Background: School meal programs are not only government initiatives but also community-driven efforts. Aiming to combat food insecurity among school-aged children effectively, these programs are executed in conjunction with food bank initiatives. Various community groups play a crucial role in the success of both food security initiatives. There is a need to improve community engagement to successfully link school meal programs with food banks to build program synergy, combating food insecurity through a two-sided approach. Aim: This study aims to examine (...) community engagement in school meals program by analyzing its purposeful focus on creating jobs and income-generating opportunities for different community groups, i.e., youths, women, and others. Methods: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework, combining the reasoning strengths of Mindsponge theory and inference advantages of Bayesian analysis, was employed on a dataset of 126 government representatives who manage large-scale school meal programs in 126 different countries. Results: Findings showed that the school meals program’s purposeful focus on creating jobs and income-generating opportunities for women in the community was positively associated with community engagement, thereby supporting the linkage between the programs and food banks. In contrast, providing jobs and income-generating opportunities for youths and other community groups had an ambiguous association with community engagement in school meal programs. Conclusions: Findings underscore the importance of creating jobs and income-generating opportunities for women to improve community engagement in school meal programs. Formulating strategies that empower woman’s entrepreneurship may foster their involvement and engagement in school meal programs, promising to successfully link these programs with food bank initiatives among implementing countries. (shrink)

The current study aims to examine community engagement in the school meals program by analyzing its focus on creating jobs and income-generating opportunities for different community groups. Strengthening community engagement may improve the connection between the school meals program and food banks, effectively combating food insecurity among children.

China’s rise to global power status is set to be amongst the primary shapers of politics and life more broadly in the 21st century. Yet despite its immense significance, political philosophers have been surprisingly quiet on the normative implications of China’s rise. This, I will argue, is a mistake. Not only does China’s rise generate interesting normative questions in its own right; it also upends some basic assumptions that many of us have hitherto adopted in our thinking about international distributive (...) justice. In the philosophical literature, the international order is often characterised by two sorts of states – developed and developing – with the former owing demanding duties and the latter having expansive permissions to further their own development. China’s status as both a genuine superpower and a middle-income country facing significant development challenges calls into question the continued functionality of such simplifying assumptions. Against the backdrop of China’s rise – and, to a lesser extent, that of other large emerging economies – this paper develops a more fine-grained account of how to conceive of states’ differential levels of advantage, distinguishing between states that are incapable, precariously capable, and robustly capable of realizing a minimally decent standard of domestic justice. This account reaffirms the assignment of the most onerous international duties to developed states, but also assigns duties and claims to developing states in a scalar fashion, with the upshot that better-off developing states in particular bear positive duties of international justice, owed to least-developed countries (LDCs). (shrink)

The study determined the chemical composition and acceptability of organic bath soap among students in Yaba College of Technology, Yaba, Lagos State, Nigeria. The study was guided by two research questions. Mixed method research design was used for the study. Population was 46 which comprised all Home Economics students from the Department of Vocational Education. In-home use questionnaire was used for data collection. The study produced two samples of turmeric bath soap. Findings showed that the chemical compositions of the turmeric (...) soap samples are in accordance with the specifications of the Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) with toilet soap specifications of pH ranging from 9 to 11, total fatty matter ranging from 60-75 gm and total free caustic soda ranging from 0.05 to 0.08 %. Findings showed that the sensory evaluation attributes for colour, smell, consistency foam ability and skin sensitivity were accepted after use for three months as the samples were skin friendly, safe to use without side effects. It was recommended that turmeric body soap and turmeric face gel can be produced in large quantities for commercial purpose as a form of income generation for unemployed graduates. (shrink)

The overall objective of the study was to examine the pros and cons of the participatory approach adopted in natural resource management in the ecologically protected areas of the Sundarbans mangrove of Bangladesh. A comparative study was done between the people who are involved and non-involved in this approach. Empirical data was collected through personal interviews with a structured questionnaire. The Gini coefficient was measured first and then embedded with the Lorenz curve to draw a line between perfect equality and (...) inequality vis-a-vis. The study revealed that the co-management built awareness in favor of biodiversity conservation and the efficient use of natural resources. Contradictorily, a segment of different hierarchical committees was involved in destructive activities like poisoning the wetlands for fishing. Therefore, a mixed outcome was found. The findings will help the policymakers in identifying the pitfalls and bottlenecks rooted in co-management. Hence, the study recommends revising the approach to ensure the community’s active participation on an equal basis and take action against them who degrade those resources. Exploring profitable alternative income-generating activities is warranted to narrow down the dependency on the Sundarbans mangrove’s natural resources. In order to address the tragedy of the commons, the study advocates for the unity of all knowledge ranging from science to humanistic scholarship for sound policymaking. (shrink)

The economy of Bangladesh mainly depends on agriculture. Any development can’t be possible because females and males are equally distributed in the country. Women can play a vital role if they properly participated in farm activities as well as in other income-generating activities outside the home. Rice mills are very much dependent on human labour, and almost 5 millions of unorganised workers are working in different rice mills, and more than 60 per cent of them is a female (...) worker. But the working environment suffers from different discrimination and harassment issues between male and female workers. The present study aimed to find out the socio-economic status of women labour at rice husking mill of Bangladesh. Discrimination between male and female workers and the factor affecting the standard of living of women’s household will be focused. The study was carried out in two districts namely Mymensingh and Sherpur. From each district, rice husking mill was selected by using a cluster sampling technique, and 70 male and 70 female labours were considered as a sample. The survey was conducted by direct interviews using a questionnaire. Data generated were analysed by using tabular and statistical techniques. The average family size of the respondents was 4.46, and 57.05% of the participants were females while 42.95% were males in the household and 65.71% of female had no education. 88% of the women’s main occupation was in the rice mill as a daily paid labour. Average wage rate of male and female worker was 184.31 Tk. And 135.95 Tk., respectively. Age, education, number of family member, total land, number of earning member, the wage of women labour and working time and experience were the factors influencing income and living standard of female labours. There were various social violence cases against female labours in the working environment of rice husking mills. In the study area, 93% of female workers get lower wages, 90% of them had no accommodation facility. Besides they did not have sanitation facility (80%), opportunity to take rest at the middle of work (64%) and meal support (71%). (shrink)

