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Stakeholder Intrinsic Value
Published in Mark W. McElroy, The Space Industry of the Future, 2023
Item 3 in the stakeholder intrinsic value criteria is profitability. This is an important nuance in the definition because it imposes a rigid requirement that true value be created in ways that also create exchange value. Of course, there are other ways to create true value that do not necessitate profit. Charities, governments, NGOs, nonprofits all have value-creating roles in society and in the space industry that do not involve profit-seeking. The roles of not-for-profit organizations include acting as a safety net, acting as a watchdog, offering accountability to those in power, compassionately providing for those most in need, defending those who cannot do so for themselves, managing production/use of public goods, managing common resources, setting universal industry standards, the list goes on. It should be obvious that these roles are important and should continue. That said, use of capitalism stands to increase value creation for society beyond important not-for-profit activities through efficiency, innovation, and resonance with human nature. For this reason, it is preferable to create value using the profit-seeking motive and markets whenever possible. The stakeholder intrinsic value criteria adopt the position that when profitability and goodness occur simultaneously, value creation is maximized.
Economic dynamics of the food system
Published in Stephen R. Gliessman, V. Ernesto Méndez, Victor M. Izzo, Eric W. Engles, Andrew Gerlicz, Agroecology, 2023
Stephen R. Gliessman, V. Ernesto Méndez, Victor M. Izzo, Eric W. Engles, Andrew Gerlicz
Governments may impose minimum wage laws and agri-business entities may decide to pay wages higher than what the labor market would bear because they perceive certain advantages—such as higher worker productivity or a better public image—in doing so, but the pressure to keep wages low remains a necessary feature of operation in a capitalist economy. In addition, because the productivity of workers (e.g., the number of boxes of lettuce picked and packed per hour) is a key determinant of profit, agri-businesses are motived to maximize it. This means shorter and fewer breaks, per-piece wage structures, contract labor systems, threats to terminate slower workers, crew production goals, and other strategies and tactics designed to squeeze the most work out of each person without regard for the effects on their health and well-being. Under such conditions, farm labor becomes nothing more than a commodity.
Causes and Drivers
Published in Ajai, Rimjhim Bhatnagar, Desertification and Land Degradation, 2022
All of the above anthropogenic activities are mainly derived from the three categories of root causes or the underlying drivers: (i) Socio-economic conditions such as population pressure, poverty, illiteracy and underdevelopment, (ii) ‘modern' development that disregards the impact of the use of technology on land sustainability, (iii) capitalism, which is generally profit-oriented and hence keeps aside the thought of environmental degradation. The underlying drivers mentioned under the first category are mostly relevant for developing countries, whereas the second and third ones are pertinent to the developed countries as well. Both underdevelopment and certain developmental activities can cause land degradation.
Imperial models: technology and design in state-controlled porcelain manufacture in early modern China
Published in History and Technology, 2022
Instead of claims for who pioneered the ‘industrial revolution’, taking a truly global perspective could allow us to see a gradual making of the history of industrialization where technology, states, markets, labour forces, and deposits of natural resources constitutively co-evolved in regional industrious workplaces such as ceramic kiln sites in eighteenth-century China.4 Shortly before the world of capitalism, early modern imperial intervention into large-scale porcelain production rendered the commercial nature of such manufacture ambiguous. A joint scrutiny of the so-called imperial manufacture and private production in China will reveal the pre-modern ateliers operating as a factory system with an elaborate labour division and other industrial features in a context other than market-driven capitalism.