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Innovation                                                                                                                                       
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Innovation is a change in the thought process for doing something or "new stuff that is made useful".[1] It may refer to an incremental emergent or radical and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations. Following Schumpeter (1934), contributors to the scholarly literature on innovation typically distinguish between invention, an idea made manifest, and innovation, ideas applied successfully in practice. In many fields, such as the arts, economics and government policy, something new must be substantially different to be innovative. In economics the change must increase value, customer value, or producer value. The goal of innovation is positive change, to make someone or something better. Innovation leading to increased productivity is the fundamental source of increasing wealth in an economy.

Innovation is an important topic in the study of economics, business, entrepreneurship, design, technology, sociology, and engineering. Colloquially, the word "innovation" is often synonymous with the output of the process. However, economists tend to focus on the process itself, from the origination of an idea to its transformation into something useful, to its implementation; and on the system within which the process of innovation unfolds. Since innovation is also considered a major driver of the economy, especially when it leads to new product categories or increasing productivity, the factors that lead to innovation are also considered to be critical to policy makers. In particular, followers of innovation economics stress using public policy to spur innovation and growth.
Those who are directly responsible for application of the innovation are often called pioneers in their field, whether they are individuals or organisations.

Contents [hide]

• 1 Introduction
  • 1.1 Distinguishing from invention
  • 1.2 In organizations
  • 1.3 Economic conceptions
• 2 Market outcome
• 3 Sources of innovation
• 4 Value of experimentation
• 5 Diffusion
• 6 Goals
• 7 Failure
• 8 Measures
• 9 Public awareness
• 10 See also
• 11 References
• 12 Inline references
• 13 External links

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Introduction

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (May 2008)

In the organizational context, innovation may be linked to performance and growth through improvements in efficiency, productivity, quality, competitive positioning, market share, etc. All organizations can innovate, including for example hospitals, universities, and local governments.

While innovation typically adds value, innovation may also have a negative or destructive effect as new developments clear away or change old organizational forms and practices. Organizations that do not innovate effectively may be destroyed by those that do. Hence innovation typically involves risk. A key challenge in innovation is maintaining a balance between process and product innovations where process innovations tend to involve a business model which may develop shareholder satisfaction through improved efficiencies while product innovations develop customer support however at the risk of costly R&D that can erode shareholder return. Innovation can be described as the result of some amount of time and effort into researching an idea, plus some larger amount of time and effort into developing this idea, plus some very large amount of time and effort into commercializing this idea into a market place with customers.[citation needed]

Innovation has been studied in a variety of contexts, including in relation to technology, commerce, social systems, economic development, and policy construction. There are, therefore, naturally a wide range of approaches to conceptualizing innovation in the scholarly literature.[2]

[edit] Distinguishing from invention

Invention is the embodiment of something new. While both invention and innovation have "uniqueness" implications, innovation also carries an undertone of还有一层含义 profitability and market performance expectation.
An improvement on an existing form or embodiment, composition or processes might be an invention, an innovation, both or neither if it is not substantial enough. According to certain business literature , an idea, a change or an improvement is only an innovation when it is put to use and effectively causes a social or commercial reorganization.

In business, innovation can be easily distinguished from invention. Invention is the conversion of cash into ideas. Innovation is the conversion of ideas into cash. This is best described by comparing Thomas Edison爱迪生 with Nikola Tesla尼古拉特斯拉. Thomas Edison was as innovator because he made money from his ideas. Nikola Tesla was an inventor. Tesla spent money to create his inventions but was unable to monetize them. Innovators produce, market and profit from their innovations. Inventors may or may not profit from their work.

[edit] In organizations

A convenient definition of innovation from an organizational perspective is given by Luecke and Katz (2003), who wrote:
"Innovation . . . is generally understood as the successful introduction of a new thing or method . . . Innovation is the embodiment, combination, or synthesis of knowledge in original, relevant, valued new products, processes, or services.

A content analysis on the term "innovation" carried out by Baregheh et al (2009) within the organizational context, defines innovation as:
"Innovation is the multi-stage process whereby organizations transform ideas into new/improved products, service or processes, in order to advance, compete and differentiate themselves successfully in their marketplace."[3]Innovation typically involves creativity, but is not identical to it: innovation involves acting on the creative ideas to make some specific and tangible difference in the domain in which the innovation occurs.

For example, Amabile et al. (1996) propose:

"All innovation begins with creative ideas . . . We define innovation as the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization. In this view, creativity by individuals and teams is a starting point for innovation; the first is necessary but not sufficient condition for the second".

For innovation to occur, something more than the generation of a creative idea or insight is required: the insight must be put into action to make a genuine difference, resulting for example in new or altered business processes within the organization, or changes in the products and services provided.

"Innovation, like many business functions, is a management process that requires specific tools, rules, and discipline."

From this point of view emphasis is moved from the introduction of specific novel and useful ideas to the general organizational processes and procedures for generating, considering, and acting on such insights leading to significant organizational improvements in terms of improved or new business products, services, or internal processes.

Through these varieties of viewpoints, creativity is typically seen as the basis for innovation, and innovation as the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization.

It should be noted, however, that the term 'innovation' is used by many authors rather interchangeably with the term 'creativity' when discussing individual and organizational creative activity.

[edit] Economic conceptions

Joseph Schumpeter defined economic innovation in "Theorie der Wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung" (1912). (The Theory of Economic Development, 1934, Harvard University Press, Boston.)[4]

• The introduction of a new good — that is one with which consumers are not yet familiar — or of a new quality of a good.
• The introduction of a new method of production, which need by no means be founded upon a discovery scientifically new, and can also exist in a new way of handling a commodity commercially.
• The opening of a new market, that is a market into which the particular branch of manufacture of the country in question has not previously entered, whether or not this market has existed before.
• The conquest of a new source of supply of raw materials or half-manufactured goods, again irrespective of whether this source already exists or whether it has first to be created.
• The carrying out of the new organization of any industry, like the creation of a monopoly position (for example through trustification) or the breaking up of a monopoly position

Schumpeter's focus on innovation is reflected in Neo-Schumpeterian economics, developed by such scholars as Christopher Freeman[5] and Giovanni Dosi.[6]

Innovation is also studied by economists in a variety of other contexts, for example in theories of entrepreneurship or in Paul Romer's New Growth Theory. In network theory, innovation can be seen as "a new element introduced in the network which changes, even if momentarily, the costs of transactions between at least two actors, elements or nodes, in the network".[7]

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Market outcome

Market outcome from innovation can be studied from different lenses. The industrial organizational approach of market characterization according to the degree of competitive pressure and the consequent modelling of firm behavior often using sophisticated game theoretic tools, while permitting mathematical modelling, has shifted the ground away from an intuitive understanding of markets. The earlier visual framework in economics, of market demand and supply along price and quantity dimensions, has given way to powerful mathematical models which though intellectually satisfying has led policy makers and managers groping for more intuitive and less theoretical analyses to which they can relate to at a practical level.

In the management (strategy)

From an academic point of view, there is often a divorce between industrial organisation theory and strategic management models. While many economists view management models as being too simplistic, strategic management consultants perceive academic economists as being too theoretical, and the analytical tools that they devise as too complex for managers to understand.

Innovation literature while rich in typologies and descriptions of innovation dynamics is mostly technology focused. Most research on innovation has been devoted to the process (technological) of innovation, or has otherwise taken a how to (innovate) approach.