This study aimed to examine the challenges encountered by science teachers in implementing modular distance learning and the coping strategies they employed to address these challenges. Using a mixed-method research approach, data were collected through a survey of thirty-eight Junior High School science teachers in Mandaon District in Masbate, Philippines. Findings revealed that the implementation of modular distance learning presented various challenges, including technical problems, distribution and retrieval difficulties, student utilization issues, and unreliable assessment results. To cope with these challenges, (...) teachers employed various strategies, including attending ICT training, asking for technical assistance, developing income-generating projects, and utilizing differentiated instruction and targeted assessments. The study also highlights the need for more parental involvement, adequate funding for schools, clear instructions and guidance to students, and proper monitoring of student performance. Overall, the study suggests that with effective implementation and support, modular distance learning can be an effective mode of instruction, particularly during times of crisis. (shrink)

Prostitution in Kenya is increasing at a very alarming rate and is posing a danger to the society both morally and economically. Efforts to help female sex workers exit prostitution are categorized by the deficiency appropriate interventions among female sex workers (FSWS). Therefore, the current study sought to determine the relationship between the attitude of female sex workers (FSW) towards provision of care and the intention to exit street level prostitution. The study adopted a descriptive correlational study using a mixed (...) approach. This study targeted all the FSW in the Central Business District of Eldoret town and the counselors who deal with a significant number of them. The study used census sampling method. The snowball technique was used to get the respondents up to maturation point. This study utilized questionnaires and interview schedule to get relevant data from the respondents. Experts in the Department of Counselling Psychology and the researcher’s supervisors assisted in ensuring that the instruments are valid. To test for reliability of the instruments, the Cronbach Alpha coefficient was used. Cronbach Alpha coefficient of 0.784 was obtained and used after pilot study. The study used SPSS version 23 software to aid in the analysis of both descriptive and inferential statistics. The inferential statistics used was Pearson product-moment correlation. The interview guides were categorized in themes and analyzed using content analysis. The findings of the study showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between FSWs towards provision of Care and Intention Exit Street Level Prostitution (r=0.113 and p=0.043). It was recommended that the stakeholders should also encourage the FSWs to form support groups that may come up with income generating activities so that they may be occupied and in the process exit prostitution.Regarding areas for further studies, the study recommends a more consultative and comprehensive study on the attitudes of FSW towards the intention of Female sex workers in Eldoret Town that involve, County AIDS and STI Coordinator, non-governmental institutions in Eldoret Town. (shrink)

Why, if at all, should we object to economic inequality? Some central arguments – the argument from decreasing marginal utility for example – invoke instrumental reasons and object to inequality because of its effects. Such instrumental arguments, however, often concern only the static effects of inequality and neglect its intertemporal conse- quences. In this article, we address this striking gap and investigate income inequality’s intertemporal consequences, including its potential effects on humanity’s (very) long-term future. Following recent arguments around future (...) generations and so-called longtermism, those effects might arguably matter more than inequality’s short-term con- sequences. We assess whether we have instrumental reason to reduce economic inequality based on its intertemporal effects in the short, medium, and the very long term. We find a good short and medium-term instrumental case for lower economic inequality. We then argue, somewhat speculatively, that we have instrumental reasons for inequality reduction from a longtermist perspective too, primarily because greater inequality could increase existential risk. We thus have instrumental reasons to reduce inequality, regardless of which time-horizon we take. We then argue that from most consequentialist perspectives, this pro tanto reason also gives us all-things-considered reason. And even across most non-consequentialist views in philosophy, this argument gives us either an all-things-considered or at least weighty pro tanto reason against inequality. (shrink)

Climate change prevention necessitates the communication of transparent and reliable scientific evidence to improve public awareness and support. Felt responsibility is an essential factor influencing human environment-related psychology and behavior. However, the knowledge about the relationship between the felt responsibility and perceived uncertainty of scientific evidence regarding climate change has remained limited. The current study examines factors associated with the perceived uncertainty of scientific evidence (including felt responsibility to act on climate change) among stakeholders of marine and coastal ecosystems in (...) 42 countries. Employing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 709 stakeholders generated by MaCoBioS—a research project funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020, we reveal several main insights. Stakeholders with lower educational levels, being males and not from high-income countries, are more likely to think scientific evidence regarding how to act on climate change is uncertain. Moreover, people with a higher felt responsibility to act on climate change are also more likely to perceive higher uncertainty of scientific evidence. Based on these findings, we discuss how scientific evidence should be communicated to build the eco-surplus culture and, subsequently, the felt responsibility of stakeholders while inoculating them from climate change misinformation and disinformation. (shrink)

