may have interests with clients that compete or conflict with each other. For example, with Barclays PLC in 2009, 40% of the banks income came from traditional interest bearing loans while 30% came from financial services and 30% came from direct investment gains. (Shipman, 2011, p.

Establishing “information management” as the most important element of Supply Chain Management, the role of this process within the business organization is related to the need for accurate record keeping, database management, information technology, report generation, analysis, and other important functions of the specialization. Considering that the supply chain elements of an organization may exist prior to the establishment or implementation of a new SCM framework, the SCM team must focus on building a reliable and integrated way of tracking the flow of...

Following the international economic crisis of 2007-2009 which required unprecedented financial intervention by governments in market economies to save “To Big to Fail” (TBTF) businesses such as banks, insurance agencies, and large industrial manufacturers in the U.S., U.K., and E.U., business management practices have been under pressure due to ethical concerns. The definition of business ethics is often under debate between academics and professionals, as well as the extent that businesses should be motivated and organized around ethical concerns. The...

The three texts under evaluation relate to the public policy and popular opinion surrounding genetics in the public and scientific community. The Cassini et al. (2011) study showed that patients both value and personally reference genetic information on an archival basis from their physicians related to genetic testing, and that they overwhelmingly found the written documentary information valuable. (Cassini et al., 2011) The Condit et al. (1998) study showed that the clinical data was leading the popular interpretation of genetic data in mass-media without the...

The rise and fall of Behaviorism can be charted historically against related developments in the discipline of Psychology which drew upon its findings and experiments but simultaneously leveled a critique of its methods and biases. Behaviorism is important historically as it relates to the development of empirical methods of inquiry into the study of human motivation, and in establishing an objective methodology to search for order in mind, consciousness, and society in the late 19th and early 20th century. In this era, there was a growing dissatisfaction with the...