[edit] Sources of innovation

There are several sources of innovation. In the linear model of innovation the traditionally recognized source is manufacturer innovation生产创新. This is where an agent (person or business) innovates in order to sell the innovation. Another source of innovation, only now becoming widely recognized, is end-user innovation终端消费者. This is where an agent (person or company) develops an innovation for their own (personal or in-house) use because existing products do not meet their needs. Eric von Hippel has identified end-user innovation as, by far, the most important and critical in his classic book on the subject, Sources of Innovation.[8]

Joseph F. Engelberger, paraphrasing the conclusion of the 1967 US DoD program "Project Hindsight", says that innovations require only three things:[9] 1. A recognized need, 2. Competent people with relevant technology, and 3. Financial support.

Innovation by businesses is achieved in many ways, with much attention now given to formal research and development for "breakthrough innovations." But innovations may be developed by less formal on-the-job modifications of practice, through exchange and combination of professional experience and by many other routes. The more radical and revolutionary innovations tend to emerge from R&D, while more incremental innovations may emerge from practice – but there are many exceptions to each of these trends.

Regarding user innovation, a great deal of innovation is done by those actually implementing and using technologies and products as part of their normal activities. Sometimes user-innovators may become entrepreneurs, selling their product, they may choose to trade their innovation in exchange for other innovations, or they may be adopted by their suppliers. Nowadays, they may also choose to freely reveal their innovations, using methods like open source. In such networks of innovation the users or communities of users can further develop technologies and reinvent their social meaning.[10]

Whether innovation is mainly supply-pushed (based on new technological possibilities) or demand-led (based on social needs and market requirements) has been a hotly debated topic. Similarly, what exactly drives innovation in organizations and economies remains an open question.

More recent theoretical work moves beyond this simple dualistic problem, and through empirical work shows that innovation does not just happen within the industrial supply-side, or as a result of the articulation of user demand, but through a complex set of processes that links many different players together – not only developers and users, but a wide variety of intermediary organisations such as consultancies, standards bodies etc. Work on social networks suggests that much of the most successful innovation occurs at the boundaries of organisations and industries where the problems and needs of users, and the potential of technologies can be linked together in a creative process that challenges both.

[edit] Value of experimentation

When an innovative idea requires a new business model, or radically redesigns the delivery of value to focus on the customer, a real world experimentation approach increases the chances of market success. New business models and customer experiences can't be tested through traditional market research methods. Pilot programs for new innovations set the path in stone too early thus increasing the costs of failure. On the other hand, the good news is that recent years have seen considerable progress in identifying important key factors/principles or variables that affect the probability of success in innovation. Of course, building successful businesses is such a complicated process, involving subtle interdependencies among so many variables in dynamic systems, that it is unlikely to ever be made perfectly predictable. But the more business can master the variables and experiment, the more they will be able to create new companies, products, processes and services that achieve what they hope to achieve. [11]

An editor has expressed a concern that this article lends undue weight to certain ideas relative to the article as a whole. Please help to discuss and resolve the dispute before removing this message. (May 2009)

Stefan Thomke of Harvard Business School has written a definitive[neutrality is disputed] book on the importance of experimentation. Experimentation Matters argues that every company's ability to innovate depends on a series of experiments [successful or not], that help create new products and services or improve old ones. That period between the earliest point in the design cycle and the final release should be filled with experimentation, failure, analysis, and yet another round of experimentation. "Lather, rinse, repeat," Thomke says. Unfortunately, uncertainty often causes the most able innovators to bypass the experimental stage.

In his book, Thomke outlines six principles companies can follow to unlock their innovative potential.

• Anticipate and exploit early information through 'front-loaded' innovation processes
• Experiment frequently but do not overload your organization
• Integrate new and traditional technologies to unlock performance
• Organize for rapid experimentation
• Fail early and often but avoid 'mistakes'
• Manage projects as experiments.[12]

Thomke further explores what would happen if the principles outlined above were used beyond the confines of the individual organization. For instance, in the state of Rhode Island, innovators are collaboratively leveraging the state's compact geography, economic and demographic diversity and close-knit networks to quickly and cost-effectively test new business models through a real-world experimentation lab.[citation needed]

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Diffusion
Main article: Diffusion of innovations

Once innovation occurs, innovations may be spread from the innovator to other individuals and groups. This process has been proposed that the life cycle of innovations can be described using the 's-curve' or diffusion curve. The s-curve maps growth of revenue or productivity against time. In the early stage of a particular innovation, growth is relatively slow as the new product establishes itself. At some point customers begin to demand and the product growth increases more rapidly. New incremental innovations or changes to the product allow growth to continue. Towards the end of its life cycle growth slows and may even begin to decline. In the later stages, no amount of new investment in that product will yield a normal rate of return.

The s-curve derives from an assumption that new products are likely to have "product Life". i.e. a start-up phase, a rapid increase in revenue and eventual decline. In fact the great majority of innovations never get off the bottom of the curve, and never produce normal returns.

Innovative companies will typically be working on new innovations that will eventually replace older ones. Successive s-curves will come along to replace older ones and continue to drive growth upwards. In the figure above the first curve shows a current technology. The second shows an emerging technology that current yields lower growth but will eventually overtake current technology and lead to even greater levels of growth. The length of life will depend on many factors.

[edit] Goals

Programs of organizational innovation are typically tightly linked to organizational goals and objectives, to the business plan, and to market competitive positioning. One driver for innovation programs in corporations is to achieve growth objectives. As Davila et al. (2006) note，"Companies cannot grow through cost reduction and reengineering alone... Innovation is the key element in providing aggressive top-line growth, and for increasing bottom-line results" (p.6)In general, business organisations spend a significant amount of their turnover on innovation, such as making changes to their established products, processes and services. The amount of investment can vary from as low as a half a percent of turnover for organisations with a low rate of change to anything over twenty percent of turnover for organisations with a high rate of change.

The average investment across all types of organizations is four percent. For an organisation with a turnover of one billion currency units, this would represent an investment of forty million units. This budget will typically be spread across various functions including marketing, product design, information systems, manufacturing systems and quality assurance. The investment may vary by industry and by market positioning.

One survey[citation needed] across a large number of manufacturing and services organisations found, ranked in decreasing order of popularity, that systematic programs of organizational innovation are most frequently driven by:

• Improved quality
• Creation of new markets
• Extension of the product range
• Reduced labour costs
• Improved production processes
• Reduced materials
• Reduced environmental damage
• Replacement of products/services
• Reduced energy consumption
• Conformance to regulations

These goals vary between improvements to products, processes and services and dispel a popular myth that innovation deals mainly with new product development. Most of the goals could apply to any organisation be it a manufacturing facility, marketing firm, hospital or local government. Whether innovation goals are successfully achieved or otherwise depends greatly on the environment prevailing in the firm.[13]

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Failure

Research findings vary, ranging from fifty to ninety percent of innovation projects judged to have made little or no contribution to organizational goals. One survey regarding product innovation quotes that out of three thousand ideas for new products, only one becomes a success in the marketplace.[citation needed] Failure is an inevitable part of the innovation process, and most successful organisations factor in an appropriate level of risk. Perhaps it is because all organisations experience failure that many choose not to monitor the level of failure very closely. The impact of failure goes beyond the simple loss of investment. Failure can also lead to loss of morale among employees, an increase in cynicism and even higher resistance to change in the future.

Innovations that fail are often potentially good ideas but have been rejected or postponed due to budgetary constraints, lack of skills or poor fit with current goals. Failures should be identified and screened out as early in the process as possible. Early screening avoids unsuitable ideas devouring scarce resources that are needed to progress more beneficial ones. Organizations can learn how to avoid failure when it is openly discussed and debated. The lessons learned from failure often reside longer in the organisational consciousness than lessons learned from success. While learning is important, high failure rates throughout the innovation process are wasteful and a threat to the organisation's future.