It is difficult to advance a point beyond what Keynes himself commented about his own vision in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money in 1936 (hereafter TGT) in its Chapter 24. It is also difficult to express a deeper thought than what Skidelsky wrote about Chapter 24 of TGT (cf. Skidelsky, 1997). The purpose of this article is to identify whether Chapter 24 of TGT is the gist of Keynes’s legacy, having set the foundations of macroeconomics in the (...) previous 23 Chapters. Relevant topics included in Chapter 24 are the consequences of full employment, the fate of income distribution, the future of overall wealth, the socialization of investment, saving, expectations, the role of the State in economies, the future of financial markets and the interaction between economics and other disciplines. Indeed this Chapter displays Keynes’s genius as a social philosopher, following the tradition of The Economics Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930). In Chapter 24 he was taking a glance at his product as did Phillip II when he was observing the construction of his castle El Escorial in XVII Spain. Within his vision, is this piece of work a justification of capitalism? Keynes sees the State as both the spender and the employer of last resort, thereby proposing a new role for the government (Skidelsky, 1998). He also suggests a new role for the private sector and reconsiders the interrelation between the two sectors. He is fully optimistic about this issue, which he considers as evolutionary. In addition, Keynes blurs the distinction between economics and sociology, advancing new interdisciplinary hints in his thinking. Keynes is also concerned on the epistemological role of assumptions in order to obtain defensible conclusions. Thereafter the British economist proposes new methods. He was a neo-realist and was against the inductive method. In addition, it can be stated that TGT is grounded on new psychological laws and motivations, that is, on a new vision of humankind, especially the analyzed chapter. His topics are the bypassing of Classical Economics; the destiny of macroeconomics in both theoretical and policy terms, highlighting new roles for interest rates; savers and rentiers; and the relevance of the concepts of ideas, interests and power. In all these respects Keynes is once again far ahead of his time. Finally a debatable topic dealt with by Keynes in Chapter 24 of TGT is 1 PhD in Economics, Lancaster University, UK; Professor-researcher at ISEC Universidad de Negocios, Mexico City. socialisation of investment. This is in words of Skidelsky, a shift in the balance of social power. Keynes is thus in Chapter 24 of TGT a visionary and an idealist, a reformer, and certainly a trans-generational thinker. When he talks about the passion of thriftiness and the setting of reasonable financial rewards arising from financial instruments he is advancing explications for financial crises in terms of speculation. The open conclusion is that Chapter 24 contains the gist of Keynes’s mature philosophical thinking and legacy, confirming that for him attitudes are one of the most relevant issues in life. In addition, he considers that both social and psychological elements are necessary for a thorough understanding of economic issues and their consequences, such as peace and happiness. Section 1 is an introduction. Section 2 is both a literature review and a summary of Keynes’s general philosophical insights. Section 3 is an analysis of Chapter 24 of TGT in the specific fields of Epistemology, Ethics, Ontology, and Political and Social Philosophy. Section 4 is a conclusion. References are listed at the end of the article. (shrink)

The globalization of and technological challenge to the world's workers generate profound ethical problems. Suitable solutions will require governments and civil societies to move beyond the modern tendencies to divinize property rights and base people's income eligibility almost exclusively on their work. Some attention is being paid to the issues involved therein so as to achieve better work/life balance. In some places, in fact, resource-based wealth has been distributed to all citizens, even to those not directly involved in (...) class='Hi'>generating the wealth. To maintain and grow such arrangements will be difficult so long as traditional capitalist values like property rights and the work ethic remain dominant. Until this worldview is modified, only the independently wealthy will be able to live decent lives without engaging in wage work. But wageworkers' ability to find such work indefinitely is not assured. (shrink)

The Philippines is one of the fast-growing economies in the South-East Asian and the Pacific region. This study considered eight factors: HEI PRC rate, crime rate, education, employment, health, poverty, income, and basic family amenities of the 17 regions of the country, all taken from the year 2012 databases of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) and Open Data Philippines. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) generated the indices of the six factors and Cluster Analysis (...) (CA) to group regional similarities. Clustering revealed that ARMM and MIMAROPA Regions have clustered independently, in two individual clusters, while the rest of the 15 regions have clustered in two groups of five and 10. The study revealed that crime, poverty and health mortality rates have generally inverse relationships with HEI PRC percentage performance, employment, education, income and basic housing amenities. (shrink)

In recent years, much public attention has been devoted to the existence of pay discrepancies between men and women at the upper end of the income scale. For example, there has been considerable discussion of the ‘Hollywood gender pay gap’. We can refer to such discrepancies as cases of millionaire inequality. These cases generate conflicting intuitions. On the one hand, the unequal remuneration involved looks like a troubling case of gender injustice. On the other, it’s natural to feel uneasy (...) when confronted with the suggestion that multi-millionaires are somehow being paid inadequately. In this paper, we consider two arguments for rectifying millionaire inequality, clarifying their appeal but also identifying the obstacles that each will have to surmount in order to succeed. (shrink)

Studies have shown that both serotonin and glutamate receptor systems play a crucial role in the mechanisms underlying drug-induced synesthesia. The specific nature of these mechanisms, however, continues to remain elusive. Here we propose two distinct hypotheses for how synesthesia triggered by hallucinogens in the serotonin-agonist family may occur. One hypothesis is that the drug-induced destabilization of thalamic projections via GABAergic neuronal circuits from sensory areas leads to a disruption of low-level, spontaneous integration of multisensory stimuli. This sort of integration (...) regularly occurs when spatial and temporal attributes match. Destabilization of feedback loops, however, can result in incongruent experiences or binding of random thalamus activation with sensory input in a particular sensory modality. The second hypothesis builds on embodied cognition, cases in which visual images of external stimuli activate task-related neural regions. On this proposal, binding processes that do not normally generate awareness become accessible to consciousness as a result of decreased attentional discrimination among incoming stimuli. (shrink)

