Original purpose Essays

Original purpose Essays Original purpose Essay Original purpose Essay In this article, the author highlights some of the major problems facing humanity today. Poverty according to him is among the very top followed by the struggle for human rights, the guarantee against arbitrary arrest and mutilation and murder. The author talks about the fact that politicians generally end up cutting expenditures which affect the poor because they have no regard for these people and have no concern for the hunger and the suffering they have to go through. The article also touches upon Marxism and reveals the authors Marxist upbringing. He is very vocal about the causes that need to be focused upon such as providing work for the jobless, raising the standard of the homeless, preventing the poisoning of the atmosphere and the degradation of the environment and to overall improve the circumstances people live in. He also talks about his opposition organizations and institutions taking on official positions on critical public issues. His reason for this opposition is that it imperils the organization or institution and impedes pursuit of its original purpose. Moreover, if members of the institution or organization have different opinion from the official positions it reduces their ability to promote the exercise of professional activities. This is all the more true for educational institutions since involvement in external issues becomes a threat to academic freedom. While the general opinion is that because educational institutions are repositories of wisdom, they should speak out in times of crisis and on issues which are important to the public. However, history does not support this conclusion. At the onset of the Nazi regime, German universities chose to speak out but the position that they took on wasnt what was expected of them. Overall, the author is opposed to all forms of political activities by universities and professional organizations. He is also of the opinion that educational institutions should be entitled to act on behalf of academic freedom whenever and wherever it is threatened as long as such action does not hamper its ability to function. The article also talks about modern approaches for economic analysis. According to the author there is sometimes no real need to come up with complicated economic models to explain old concepts merely for added realism. He believes that a well designed model ahs the ability to work effectively as long is the model is based on the trade-ff between accuracy of representation of reality and usability in analysis. If and when a new model is proposed, it should lead to oversimplification rather than end up being a painstaking attempt to complicate an already available model. The author has two key conclusions related to this aspect. First, increased realism is not necessarily a virtue. If it complicates an already existing model it is actually a moral sin. Second, a particular model can neither be judged good or bad in the abstract sense. A models effectiveness can only be judged at the time of analysis. A model may be suited for the analysis of one issue but may be ill-suited for another. Another important point highlighted in this article is the value of pure economic research. While additions to the state of knowledge is always valuable and should contribute to the improvement of the state of social welfare, research in its truest form is always useful because it helps reduce the degree of ignorance. In fact, it is sometimes the purest of research which ultimately makes the greatest contribution to social welfare. However, caution should be exercised when engaging in abstract research before hastening to apply its results to complex issues. Overall, this is an extremely interesting article and presents a different outlook to several issues such as economic research, modern economic models, the role of professional organizations and educational institutions with respect to critical public issues as well as the need to address some of the major problems facing humanity today. Bibliography 1. Baumol, William J. (1993) From the book Eminent Economists: Their Life Philosophies By Michael Szenberg. Published by Cambridge University Press