The causes of failure have been widely researched and can vary considerably. Some causes will be external to the organisation and outside its influence of control. Others will be internal and ultimately within the control of the organisation. Internal causes of failure can be divided into causes associated with the cultural infrastructure and causes associated with the innovation process itself. Failure in the cultural infrastructure varies between organizations but the following are common across all organisations at some stage in their life cycle (O'Sullivan, 2002):

• Poor Leadership
• Poor Organization
• Poor Communication
• Poor Empowerment
• Poor Knowledge Management

Common causes of failure within the innovation process in most organisations can be distilled into five types:

• Poor goal definition
• Poor alignment of actions to goals
• Poor participation in teams
• Poor monitoring of results
• Poor communication and access to information

Effective goal definition requires that organisations state explicitly what their goals are in terms understandable to everyone involved in the innovation process. This often involves stating goals in a number of ways. Effective alignment of actions to goals should link explicit actions such as ideas and projects to specific goals. It also implies effective management of action portfolios. Participation in teams refers to the behaviour of individuals in and of teams, and each individual should have an explicitly allocated responsibility regarding their role in goals and actions and the payment and rewards systems that link them to goal attainment. Finally, effective monitoring of results requires the monitoring of all goals, actions and teams involved in the innovation process.

Innovation can fail if seen as an organisational process whose success stems from a mechanistic approach i.e. 'pull lever obtain result'. While 'driving' change has an emphasis on control, enforcement and structure it is only a partial truth in achieving innovation. Organisational gatekeepers frame the organisational environment that "Enables" innovation; however innovation is "Enacted" – recognised, developed, applied and adopted – through individuals.
Individuals are the 'atom' of the organisation close to the minutiae of daily activities. Within individuals gritty appreciation of the small detail combines with a sense of desired organisational objectives to deliver (and innovate for) a product/service offer.

From this perspective innovation succeeds from strategic structures that engage the individual to the organisation's benefit. Innovation pivots on intrinsically motivated individuals, within a supportive culture, informed by a broad sense of the future.

Innovation, implies change, and can be counter to an organisation's orthodoxy. Space for fair hearing of innovative ideas is required to balance the potential autoimmune exclusion that quells an infant innovative culture.
[edit] MeasuresThere are two fundamentally different types of measures for innovation: the organizational level and the political level. The measure of innovation at the organizational level relates to individuals, team-level assessments, private companies from the smallest to the largest. Measure of innovation for organizations can be conducted by surveys, workshops, consultants or internal benchmarking. There is today no established general way to measure organizational innovation. Corporate measurements are generally structured around balanced scorecards which cover several aspects of innovation such as business measures related to finances, innovation process efficiency, employees' contribution and motivation, as well benefits for customers. Measured values will vary widely between businesses, covering for example new product revenue, spending in R&D, time to market, customer and employee perception & satisfaction, number of patents, additional sales resulting from past innovations. For the political level, measures of innovation are more focussing on a country or region competitive advantage through innovation. In this context, organizational capabilities can be evaluated through various evaluation frameworks, such as those of the European Foundation for Quality Management. The OECD Oslo Manual (1995) suggests standard guidelines on measuring technological product and process innovation. Some people consider the Oslo Manual complementary to the Frascati Manual from 1963. The new Oslo manual from 2005 takes a wider perspective to innovation, and includes marketing and organizational innovation. These standards are used for example in the European Community Innovation Surveys.

Other ways of measuring innovation have traditionally been expenditure, for example, investment in R&D (Research and Development) as percentage of GNP (Gross National Product). Whether this is a good measurement of Innovation has been widely discussed and the Oslo Manual has incorporated some of the critique against earlier methods of measuring. This being said, the traditional methods of measuring still inform many policy decisions. The EU Lisbon Strategy has set as a goal that their average expenditure on R&D should be 3 % of GNP.

The Oslo Manual is focused on North America, Europe, and other rich economies. In 2001 for Latin America and the Caribbean countries it was created the Bogota Manual

Many scholars claim that there is a great bias towards the "science and technology mode" (S&T-mode or STI-mode), while the "learning by doing, using and interacting mode" (DUI-mode) is widely ignored. For an example, that means you can have the better high tech or software, but there are also crucial learning tasks important for innovation. But these measurements and research are rarely done.

A common industry view (unsupported by empirical evidence) is that comparative cost-effectiveness research (CER) is a form of price control which, by reducing returns to industry, limits R&D expenditure, stifles future innovation and compromises new products access to markets.[14] Some academics claim the CER is a valuable value-based measure of innovation which accords truly significant advances in therapy (those that provide 'health gain') higher prices than free market mechanisms.[15] Such value-based pricing has been viewed as a means of indicating to industry the type of innovation that should be rewarded from the public purse.[16] The Australian academic Thomas Alured Faunce has developed the case that national comparative cost-effectiveness assessment systems should be viewed as measuring 'health innovation' as an evidence-based concept distinct from valuing innovation through the operation of competitive markets (a method which requires strong anti-trust laws to be effective) on the basis that both methods of assessing innovation in pharmaceuticals are mentioned in annex 2C.1 of the AUSFTA.[17][18][19]

Political Level Studies
There are several international benchmarking studies of the innovation performance of countries ( above called the political level), Global Innovation Index (below) being one. Other examples are Richard Florida´s index for the Creative Class and the Innovation Capacity Index (ICI)[2] published by a large number of international professors working in a collaborative fashion. The top scorers of ICI 2009-2010 being:1.Sweden 82.2, 2. Finland 77.8, 3. United States 3 77.5.

The Global Innovation Index is a global index measuring the level of innovation of a country, produced jointly by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), and The Manufacturing Institute (MI), the NAM's nonpartisan research affiliate. NAM describes it as the "largest and most comprehensive global index of its kind".[20]
The International Innovation Index is part of a large research study that looked at both the business outcomes of innovation and government's ability to encourage and support innovation through public policy. The study comprised a survey of more than 1,000 senior executives from NAM member companies across all industries; in-depth interviews with 30 of the executives; and a comparison of the "innovation friendliness" of 110 countries and all 50 U.S. states. The findings are published in the report, "The Innovation Imperative in Manufacturing: How the United States Can Restore Its Edge."[21]

The report discusses not only country performance but also what companies are doing and should be doing to spur innovation. It looks at new policy indicators for innovation, including tax incentives and policies for immigration, education and intellectual property.

The latest index was published in March 2009.[22] To rank the countries, the study measured both innovation inputs and outputs. Innovation inputs included government and fiscal policy, education policy and the innovation environment. Outputs included patents, technology transfer, and other R&D results; business performance, such as labor productivity and total shareholder returns; and the impact of innovation on business migration and economic growth. The following is a list of the twenty largest countries (as measured by GDP) by the International Innovation Index:  图表省略

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The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
Deep trouble
America’s distorted energy markets, not just its coastline, need cleaning up
May 6th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

THE explosion that claimed 11 lives and sent the Deepwater Horizon, a billion-dollar oil rig, to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, was bad enough. But for the inhabitants居民换词 of America’s Gulf coast, for BP, the huge British firm that owns the well, and for the oil industry as a whole, the bad news is flowing as relentlessly残酷 as the oil gushing from ruptured pipes a mile below the waves (see article). Efforts to close an emergency shut-off valve have failed. BP is trying to drop huge domes over the leaks and siphon off the oil they collect. But if that fails, it could be months before a second well is completed, reducing the pressure in the first and thus stemming the flow.

Some two weeks after the initial accident, oil has begun to wash up on涌向 the frail marshes and rich oyster beds that line Louisiana’s shores. Pictures of basted seabirds and gasping turtles have engulfed the media大量报道. Commercial fishing has been suspended in the vicinity附近 of the spill. There is talk that据说 the slick could wash up on Florida’s west coast, smothering the lucrative赚钱的 local tourism industry, or even leach into蔓延 the Atlantic and up America’s eastern seaboard, abetted by the Gulf Stream.