Phenomenal qualities are embodied spaciotemporal abstractions subjectively perceived by a conscious observer. Specific examples, i.e., qualia, include the color purple, the taste of chocolate, and the fragrance of a rose. The question of whether phenomenal awareness can be empirically understood forms one important facet of the “Hard Problem of Consciousness” (Chalmers, 1995, pp. 200–219). It is the position of this analysis that we will never understand why we experience sensory qualities in the manner we do until we first comprehend how (...) they may have evolved in the very distant past. This examination explores the evolutionary development of phenomenal experience. In so doing, it proposes that behind the mechanisms through which external stimuli interface with our sensory apparatus, there lies a long evolutionary process of standardization, approximation, and synchronization that has ultimately forged the close links between the two. The consistent and efficient correlations that the resultant evolutionary links give rise to cumulatively generate conscious experience. There is a tight correspondence between our sensations and incoming stimuli, and this synchronous covariance is meaningful and functional; however, it does not result from a strict cause-and-effect relationship between the physical properties of external objects and our internal neurophysiology. As such, this investigation endorses Hoffman’s (1998, 2003, 2008, 2009) view that the external world is largely hidden from direct sensory evaluation. The following inquiry utilizes Jung’s (1952) “Acausal Connecting Principle” to further explore the concept of complementary sensory phenomena as it may have originally been envisioned by Wolfgang Pauli. (Meier, 2001) This thesis, with respect to meaningful acausality and synchronicity, is first used to provide a plausible explanation for the initial genetic development of color perception, and then employed to examine the analogous evolutionary ties that ultimately engender all sensory modalities. Without invoking the Quantum-Mind hypothesis, this paper supports the idea that our five senses are not direct, or true, or even approximate abstract representations of any underlying material properties of incoming stimuli; instead, they efficiently provide useful higher-order assumptions pertaining to the macro properties of spacetime, matter, and motion, as well as the causal-objective of all life. The overall investigation concludes that it is the structural categorization, hierarchical organization, and qualitative characterization of this indirect presumptive meta-information that has engendered meaningful sensory experience, and all conscious thought over evolutionary time. (shrink)

Governments standardly deploy a distinction between goods and services in assessing economic health and tracking national income statistics, of which medical goods and services carry significant importance. In what follows we draw on Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) to introduce a third kind of entity called patterns, which help capture the various ways in which goods and services are intertwined and help also to show how many services generate a new kind of non-goods-related products. Patterns are an overlooked yet essential (...) features of many economic sectors including medicine. Studying patterns offers new insights into various components of economic analysis, including outcomes-oriented evaluations of medical services and the value of human capital in the medical sphere. (shrink)

Predictive processing models of perception take issue with standard models of perception as hierarchical bottom-up processing modulated by memory and attention. The predictive framework posits that the brain generates predictions about stimuli, which are matched to the incoming signal. Mismatches between predictions and the incoming signal – so-called prediction errors – are then used to generate new and better predictions until the prediction errors have been minimized, at which point a perception arises. Predictive models hold that all bottom-up processes are (...) signals conveying prediction errors to higher areas, which respond by updating their predictions. We take issue with this claim and argue that object recognition requires bottom-up processing that cannot be understood in terms of prediction errors. Along the way, we expand on previous work casting doubt on the framework's ability to account for attention. Specifically, we argue that the type of attention that allows us to rapidly extract the gist of an object or scene presents an additional challenge to the predictive approach. We conclude by considering how the framework may be augmented to avoid these problems. (shrink)

Poverty in many societies is racialized, with poverty concentrated among particular racial groups. This article aims (a) to provide a philosophical account of how racialized poverty can represent an unjust form of inequality, and (b) to suggest the general direction that policies aiming to reduce racialized poverty ought to take in light of this account. (a) As a species of inequality, racialized poverty (whether absolute or relative) is not intrinsically morally objectionable. However, it can be extrinsically objectionable because it is (...) caused by past or current racial injustice, undermines the value of specific goods to the impoverished, or contributes to objectionable deficiencies in impoverished groups’ political efficacy. (b) Racialized poverty is strongly intergenerational, tending to replicate itself between generations within racial groups. This suggests that approaches to its alleviation that offer income security to all members of those groups, rather than targeted opportunity to subsets of such groups, are both more just and more effective. In particular, societies with racialized poverty should strongly consider policies such as income guarantees, which act to counteract the income volatility that contribute to intergenerational racial poverty. (shrink)

A newborn baby is an infant within the first 28 days of birth. Diagnosis and treatment of infant diseases require specialized medical resources and expert knowledge. However, there is a shortage of such professionals globally, particularly in low-income countries. To address this challenge, a knowledge-based system was designed to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of neonatal diseases. The system utilizes both machine learning and health expert knowledge, and a hybrid data mining process model was used to extract knowledge (...) from a clinical dataset. The PART algorithm achieved the highest performance result with 98.06% accuracy under 10-fold cross-validation, and the generated rules were used to develop the knowledge-based system. The system achieved 90.9% accuracy in system performance testing and 89.2% in user acceptance testing, and is intended to serve as an assistant tool for healthcare experts. (shrink)

The United States (U.S.) and Jordan launched negotiations for a free trade agreement in 2000.The US-JO FTA includes a preamble, nineteen articles, three annexes, joint statements, memorandums of understanding, and side letters. In addition to the interesting articles on labor and environment, the US-JO FTA provides the opportunity for Jordanian nationals to come to the U.S. to make investments and participate in trade. Under certain conditions, Jordanian nationals can enter the U.S. to render professional services. The purpose of this article (...) is to examine in detail article 8 of the US-JO FTA which relates to entry of nationals of one party into the territory of the other. The article starts by providing a brief background of the negotiation and conclusion of the US-JO FTA. Then, the article analyzes in detail the specific provision related to temporary entry of nationals. The article draws a comparison between US-JO FTA with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the more recent trade agreements between the U.S., Oman, Bahrain, and Morocco. Finally, the article observes that although the US-JO FTA, like all US FTAs, is designed to permit temporary entry, without intent to establish permanent residence, of persons, the U.S. should have provided Jordan with special and differential treatment for entry of its nationals. Taking into account the special circumstances of Jordan as a developing country with low-income status, high unemployment rate, and lack of resources, movement of business visitors, investors, intra-company transferees, and professionals should have been dealt with leniency so that the FTA could generate effective and real market access. (shrink)