Investors, foreseeing vast bills for cleaning and compensation, have wiped撤出资金 some $30 billion off BP’s value. Other firms involved, including Anadarko, one of BP’s partners in the ill-fated well, Transocean, which was in charge of the drilling, Halliburton, which fitted the cement cap that was supposed to have sealed the well, and Cameron, which made the failed backup system, have also been walloped冲击. Congress has summoned传唤 executives from these firms for pillorying处罚. Moves are afoot to lift the cap on oil firms’ liability for the economic damage done by oil spills from $75m to $10 billion (they are already on the hook for陷入麻烦 unlimited clean-up costs).

The oil industry’s hope that more American waters would be opened to drilling is receding as fast as the slick advances. Barack Obama, who had briefly supported the idea, has put all drilling on hold while the causes of the disaster are investigated. The governors of Florida and California have retracted their support too. “Why”, asks California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, “would we want to take on that kind of risk?”

Slick狡猾 salesmen
Because that is where the oil is, oilmen retort反驳. The Gulf of Mexico accounts for almost a third of America’s oil production and the lion’s share of new discoveries. Most dry land has been picked over, and better technology allows exploration in ever deeper waters. Elsewhere too, Western oil firms are being forced offshore as nationalist governments curtail their involvement in big, easily tapped fields on land. The Gulf of Mexico and the waters off Africa and Brazil are among the most enticing prospects to which they still have access. If Americans do not want to hand even more money and clout施加政治影响 to the likes of Iran, Russia and Venezuela, the argument runs, they should not curb offshore drilling. Even if they do, rising oil powers such as Angola and Brazil are not going to follow suit效仿.

Moreover, in America at least, oil firms have been reasonable stewards of the seas. Before Deepwater Horizon foundered there had not been a big leak from an offshore oil well for 40 years. Average annual spills from underwater pipelines declined from 2.5m gallons in 1980-84 to just 12,000 gallons in 2000-04, according to the Congressional Research Service. America’s National Research Council reckons that offshore drilling accounts for 1% of the oil floating in the country’s waters, and tankers and pipelines only a further 4%, compared with 33% from other shipping and 62% from natural seepage (though the industry’s spills are more concentrated, and so more harmful). As the fleet舰队 of 200 ships battling the slick shows, oil firms have elaborate plans制定计划 to mop up堵住 leaks.

In this instance the oil spilled is quite volatile, so much of it should disperse or evaporate before reaching the coast, where it will do the most damage. The warmth of the air and water in the Gulf should also help. Since the well is 40 miles offshore and the weather has been relatively clement, there has been time to test dispersal techniques and prepare coastal defences.

Rigged result
For all these reasons, the long-term repercussions反响 of the spill may not be so grave. BP, its subcontractors, federal and state governments, environmental activists, injured businesses and their insurers will all spend decades suing one another. The Supreme Court, after all, took almost 20 years to settle the punitive惩罚 damages arising from the Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska in 1989. But Exxon’s share price quickly recovered from that accident (followed, more slowly, by the local environment); it went on to become the world’s biggest listed firm. BP, which made profits of $5.6 billion in the first quarter of this year, will not be crippled大伤元气 by the spill (see Schumpeter), even if its costs run into billions.

Congress will stiffen oversight严格执法 of offshore drilling and boost the penalties for lapses. Fewer states will open their waters to oilmen—although the governor of Virginia, for one, says he is still willing. But there will not, sadly, be any more comprehensive effort to account for the noxious side-effects有害影响 of oil.

For spills are hardly the most baleful consequence恶果 of America’s oil addiction: global warming and the funding of foreign despots surely come higher up the list. Perversely, this spill is likely to set back efforts to get a bill on climate change through Congress, and to increase the flow of dollars to despots (see Lexington). However you measure the full cost of a gallon of gas, pollution and all, Americans are nowhere close to paying it. Indeed, their whole energy industry—from subsidies for corn ethanol to limited liability for nuclear power—is a slick of preferences and restrictions, without peer. The tinkering that will follow this spill will merely further complicate it.

Offshore drilling seems like a sensible way to obtain a very handy product. Extra safeguards may be needed. But if the politicians are really as committed to “cleaning up” the energy industry as they now claim, far more could be achieved by reducing the subsidies and introducing a carbon tax. That may seem a long way from the calamity in the Gulf; but in the long run those other murky waters also need to be cleaned up.

参考译文

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Civilization is a term used to describe a certain kind of development of a human society.[1] A civilized society is often characterized by advanced agriculture先进农业, long-distance trade长途贸易, occupational specialization社会分工, and urbanism城市化. Aside from these core elements, civilization is often marked by any combination of a number of secondary elements, including a developed transportation system发达交通系统, writing作品, standards of measurement (currency, etc.)度量衡, contract and tort-based legal systems法律条款, great art style伟大艺术形式, monumental architecture建筑, mathematics数学, sophisticated metallurgy冶金, and astronomy天文.

Contents

• 1 Definition
• 2 Characteristics
• 3 Cultural identity
• 4 Complex systems
• 5 Future
• 6 The fall of civilizations
• 7 History
  • 7.1 Prehistory
    • 7.1.1 Old World
    • 7.1.2 New World
  • 7.2 Classical Antiquity
• 8 Criticism
  • 8.1 Psychoanalysis and libertarian socialism
  • 8.2 Primitivism
• 9 See also
• 10 References
  • 10.1 Notes
  • 10.2 Bibliography

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Definition"Civilization" is often used as a synonym for the broader term "culture" in both popular and academic circles.[2] Every human being participates in a culture, defined as
"the arts, customs, habits... beliefs, values, behaviour and material habits that constitute a people's way of life".[3] However, in its most widely used definition, civilization is a descriptive term for a relatively complex agricultural and urban culture. Civilizations can be distinguished from other cultures by their high level of social complexity and organization, and by their diverse economic and cultural activities.（文明与文化的不同）

In an older but still frequently used sense, the term "civilization" can be used in a normative标准 manner as well: in societal contexts where complex and urban cultures are assumed to be superior to other "savage" or "barbarian" cultures, the concept of "civilization" is used as a synonym for "cultural (and often ethical) superiority of certain groups." In a similar sense, civilization can mean "refinement of thought, manners, or taste".[4] This normative notion of civilization is heavily rooted in the thought that urbanized environments provide a higher living standard, encompassed by围绕 both nutritional benefits and mental potentialities.

In his book The Philosophy of Civilization, Albert Schweitzer, one of the main philosophers on the concept of civilization, outlined the idea that there are dual opinions within society; one regarding civilization as purely material and another regarding civilization as both ethical and material. He stated that the current world crisis was, then in 1923, due to a humanity having lost the ethical conception of civilization. In this same work, he defined civilization, saying:

It is the sum total of all progress made by man in every sphere of action and from every point of view in so far as the progress helps towards the spiritual perfecting of individuals as the progress of all progress.

In the sixth century, the Roman
Emperor Justinian oversaw the consolidation of Roman civil law. The resulting collection is called the Corpus Juris Civilis. In the 11th century, professors at the University of Bologna, Western Europe's first university, rediscovered Corpus Juris Civilis, and its influence began to be felt across Western Europe. In 1388, the word civil appeared in English meaning "of or related to citizens".[5] In 1704, civilization began to mean "a law which makes a criminal process into a civil case." Civilization was not used in its modern sense to mean "the opposite of barbarism" — as contrasted to civility, meaning politeness or civil virtue — until the 18th century.
According to Emile Benveniste (1954[6]), the earlist written occurrence in English of civilization in its modern sense may be found in Adam Ferguson's An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Edinburgh, 1767 - p. 2):

Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood, but the species itself from rudeness to civilization.