Karl Polanyi in The Great Transformation diagnosed what had happened in the Nineteenth Century that led to poverty, increasingly wild economic fluctuations, increasingly severe depressions, and social dislocation and oppression on a massive scale – the market had been disembedded from communities which were then subjected to the imperatives of a supposedly autonomous market. In fact, such disembedding and imposition of these imperatives was a deliberate strategy developed as a means to impose exploitative relations on people, in opposition to ideas (...) of republican democracy. Recognizing this, after such disembedding had engendered a major global depression in the 1890s and an even more severe depression in the 1930s, along with two world wars, reformers largely succeeded in re-embedding markets. This achievement was fought by neoliberals, and their triumph in the 1970s was a really a project of reversion to the Nineteenth Century economic and political order, now upheld by much more powerful forces, including immensely powerful transnational corporations and financial institutions, corrupt politicians, and much more effective mind control industries. As in the Nineteenth Century, it has concentrated wealth and income, destabilized economies, and threatens a new Great Depression and, as a by-product of the tensions generated by global ecological destruction, possibly a new world war. As opposed to Marxist analyses, Polanyi’s analysis provided a much clearer goal to aim at that has not been discredited by the failures of supposedly communist countries. However, there are still huge problems to be overcome if we are to re-embed the market in communities, including the problem of grappling with the immense power of transnational corporations and financial institutions and those who serve them and the success they have had in corrupting the institutions and culture of democracy. This includes not only undermining the power of nations to control their economies and their subversion of democratic processes, but also in promoting passivity in the population to render them inert and powerless. In this paper I will examine proposals, such as those promoted by Arild Vatn in his book Institutions and the Environment, to develop institutions able to achieve this re-embedding. (shrink)

Rural handicraft industry has performed exceedingly well and enables our country to achieve a wide measure of industrial growth and diversification. By its less capital intensive and high labour absorption nature, this sector has made significant contribution to employment generation and also to rural industrialization. Small scale industrial sector in India create largest employment opportunity for the Indian populace, next only to agriculture. A failure to modernize the rural industrialization programme and revamp the rural non-farm and agricultural sector on the (...) part of the government is partly responsible for the apathetic condition of some rural craft industry and “Pottery industry” of the Hira people provides a good example in this regard. This pottery industry which is given full and part time employment opportunities to a large section people belongs to a marginalized community is crippled by various problems. The real incomes of the workers associated with this profession have declined over the years instead of increasing in tandem with the growth of economy. Consequently the no. of workers working in this industry has been decreases to large extent despite its potentialities for self-employment. The paper studies the prospect of Pottery Craft industry for rural employment in Assam particularly in Karimganj district of Barak Valley and various views of Hira (Kumar) people to solve their basic problems. (shrink)

Despite being increasingly available to us all, retirement pensions remain unequally distributed: between rich and poor, young and old, men and women, and possibly different generations. As this topic receives little attention in moral and political philosophy, the articles in this thesis aim to deliver an original account of justice in retirement pensions along liberal egalitarian lines. The first part defends retirement pensions as a distribution of free time. It shows that including free time in the list of goods that (...) liberal egalitarians prioritise is plausible and avoids problems that would otherwise arise with other candidates, most notably leisure. Retirement as free time is an essential feature of liberal egalitarian societies by (re)distributing the means to pursue any life project, and especially valuable for the poor who work and contribute the longest. The second part makes a case for 'libertirement', a proposal to increase the freedom to enjoy free time across life, as a matter of justice between those who live long and those who die early. Specifically, I propose adding reverse pensions and sabbaticals on top of old-age retirement. Besides showing the importance of longevity for age-group justice, I also draw implications for distributing unconditional basic income and income taxes across life, which I suggest may offer alternative paths to libertirement. Finally, the third part discusses the cases of pension inequality between genders and generations, pushing us to refine our account further. I conclude that there is often a mismatch between liberal egalitarian justice and the design of retirement schemes. The solution is often but not always to reform these systems. Sometimes, we have reasons to revise our very own principles of justice. (shrink)

Growth in popularity of computer games is a noticeable change in recent years. Electronic entertainment increasingly engages the wider society and reaches to new audiences by offering them satisfy of wide variety of needs and aspirations. As a mass media games not only provide entertainment, but they are also an important source of income, knowledge and social problems. Article aims to bring closer look on the common areas of games and comics. On the one hand designers and artists working (...) on games are often inspired by comic books, as well as they create their licensed adaptations and separate „interactive issues”. On the other hand more and more often we can see comics based on popular games. Study present the areas of agreement, cooperation or dependence like: technologies used to create games and comic books, use of comic books to comment events in the gaming industry and organization of exhibitions or events popularizing the works from both fields. ** W ostatnich latach dostrzegalny jest wzrost popularności gier komputerowych. Elektroniczna rozrywka angażuje uwagȩ coraz to szerszych krȩgów społecznych i dociera do nowych grup odbiorców oferuj¸a}c im zaspokojenie najrozmaitszych potrzeb i aspiracji. Jako środek masowego przekazu gry dostarczaj¸a} nie tylko rozrywki, ale stanowi¸a} też istotne źródło dochodów, wiedzy i problemów społecznych. Celem artykułu jest przybliżenie wspólnych obszarów gier i komiksu. Z jednej strony projektanci i artyści pracuj¸a}cy nad grami czȩsto czerpi¸a} inspiracjȩ z komiksów, jak również tworz¸a} ich licencjonowane adaptacje i odrȩbne, „interaktywne numery”. Z drugiej zaś coraz czȩściej publikowane s¸a} komiksy bazuj¸a}ce na popularnych grach. Opracowanie przedstawia również takie obszary porozumienia, współpracy, b¸adź zależności jak: technologie wykorzystywane przy tworzeniu gier i komiksów, zastosowanie komiksów w komentowaniu wydarzeń branży gier oraz organizowanie wystaw i imprez popularyzuj¸acych twórczość z obu dziedzin. (shrink)

Daniel Susskind examines how machines will generate more prosperity, but he is convinced that their proliferation will have some alarming consequences, like higher income inequality, dangerous greed for power to control others, and a world in which people lose their sense of meaning in life for lack of work.

In a world of more than 7 billion people, 80% live on less than $10 per day. Five (5) percent of global income is generated by the poorest 40 percent of the world’s population; while the wealthiest 20% of the population generates 75 percent of world income. Economics attempts to define or describe behavior and it ventures into the realm of predicting. Economics should therefore accept responsibility for controlling/directing realities. If we can understand, define and predict behavior, we (...) should accept the responsibility for changing behavior, and as economists, bring that to bear on material upliftment of the greater majority of the earth’s populace. . Since 1847, numerous role-players have debated and worked tirelessly to promote the welfare of those who are marginalised from mainstream society. To what avail? Exactly one hundred and fifty eight years later, one of the iconic statesmen of the twentieth century, Nelson Mandela, stated: “Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our time – times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accommodation – that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils” (as quoted in Green 2009:2).Clearly, significant progress in addressing the issue has not been made. A concerted drive by the United Nations led to the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals in September 2000, and was endorsed by 189 world leaders. Some progress has been made during the past decade, but it is apparent that many countries are not going to be able to reach their goals. Hence, in order to address poverty at its root, attention is increasingly focused on the contribution of the informal sector and small, medium and micro enterprises. This paper explores such and offers alternatives to combat the spectres of structural unemployment and poverty. (shrink)

Defenders of intellectual property rights argue that these rights are justified because creators and inventors deserve compensation for their labour, because their ideas and expressions are their personal property and because the total amount of creative work and innovation increases when inventors and creators have a prospect of generating high income through the exploitation of their monopoly rights. This view is not only widely accepted by the general public, but also enforced through a very effective international legal framework. (...) And it is endorsed by most academic researchers and commentators in this field. In this essay, I will show that the classical arguments for the justification of private intellectual property rights can be contested, and that there are many good reasons to abolish intellectual property rights completely in favour of an intellectual commons where every person is allowed to use every cultural expression and invention in whatever way he wishes. I will first give a short overview of the classical arguments for the justification of intellectual property as they are usually stated. We will then discuss the question of whether the creator or inventor deserves his de jure monopoly, by using John Christman’s categories of income and control rights to analyse property rights. The aim here is to show that it does not make sense to create control rights for abstract objects, as they are not scarce, and that there is no logical connection between the surplus which may be generated through income rights and the labour which has been put into a cultural artefact or an invention, and therefore it is not justified to grant monopoly rights on the basis of Lockean natural rights arguments for self-ownership and the just appropriation of worldly resources. As it is possible to reject Christman’s property rights categories, I will then go on to show on the basis of Richard Dawkins’ postulation of the ‘meme’ and Ludwik Fleck’s theory of the ‘thought collective’ that creative processes should be interpreted as interpersonal or collective processes, and therefore it is not justified to grant intellectual property rights to individuals on the basis of the idea that the individual who has put labour into the creative work or the invention should be the one to whom the contents of the work belong exclusively. As it is still possible to postulate the utilitarian argument that intellectual property rights are just because they increase the amount of creative works and inventions, I will argue in the last chapter that, from a libertarian as well as from an egalitarian point of view, the justification of intellectual monopoly rights on utilitarian grounds cannot be maintained. Therefore it is time to abolish the current global intellectual property law regime in favour of an intellectual commons for the good of all human beings and societies. (shrink)

The World Economic Forum notes that there is an economic gap between Indonesia and Malaysia every year as seen from GDP per capita. The economic disparity between the two countries caused differences in available employment opportunities. Limited employment opportunities in Indonesia cause an increase in unemployment in Indonesia. The high unemployment rate in West Kalimantan is the main cause of the migration of Indonesians to Malaysia with the aim of carrying out economic and trade activities in the Serikin Market which (...) is located in Sarawak, East Malaysia. The market only takes about 15 minutes from the Jagoi Babang. This study used primary data collected by using in-depth interview and observation techniques which was analyzed qualitatively. The study found that in general the migration patterns of Indonesian traders who traded in the Serikin Market practiced non-permanent mobility patterns. The opportunities of cross-border trade carried out by Indonesian traders are reducing unemployment, facilitating product marketing, increasing income. While the challenges faced are the inadequacy of the road infrastructure, the quality of merchandise that is not good, the unavailability of lodging for Indonesian traders in the border area of Jagoi Babang, shop rental prices are relatively expensive. Basically, this research is to provide empirical data regarding to opportunities and challenges of cross-border traders that will be able to be used for future research related to strategies in managing cross-border trade Hopefully, this research will contribute significantly to generate an effective migration policy in order to minimize transnational crimes. (shrink)

This paper examines the justice of unconditional basic income (UBI) through the lens of the Hegel-inspired recognition-theory of justice. As explained in the first part of the paper, this theory takes everyday social roles to be the primary subject-matter of the theory of justice, and it takes justice in these roles to be a matter of the kind of freedom that is available through their performance, namely ‘social’ freedom. The paper then identifies the key criteria of social freedom. The (...) extent to which the introduction of an UBI would meet these criteria is then examined, with a focus on the social role that stands to be most affected by an UBI, namely that of the worker-earner. It is argued that while an UBI is likely to be only partially effective as an instrument of specifically social freedom, its main justification lies not here, but in securing a basis for the subjective freedom that social freedom presupposes. (shrink)

The current study is conducted to examine the following research questions: 1) How are gender, age, and income associated with trying space tourism? 2) How are gender, age, and income associated with the intention to try space tourism when conditional on the level of immersiveness in information on social media?