It should be noted that this usage incorporates the concept of superiority and maturity of "civilized" existence, as contrasted to "rudeness", which is used to denote代表意味换词 coarseness, as in a lack of refinement or "civility".

Huntington's map of world civilizations(1996).

Before Benveniste's inquiries, the New English Dictionary quoted James Boswell's conversation with Samuel Johnson concerning the inclusion of Civilization in Johnson's dictionary:

On Monday, March 23 (1772), I found him busy, preparing a fourth edition of his folio Dictionary... He would not admit civilization, but only civility. With great deference to him I thought civilization, from to civilize, better in the sense opposed to barbarity than civility, as it is better to have a distinct word for each sense, than one word with two senses, which civility is, in his way of using it.

Benveniste demonstrated that previous occurrences could be found, which explained the quick adoption of Johnson's definition. In 1775 the dictionary of Ast defined civilization as "the state of being civilized; the act of civilizing",[6] and the term was frequently used by Adam Smith in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776).[6] Beside Smith and Ferguson, John Millar also used it in 1771 in his Observations concerning the distinction of ranks in society.[6]

As the first occurrence of civilization in French was found by Benveniste in the Marquis de Mirabeau's
L'Ami des hommes ou traité de la population (written in 1756 but published in 1757), Benveniste's query was to know if the English word derived from the French, or if both evolved independently — a question which needed more research. According to him, the word civilization may in fact have been used by Ferguson as soon as 1759.[6]
Furthermore, Benveniste notes that, contrasted to civility, a static term, civilization conveys a sense of dynamism. He thus writes that

it was not only a historical view of society; it was also an optimist and resolutely non theological interpretation of its evolution which asserted itself, sometimes at the insu of those who proclaimed it, and even if some of them, and first of all Mirabeau, still counted religion as the first factor of 'civilization.[6][7]

Another source of the word may relate to chivalry: a set of rules of engagement, originally for knights in warfare, but later expanded to cover conduct of knighthood or nobility. The English 'chivalry' comes from the French 'chevalier': a horseman[citation needed]. England and France would therefore have given rise to the terms at similar times.

Characteristics

26th century BC Sumerian cuneiform script in Sumerian language, listing gifts to the high priestess of Adab on the occasion of her election. One of the earliest examples of human writing.

Social scientists such as V. Gordon Childe have named a number of traits that distinguish a civilization from other kinds of society.[8]
Civilizations have been distinguished by their means of subsistence, types of livelihood, settlement patterns, forms of government, social stratification, economic systems, literacy, and other cultural traits.

农业： All human civilizations have depended on agriculture for subsistence. Growing food on farms results in a surplus of food, particularly when people use intensive agricultural techniques such as irrigation and crop rotation. Grain surpluses have been especially important because they can be stored for a long time. A surplus of food permits some people to do things besides produce food for a living: early civilizations included artisans, priests and priestesses, and other people with specialized careers. A surplus of food results in a division of labour and a more diverse range of human activity, a defining trait of civilizations.

聚落形态：Civilizations have distinctly different settlement patterns from other societies. The word civilization is sometimes defined as "a word that simply means 'living in cities'".[9] Non-farmers gather in cities to work and to trade.

政治形态：Compared with other societies, civilizations have a more complex political structure, namely the state. State societies are more stratified than other societies; there is a greater difference among the social classes. The ruling class, normally concentrated in the cities, has control over much of the surplus and exercises its will through the actions of a government or bureaucracy. Morton Fried, a conflict theorist, and Elman Service, an integration theorist, have classified human cultures based on political systems and social inequality. This system of classification contains four categories:

• Hunter-gatherer bands, which are generally egalitarian.
• Horticultural/pastoral societies in which there are generally two inherited social classes; chief and commoner.
• Highly stratified structures, or chiefdoms, with several inherited social classes: king, noble, freemen, serf and slave.
• Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and organized, institutional governments.[10]

经济：Economically, civilizations display more complex patterns of ownership and exchange than less organized societies. Living in one place allows people to accumulate more personal possessions than nomadic people. Some people also acquire landed property, or private ownership of the land. Because a percentage of people in civilizations do not grow their own food, they must trade their goods and services for food in a market system, or receive food through the levy of tribute, redistributive taxation, tariffs or tithes from the food producing segment of the population. Early civilizations developed money as a medium of exchange for these increasingly complex transactions. To oversimplify, in a village the potter makes a pot for the brewer and the brewer compensates the potter by giving him a certain amount of beer. In a city, the potter may need a new roof, the roofer may need new shoes, the cobbler may need new horseshoes, the blacksmith may need a new coat, and the tanner may need a new pot. These people may not be personally acquainted with one another and their needs may not occur all at the same time. A monetary system is a way of organizing these obligations to ensure that they are fulfilled fairly.


These ten Indus glyphs were discovered near the northern gate of Dholavira, India.


文字: Writing, developed first by people in Sumer, is considered a hallmark of civilization and "appears to accompany the rise of complex administrative bureaucracies or the conquest state."[11] Traders and bureaucrats relied on writing to keep accurate records. Like money, writing was necessitated by the size of the population of a city and the complexity of its commerce among people who are not all personally acquainted with each other.

文化：Aided by their division of labor and central government planning, civilizations have developed many other diverse cultural traits. These include organized religion, development in the arts, and countless new advances in science and technology.

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Cultural identity"Civilization" can also describe the culture of a complex society, not just the society itself. Every society, civilization or not, has a specific set of ideas and customs, and a certain set of items and arts, that make it unique. Civilizations have even more intricate复杂 cultures, including literature, professional art, architecture, organized religion, and complex customs associated with the elite. Civilization is such in nature that it seeks to spread, to have more, to expand, and the means by which to do this.

Nevertheless, some tribes or people remained uncivilized even to this day (2009). These cultures are called by some "primitive," a term that is regarded by others as pejorative. "Primitive" implies in some way that a culture is "first" (Latin = primus), and as all cultures are contemporaries, today's so-called primitive cultures are in no way antecedent to those we consider civilized. Many anthropologists use the term "non-literate" to describe these peoples. In the USA and Canada, where people of such cultures were the original inhabitants before being displaced by European settlers, they use the term "First Nations." Generally, the First Nations of North America had hierarchical governments, religion, a barter system, and oral transmission of their traditions, cultures, laws, etc. Respect for the wisdom of elders and for their natural environment[citation needed] (7th Generation decision-making) sustained these cultures for over 10,000 years.