This paper is based on the assumption that the high incomes of some professional sports athletes, such as players in professional leagues in the United States and Europe, pose an ethical problem of social justice. I deal with the questions of what should follow from this evaluation and in which ways those incomes should be regulated. I discuss three different options: a) the idea that the incomes of professional athletes should be limited, b) the idea that they should be vastly (...) taxed by the state, and c) the idea that there is a moral obligation for the athletes to spend portions of their incomes on good causes. I will conclude that in today’s circumstances there are good reasons to advocate both option one (limitation) and option two (taxation), but that priority should be given to taxation. (shrink)

This paper elucidates the inseparable connection between the pursuit of a more ecologically sustainable society and the quest for socioeconomic justice. It also demonstrates why Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) is an effective policy to act on both fronts. First, the corresponding theory on environmental and socioeconomic oppression sheds light on the argument that both types of domination stem from the same historical process and are inherently interconnected. Addressing one without considering the other is essentially flawed; they are both features (...) and consequences of present society. Acknowledging the historical debt owed to vulnerable economic classes and developing countries is imperative. Green republicanism could potentially establish a theoretical foundation for social-ecological thinking. Defining freedom as non-domination and applying this concept to nature are essential prerequisites for overcoming socioeconomic and environmental oppression. UBI is presented and discussed theoretically as a strong solution to address these two challenges. It serves not only as a means to facilitate the transition to a post-productivist society, transforming labor relations, but also as a catalyst for the development of circular economies and more sustainable occupations. Additionally, the basic income policy implemented in the city of Maricá, Brazil, is cited as empirical evidence showcasing the environmental and socioeconomic values of UBI. (shrink)

I argue that, in the currently gender-unjust societies a basic income would not advance feminist goals. To assess the impact of a social policy on gender justice I propose the following criterion: a society is gender-just when the costs of engaging in a lifestyle characterized by gender-symmetry (in both the domestic and public spheres) are, for both men and women, smaller or equal to the costs of engaging in a gender-asymmetrical lifestyle. For a significant number of women, a basic (...) income would increase the costs of leading gender-symmetrical lifestyles because it would make it easier for both women and men to pursue gender-unjust preferences. I argue that preference satisfaction is distinct from justice. I conclude by showing why a basic income would lead to further privatisation of caregiving, and I outline the negative effects this would have on women. (shrink)

Social inequalities abound worldwide. However, those social inequalities that encompass the lack of access to resources, including primary healthcare, are more prevalent at older ages in low- and middle-income countries, which is the focus of this chapter. This challenge has become critical due to the increasing population of older age. The design and implementation of key policy measures, including primary healthcare in low- and middle-income countries, is essential in reducing such social disparities. Access to primary healthcare is perhaps (...) the principal determinant of social equality and/or equity for older people, which in turn supports achieving Sustainable Development Goals and comprehensive healthcare access. (shrink)

In this paper, I list a number of commonly cited negative effects of high or rising levels of income inequality and examine the literature in order to assess the statistical and empirical evidence in favor of or against the presence and/or strength of those negative effects. Given the prevalence of the topic of income inequality in contemporary political, economic and social discussions, it's important to have a good understanding of the effects of income inequality and to be (...) able to identify effects that are or are not supported by strong statistical evidence. Such an understanding will also help to improve policies intended to diminish income inequality or to mitigate its effects (such as, for example, progressive taxation or education subsidies). -/- Given the size of the literature, this overview is far from complete. However, it does manage to identify certain negative effects which have a strong factual basis and which vindicate some of the often strongly expressed concerns about income inequality. At the same time, however, the paper identifies other commonly cited effects for which there is no strong evidence or for which the evidence is contradictory. -/- I focus on measurable harms resulting from income inequality and leave aside possible objections of a moral or philosophical nature, although I do mention the latter briefly. (shrink)

Libertarianism is a theory of justice that places significant moral weight on exclusive property rights. On this basis, many libertarian philosophers, from Robert Nozick to Michael Huemer, criticize any form of income redistribution. Ironically, some libertarians, following Philippe Van Parijs, Matt Zwolinski, and Charles Murray, have supported the introduction of an unconditional basic income. This essay seeks to prove that this support is not just a political compromise. By contrast, libertarian justice advocates have a strong moral basis for (...) supporting income redistribution in the form of unconditional cash payments. This essay explores one such reason, the Lockean proviso. The Lockean proviso is a moral requirement for the appropriation of unowned resources to leave “enough and as good” for others. There are many interpretations of the Lockean proviso, but the most ambitious are the egalitarian proviso and the sufficiency proviso. Each of them, but for different reasons, requires the introduction of a basic income. The egalitarian proviso establishes the equal rights of all people to natural resources, and therefore requires that all benefits from the ownership of natural resources be shared egalitarianly — in the form of unconditional equal payments. The sufficiency proviso establishes some threshold of sufficiency, and then imposes a restriction on exclusive property rights so that they can’t prevent redistribution in order to raise all people to the threshold of sufficiency. However, while both provisos require a basic income, they diverge on three important dimensions in assessing this basic income: applicability, taxable base, and amount of cash payments. (shrink)

Basic income policies have recently enjoyed a great deal of discussion, but they are not a natural fit with views of distributive or social justice endorsed by many moral and political philosophers. This essay develops and defends a new view of social justice, called relational sufficientarianism, which is more compatible with a universal basic income. Relational sufficientarianism holds that persons in a just society must have sufficient social status, but not necessarily equal social status. It argues that this (...) view offers a more plausible account of just social relations than relational egalitarianism, a better account of the threshold for sufficiency than distributive sufficientarianism, and can serve as a more suitable theoretical backing for a universal basic income than either of these other views, or distributive egalitarianism. (shrink)

The study investigated the impact of parental income on students' academic performance in secondary schools in Kitswamba and Rugendabara-Kikongo town councils in Kasese District. A cross-sectional research design was used, with data collected from 286 students and five head teachers. The findings showed that family income significantly influenced students' academic performance. The findings have implications for parents, teachers, policymakers, and administrators in the education sector, emphasizing the importance of parental income in determining academic success.