The civilized world has been spread by invasion, genocide, religious conversion the extension of bureaucratic control and trade, and by introducing agriculture and writing to non-literate peoples. Some non-civilized people may willingly adapt to civilized behaviour. But civilization is also spread by force: if a non-literate group does not wish to use agriculture or accept a certain religion it is often forced to do so by the civilized people, and they usually succeed due to their more advanced technology and higher population densities. Civilizations often use religion to justify their actions, claiming for example that the uncivilized are "primitive," savages, barbarians or the like, which should be subjugated by civilization.
The intricate culture associated with civilization has a tendency to spread to and influence other cultures, sometimes assimilating them into the civilization (a classic example being Chinese civilization and its influence on Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and other nearby countries. Many civilizations are actually large cultural spheres containing many nations and regions. The civilization in which someone lives is that person's broadest cultural identity.
Many historians have focused on these broad cultural spheres and have treated civilizations as single units. One example is early twentieth-century philosopher Oswald Spengler,[12] even though he uses the German word "Kultur," "culture," for what we here call a "civilization." He said that a civilization's coherence is based on a single primary cultural symbol. Civilizations experience cycles of birth, life, decline and death, often supplanted by a new civilization with a potent new culture, formed around a compelling new cultural symbol.
This "unified culture" concept of civilization also influenced the theories of historian Arnold J. Toynbee in the mid-twentieth century. Toynbee explored civilization processes in his multi-volume A Study of History, which traced the rise and, in most cases, the decline of 21 civilizations and five "arrested civilizations." Civilizations generally declined and fell, according to Toynbee, because of the failure of a "creative minority", through moral or religious decline, to meet some important challenge, rather than mere economic or environmental causes.
Samuel P. Huntington similarly defines a civilization as "the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species." Besides giving a definition of a civilization, Huntington has also proposed several theories about civilizations, discussed below.
[edit] Complex systemsAnother group of theorists, making use of systems theory, looks at a civilization as a complex system, i.e., a framework by which a group of objects can be analyzed that work in concert to produce some result. Civilizations can be seen as networks of cities that emerge from pre-urban cultures, and are defined by the economic, political, military, diplomatic, social, and cultural interactions among them. Any organization is a complex social system, and a civilization is a large organization. Systems theory helps guard against superficial but misleading analogies in the study and description of civilizations.
For example, urbanist Jane Jacobs defines cities as the economic engines that work to create large networks of people. The main process that creates these city networks, she says, is "import replacement". Import replacement is the process by which peripheral cities begin to replace goods and services that were formerly imported from more advanced cities. Successful import replacement creates economic growth in these peripheral cities, and allows these cities to then export their goods to less developed cities in their own hinterlands, creating new economic networks. So Jacobs explores economic development across wide networks instead of treating each society as an isolated cultural sphere.
Systems theorists look at many types of relations between cities, including economic relations, cultural exchanges, and political/diplomatic/military relations. These spheres often occur on different scales. For example, trade networks were, until the nineteenth century, much larger than either cultural spheres or political spheres. Extensive trade routes, including the Silk Road through Central Asia and Indian Ocean sea routes linking the Roman Empire, Persian Empire, India, and China, were well established 2000 years ago, when these civilizations scarcely shared any political, diplomatic, military, or cultural relations. The first evidence of such long distance trade is in the ancient world. During the Uruk phase Guillermo Algaze has argued that trade relations connected Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran and Afghanistan.[13] Resin found later in the Royal Tombs of Ur it is suggested was traded northwards from Mozambique.
Many theorists argue that the entire world has already become integrated into a single "world system", a process known as globalization. Different civilizations and societies all over the globe are economically, politically, and even culturally interdependent in many ways. There is debate over when this integration began, and what sort of integration – cultural, technological, economic, political, or military-diplomatic – is the key indicator in determining the extent of a civilization. David Wilkinson has proposed that economic and military-diplomatic integration of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations resulted in the creation of what he calls the "Central Civilization" around 1500 BC.[14] Central Civilization later expanded to include the entire Middle East and Europe , and then expanded to a global scale with European colonization, integrating the Americas, Australia, China and Japan by the nineteenth century. According to Wilkinson, civilizations can be culturally heterogeneous, like the Central Civilization, or relatively homogeneous, like the Japanese civilization. What Huntington calls the "clash of civilizations" might be characterized by Wilkinson as a clash of cultural spheres within a single global civilization. Others point to the Crusades as the first step in globalization. The more conventional viewpoint is that networks of societies have expanded and shrunk since ancient times, and that the current globalized economy and culture is a product of recent European colonialism.
[edit] Future
Active regional blocs, which enhance nations' cooperation and form modern civilizations


See also: Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth
Political scientist Samuel Huntington[15] has argued that the defining characteristic of the 21st century will be a clash of civilizations. According to Huntington, conflicts between civilizations will supplant the conflicts between nation-states and ideologies that characterized the 19th and 20th centuries. These views have been strongly challenged by others like Edward Said and Mohammed Asudi.[16] Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris have argued that the "true clash of civilizations" between the Muslim world and the West is caused by the Muslim rejection of the West's more liberal sexual values, rather than a difference in political ideology.[17]
Currently, world civilization is in a stage that has created what may be characterized as an industrial society, superseding the agrarian society that preceded it. Some futurists believe that civilization is undergoing another transformation, and that world society will become a so-called informational society.
Some environmental scientists see the world entering a Planetary Phase of Civilization, characterized by a shift away from independent, disconnected nation-states to a world of increased global connectivity with worldwide institutions, environmental challenges, economic systems, and consciousness.[18][19] In an attempt to better understand what a Planetary Phase of Civilization might look like in the current context of declining natural resources and increasing consumption, the Global scenario group used scenario analysis to arrive at three archetypal futures: Barbarization, in which increasing conflicts result in either a fortress world or complete societal breakdown; Conventional Worlds, in which market forces or Policy reform slowly precipitate more sustainable practices; and a Great Transition, in which either the sum of fragmented Eco-Communalism movements add up to a sustainable world or globally coordinated efforts and initiatives result in a new sustainability paradigm.[20]
The Kardashev scale classifies civilizations based on their level of technological advancement, specifically measured by the amount of energy a civilization is able to harness. The Kardashev scale makes provisions for civilizations far more technologically advanced than any currently known to exist (see also: Civilizations and the Future, Space civilization).

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The fall of civilizationsMain article: Societal collapse
There have been many explanations put forward for the collapse of civilization.
Edward Gibbon's work "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" began an interest in the Fall of Civilizations, that had begun with the historical divisions of Petrarch[21] between the Classical period of Ancient Greece and Rome, the succeeding Medieval Ages, and the Renaissance. For Gibbon:-
"The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long."[Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 2nd ed., vol. 4, ed. by J. B. Bury (London, 1909), pp. 173–174.-Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis.--Part VI. General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West.] Gibbon suggested the final act of the collapse of Rome was the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 AD.