In times of climate change and public debt, a concern for intergenerational justice should lead us to have a closer look at theories of intergenerational justice. It should also press us to provide institutional design proposals to change the decision-making world that surrounds us. This book provides an exhaustive overview of the most important institutional proposals as well as a systematic and theoretical discussion of their respective features and advantages. It focuses on institutional proposals aimed at taking the interests of (...) future generations more seriously, and does so from the perspective of applied political philosophy, being explicit about the underlying normative choices and the latest developments in the social sciences. It provides citizens, activists, firms, charities, public authorities, policy-analysts, students, and academics with the body of knowledge necessary to understand what our institutional options are and what they entail if we are concerned about today's excessive short-termism. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine income tax evasion in Jordan and set forth various cures for this problem.

There is a collection of words being used by Kant when it comes to his discussion of the various processes associated with the English word “generation.” The closest German word, Erzeugung, can be used either generically—to form an idea, to create an effect or event—or as part of a scientific theory. Kant used Erzeugung in both senses repeatedly across his corpus and referred from his earliest works to scientific theories regarding cosmological formation, the generation of earthquakes and volcanoes, and the (...) production of biological life, all by way of Erzeugung. The constellation of theories revolving around questions of organic generation were of special interest to Kant, and he spent time throughout his career considering the various processes by which the generation and subsequent development of an individual might occur. (shrink)

What is the epistemic function of imagination? Traditionally, philosophers have claimed that the epistemic function of imagination is exhausted by its ability to provide justification for modal beliefs, or that it is epistemically irrelevant. However, in recent years a number of philosophers have broken with the tradition by arguing that imagination can generate justification or knowledge about contingent empirical facts. This paper argues against this view by developing a new dilemma. The upshot of the argument is that although imagination does (...) have an important epistemic function that has evaded the traditional view, it cannot give rise to new empirical justification or knowledge. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Should Marxists support universal basic income (UBI), i.e., a regular cash income paid to all without a means test or work requirement? This paper considers one important argument that they should, namely that UBI would be instrumentally effective in helping to bring about communism. It argues that previous answers to this question have paid insufficient attention to a logically prior question: what is Marx’s account of communism? In reply, it distinguishes two different accounts: a left-libertarian version that associates (...) communism with the freedom to live and work how one wants, and a perfectionist version that associates communism with the overcoming of alienated labour and self-realisation in work. It argues that UBI would make steps towards the left-libertarian account but not the perfectionist account. Ultimately, then, the question “should Marxists support basic income?” is shown to partly depend on which account of communism Marxists want to bring about. (shrink)

A recent wave of academic and popular publications say that utopia is within reach: Automation will progress to such an extent and include so many high-skill tasks that much human work will soon become superfluous. The gains from this highly automated economy, authors suggest, could be used to fund a universal basic income (UBI). Today's employees would live off the robots' products and spend their days on intrinsically valuable pursuits. I argue that this prediction is unlikely to come true. (...) Historical precedent speaks against it, but the main problem is that the prediction fundamentally misunderstands how capitalism works—its incentives to increase or decrease production, its principles of income allocation, and the underlying conception of merit. (shrink)

The sciences occasionally generate discoveries that undermine their own assumptions. Two such discoveries are characterized here: the discovery of apophenia by cognitive psychology and the discovery that physical systems cannot be locally bounded within quantum theory. It is shown that such discoveries have a common structure and that this common structure is an instance of Priest’s well-known Inclosure Schema. This demonstrates that science itself is dialetheic: it generates limit paradoxes. How science proceeds despite this fact is briefly discussed, as is (...) the connection between our results and the realism-antirealism debate. We conclude by suggesting a position of epistemic modesty. (shrink)

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick made the argument that income redistribution violates the Kantian categorical imperative. Nozick’s retrospective enslavement argument is still used today in discussions about the moral justification of taxation. This article explicates four implicit premises of Nozick’s argument: the self-ownership principle, its fullness, the absence of restrictions on the appropriation of natural resources, and the absence of restrictions on the distribution of the fruits of cooperation. Without additional justification for each of these premises, Nozick’s (...) argument cannot show that income redistribution violates the categorical imperative. (shrink)

Robotics and artificial intelligence are beginning to fundamentally change the relative profitability and productivity of investments in capital versus human labor; creating technological unemployment at all levels of the workforce; from the North to the developing world. As robotics and expert systems become cheaper and more capable the percentage of the population that can find employment will also fall; stressing economies already trying to curtail "entitlements" and adopt austerity. Two additional technology-driven trends will exacerbate the structural unemployment crisis in the (...) coming decades; desktop manufacturing and anti-aging medicine. Desktop manufacturing threatens to disintermediate the half of all workers involved in translating ideas into products in the hands of consumers; while anti-aging therapies will increase the old age dependency ratio of retirees to tax-paying workers. Policies that are being proposed to protect or create employment will have only a temporary moderating effect on job loss. Over time these policies; which will impose raise costs; lower the quality of goods and services; and lower competitiveness; will become fiscally impossible and lose political support. In order to enjoy the benefits of technological innovation and longer; healthier lives we will need to combine policies that control the pace of replacing paid human labor with a universal basic income guarantee provided through taxation and the public ownership of wealth. The intensifying debate over the reform of "entitlements" will be the strategic opening for a campaign for BIG to replace disability and unemployment insurance; Social Security; and other elements of the welfare state. (shrink)