• Theodor Mommsen in his "History of Rome (Mommsen)", suggested Rome collapsed with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and he also tended towards a biological analogy of "genesis," "growth," "senescence," "collapse" and "decay."
• Oswald Spengler, in his "Decline of the West" rejected Petrarch's chronological division, and suggested that there had been only eight "mature civilizations." Growing cultures, he argued, tend to develop into imperialistic civilizations which expand and ultimately collapse, with democratic forms of government ushering in plutocracy and ultimately imperialism.
• Arnold J. Toynbee in his "A Study of History" suggested that there had been a much larger number of civilizations, including a small number of arrested civilizations, and that all civilizations tended to go through the cycle identified by Mommsen. The cause of the fall of a civilization occurred when a cultural elite became a parasitic elite, leading to the rise of internal and external proletariats.
• Joseph Tainter in "The Collapse of Complex Societies" suggested that there were diminishing returns to complexity, due to which, as states achieved a maximum permissible complexity, they would decline when further increases actually produced a negative return. Tainter suggested that Rome achieved this figure in the 2nd Century AD.
• Jared Diamond in his 2005 book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" suggests five major reasons for the collapse of 41 studied cultures: environmental damage, such as deforestation and soil erosion; climate change; dependence upon long-distance trade for needed resources; increasing levels of internal and external violence, such as war or invasion; and societal responses to internal and environmental problems.
• Peter Turchin in his Historical Dynamics and Andrey Korotayev et al. in their Introduction to Social Macrodynamics, Secular Cycles, and Millennial Trends suggest a number of mathematical models describing collapse of agrarian civilizations. For example, the basic logic of Turchin's "fiscal-demographic" model can be outlined as follows: during the initial phase of a sociodemographic cycle we observe relatively high levels of per capita production and consumption, which leads not only to relatively high population growth rates, but also to relatively high rates of surplus production. As a result, during this phase the population can afford to pay taxes without great problems, the taxes are quite easily collectible, and the population growth is accompanied by the growth of state revenues. During the intermediate phase, the increasing overpopulation leads to the decrease of per capita production and consumption levels, it becomes more and more difficult to collect taxes, and state revenues stop growing, whereas the state expenditures grow due to the growth of the population controlled by the state. As a result, during this phase the state starts experiencing considerable fiscal problems. During the final pre-collapse phases the overpopulation leads to further decrease of per capita production, the surplus production further decreases, state revenues shrink, but the state needs more and more resources to control the growing (though with lower and lower rates) population. Eventually this leads to famines, epidemics, state breakdown, and demographic and civilization collapse (Peter Turchin. Historical Dynamics. Princeton University Press, 2003:121–127).
• Peter Heather argues in his book The Fall of the Roman Empire: a New History of Rome and the Barbarians[22] that this civilization did not end for moral or economic reasons, but because centuries of contact with barbarians across the frontier generated its own nemesis by making them a much more sophisticated and dangerous adversary. The fact that Rome needed to generate ever greater revenues to equip and re-equip armies that were for the first time repeatedly defeated in the field, led to the dismemberment of the Empire. Although this argument is specific to Rome, it can also be applied to the Asiatic Empire of the Egyptians, to the Han and Tang dynasties of China, to the Muslim Abbasid Caliphate, and others.
• Bryan Ward-Perkins, in his book The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization,[23] shows the real horrors associated with the collapse of a civilization for the people who suffer its effects, unlike many revisionist historians who downplay this. The collapse of complex society meant that even basic plumbing disappeared from the continent for 1,000 years. Similar Dark Age collapses are seen with the Late Bronze Age collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean, the collapse of the Maya, on Easter Island and elsewhere.
• Arthur Demarest argues in Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization,[24] using a holistic perspective to the most recent evidence from archaeology, paleoecology, and epigraphy, that no one explanation is sufficient but that a series of erratic, complex events, including loss of soil fertility, drought and rising levels of internal and external violence led to the disintegration of the courts of Mayan kingdoms which began a spiral of decline and decay. He argues that the collapse of the Maya has lessons for civilization today.
• Jeffrey A. McNeely has recently suggested that "A review of historical evidence shows that past civilizations have tended to over-exploit their forests, and that such abuse of important resources has been a significant factor in the decline of the over-exploiting society."[25]
• Thomas Homer-Dixon in "The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization", considers that the fall in the energy return on investments; the energy expended to energy yield ratio, is central to limiting the survival of civilizations. The degree of social complexity is associated strongly, he suggests, with the amount of disposable energy environmental, economic and technological systems allow. When this amount decreases civilizations either have to access new energy sources or they will collapse.

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CriticismCivilization has been criticized from a variety of viewpoints and for a variety of reasons. Some critics have objected to all aspects of civilization; others have argued that civilization brings a mixture of good and bad effects.
[edit] Psychoanalysis and libertarian socialismSigmund Freud in Civilization and Its Discontents enumerates the fundamental tensions between civilization and the individual. The primary friction stems from the individual's quest for instinctual freedom and civilization's contrary demand for conformity and instinctual repression. Many of humankind's primitive instincts (for example, the desire to kill and the insatiable craving for sexual gratification) are clearly harmful to the well-being of a human community. As a result, civilization creates laws that prohibit killing, rape, and adultery, and it implements severe punishments if such rules are broken. This process, argues Freud, is an inherent quality of civilization that instills perpetual feelings of discontent in its citizens.

Herbert Marcuse, freudo-marxist philosopher who wrote Eros and Civilization which was inspired by Freud´s Civilization and Its Discontents


Herbert Marcuse followed this line of thought in his Eros and Civilization where he writes about the social meaning of biology - history seen not as a class struggle, but a fight against repression of our instincts. He argues that capitalism (if never named as such) is preventing us from reaching the non-repressive society "based on a fundamentally different experience of being, a fundamentally different relation between man and nature, and fundamentally different existential relations".[27] He argues that Freud's contention that repression is necessary for civilization to persist is ill-founded and that Eros is liberating and constructive. "Progress", for Marcuse, is a concept to rationalize the perpetuation of the prevailing system into the future, an end to which the happiness of people in the present (and the pleasure principle is all about the present) is sacrificed.
In the early 19th century utopian socialist Charles Fourier already developed a similar critique which attacked both christianity and Capitalism as the main components of civilization and as causes for human misery in the present which restrict human "passions"[28]. Fourier is also dealt with in Eros and Civilization.
[edit] PrimitivismMain articles: Primitivism and Anarcho-primitivism
Some environmentalists like Derrick Jensen[29] criticize civilizations for their exploitation of the environment. Richard Hienberg argues [1] that through intensive agriculture and urban growth, civilizations tend to destroy natural settings and habitats, and deplete the resources on which they depend. This is sometimes referred to as "dominator culture".[30] Proponents of this view believe that traditional societies live in greater harmony with nature than civilizations; people work with nature rather than try to subdue it. The sustainable living movement is a push from some members of civilization to regain that harmony with nature.

John Zerzan, an influential anarcho-primitivist contemporary critic of civilization


Primitivism is a modern philosophy totally opposed to civilization. Primitivists accuse civilizations of restricting human potential, oppressing the weak, and damaging the environment. They wish to return to a more primitive way of life which they consider to be in the best interests of both nature and human beings. Leading proponents are John Zerzan and Derrick Jensen, whereas a critic is Roger Sandall.
However, not all critics of past and present civilization believe that a primitive way of life is better. Some have argued that many negative aspects of current 'civilized' nations can be overcome. Karl Marx, for instance, argued that the beginning of civilization was the beginning of oppression and exploitation, but also believed that these things would eventually be overcome and communism would be established throughout the world. He envisioned communism not as a return to any sort of idyllic past, but as a new stage of civilization. Conflict theory in the social sciences also views the present form of civilization as being based on the domination of some people by others, but does not judge the issue morally. From anarchist points of view writers such as Jason McQuinn[31] and Wolfi Landstreicher [32] have agreed with many points of the primitivist critique but reject "the adoption of a preconceived ideal against which that world (and one's own life) is measured, an archetypally ideological stance."[33]. McQuinn argues that "This nearly irresistible susceptibility to idealization is primitivism's greatest weakness."[34]
Given the current problems with the sustainability of industrial civilization, some, like Derrick Jensen, who posits civilization to be inherently unsustainable, argue that we need to develop a social form of "post-civilization" as different from civilization as the latter was from pre-civilized peoples.

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An aphorism sometimes attributed to either Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Paine, "That government is best which governs least", actually was first found in this essay.[4] Thoreau was paraphrasing the motto of The United States Magazine and Democratic Review: "The best government is that which governs least."[5]

[edit] Summary
Thoreau asserts that because governments are typically more harmful than helpful, they therefore cannot be justified. Democracy is no cure for this, as majorities simply by virtue of being majorities do not also gain the virtues of wisdom and justice. The judgment of an individual's conscience is not necessarily or even likely inferior to the decisions of a political body or majority, and so "t is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.… Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice."[6]

Indeed, he points out, you serve your country poorly if you do so by suppressing your conscience in favor of the law because your country needs consciences more than it needs conscienceless robots.

Thoreau says that it is disgraceful to be associated with the United States government in particular: "I cannot for an instant recognize as my government [that] which is the slave's government also."[7]

The government, according to Thoreau, is not just a little corrupt or unjust in the course of doing its otherwise-important work, but in fact the government is primarily an agent of corruption and injustice. Because of this, it's "not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize."[8]

Political philosophers have counseled caution about revolution because the upheaval of revolution typically causes a lot of expense and suffering. However, Thoreau says that such a cost/benefit analysis isn't appropriate when the government is actively facilitating an injustice like slavery. Such a thing is fundamentally immoral and even if it would be difficult and expensive to stop it, it must be stopped because it is wrong. "This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people."[9]

Thoreau tells his audience that they cannot blame this problem solely on pro-slavery Southern politicians, but must put the blame on those in, for instance, Massachusetts, "who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may.… There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them."[10] (See also: Thoreau's Slavery in Massachusetts which also advances this argument.)

He exhorts people not to just wait passively for an opportunity to vote for justice, because voting for justice is as ineffective as wishing for justice; what you need to do is to actually be just. This is not to say that you have an obligation to devote your life to fighting for justice, but you do have an obligation not to commit injustice and not to give injustice your practical support.

Paying taxes is one way in which otherwise well-meaning people collaborate in injustice. People who proclaim that the war in Mexico is wrong and that it is wrong to enforce slavery contradict themselves if they fund both things by paying taxes. Thoreau points out that the same people who applaud soldiers for refusing to fight an unjust war are not themselves willing to refuse to fund the government that started the war.

In a constitutional republic like the United States, people often think that the proper response to an unjust law is to try to use the political process to change the law, but to obey and respect the law until it is changed. But if the law is itself clearly unjust, and the lawmaking process is not designed to quickly obliterate such unjust laws, then Thoreau says the law deserves no respect and it should be broken. In the case of the United States, the Constitution itself enshrines the institution of slavery, and therefore falls under this condemnation. Abolitionists, in Thoreau's opinion, should completely withdraw their support of the government and stop paying taxes, even if this means courting imprisonment.

Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.… where the State places those who are not with her, but against her,– the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.… Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.[11]

Because the government will retaliate, Thoreau says he prefers living simply because he therefore has less to lose. "I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts…. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case."[12]

He was briefly imprisoned for refusing to pay the poll tax, but even in jail felt freer than the people outside. He considered it an interesting experience and came out of it with a new perspective on his relationship to the government and its citizens. (He was released the next day when "someone interfered, and paid that tax.")[13]
Thoreau said he was willing to pay the highway tax, which went to pay for something of benefit to his neighbors, but that he was opposed to taxes that went to support the government itself—even if he could not tell if his particular contribution would eventually be spent on an unjust project or a beneficial one. "I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually."[14]

Because government is man-made, not an element of nature or an act of God, Thoreau hoped that its makers could be reasoned with. As governments go, he felt, the U.S. government, with all its faults, was not the worst and even had some admirable qualities. But he felt we could and should insist on better. "The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.… Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly."[15]
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"That government is best which governs least." Thomas Paine
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=32653

         Although there is some question regarding who actually deserves the credit for this quote, there can be little debate regarding its message. Whether it was Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams or even Napoleon, its message and sentiment neatly and simply sums up our Founding Fathers beliefs regarding Government.
          Our Founding Fathers sought to establish a Government that would defend the People and that would support and make the life of the People easier and more secure. They believed that in a land of freedom, the people - not Government - could best decide for themselves what was in their best interest.
          The Founding Fathers also realized that a Government that grew in size would naturally also grow in power. The Bill of Rights was added to insure that certain, basic rights of the People would never be infringed upon.
          Our Founding Fathers sought to break free from the unfair taxes and control of England's King George by declaring American Independence in 1776. They knew that they were committing a treasonous act by doing so - but so strong was their belief in their cause; they were willing to risk the gallows for freedom.

We, as Americans, owe it to our Founding Fathers to show the same bravery that they displayed and stand up to a Government that has evolved from one of defense and support of the People to one of control over the lives of the People. There can be nothing as patriotic as the effort to peaceably work toward freedom for the People. We elect men and women to represent us in matters of Government - they work for us. Let them know how you feel and what you think - no matter what your views. It is the only peaceable recourse at our disposal.

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

About this debate
Driven in part by a progressive lowering of barriers to trade in both rich and developing countries, global trade expanded faster in the decades leading up to导致 the crisis than the global economy grew. Economists argue that free trade makes everyone better off, allowing more, and more varied, goods, and lower prices, than would otherwise be possible. Some also argue that it leads to faster economic growth and less poverty.

Some critics of free trade argue, however, that its supposed benefits for poor people and developing countries are illusory. Trade, they say, benefits rich countries at the expense of poor ones, increasing inequality between nations. Others say that it hurts rich-country workers, particularly the less skilled, thus increasing economic equality within rich countries. All would rather that the world concentrate its efforts on making trade "fairer" rather than further attempt to reduce trade barriers.

What does the balance of the evidence say? What does it actually mean to make trade fairer? Fairer for whom? Must the two goals be mutually相互 exclusive排斥? These are some of the questions this debate will tackle.

                                                
Background reading
                                
Trade and the world economy: Fare well, free trade
The China-ASEAN free-trade agreement: Ajar for business
Barack Obama and free trade: Economic vandalism
America, China and protectionism: Wearing thin
China and the WTO: Let me entertain you
The president and trade: Go sell
Charlemagne: If the CAP doesn't fit

The moderator's opening remarks

The economic case for free trade is straightforward. Trade allows the global economy to do more with the resources, skills, and technology at its disposal than would be possible if countries were to operate in isolation. Opening up to trade lets countries shift their patterns of production, making more of what they are relatively good at producing. They sell abroad the part of their output that their own people do not want, and import things they do want that are not domestically produced at lower prices than if they were to try to make those things themselves. Indeed, the fruits of成果 trade are on the shelves of shops around the world. When trade dries up, as it did last year as a result of the economic crisis, it causes palpable pain负面 in the form of shuttered factories and unemployed workers. And few would doubt that at least part of the dramatic growth of trade in the post-war era has been because of a progressive lowering of trade barriers.

Yet it is hard, nowadays, to find too many people who wholeheartedly espouse支持 the cause of further liberalising trade. True, the leaders of the world's major economies dutifully trot out the requisite promise about completing the seemingly interminable Doha round of multilateral trade talks and abjuring protectionist measures each time they meet. Despite this, the political will for making trade freer seems almost non-existent.   that the benefits of trade are believed to be uneven. Some regions and some groups within them are seen as cornering all or most of the gains. Part of the reason for this is... Others—autoworkers in America or call-centre employees in Ireland, for instance—are seen mainly as losers. Trade, the argument goes, is fundamentally unfair, both to rich-country workers who see their jobs shipped off to China and the workers in China who must do those jobs for a fraction of the original workers' wages, and under conditions that the former would shudder to accept. Instead of concentrating on more and more open trade, the argument goes, it is more important to deal with trade's inherent unfairness.  

Our latest online debate will tackle this tension between freedom and fairness and try to resolve whether action on one front is more important, and what forms such action might take. Proposing the motion, Ngaire Woods from Oxford University suggests that making trade fairer "is important to avert a further public backlash against trade". She argues that both the outcomes and the processes of trade need to be made fairer. At the same time, as she notes, "fair trade can be used as a Trojan horse for protectionist arguments".

Her opponent in this debate, Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University, would agree with that last statement. Where the benefits of free trade are obvious, Mr Bhagwati argues, the merits of fairer trade—or indeed, just what is meant by this—are nebulous at best and thinly disguised protectionism at worst. He puts forward three possible ways to define fair trade, and argues that in each case, "making trade fairer" will have malign effects, whereas "making trade freer" will make us better off".  

As the debate proceeds, I hope we arrive at a clearer understanding of what precisely we should understand fairer trade to mean, as well as of the ways in which trade remains unfree. What does the evidence of trade's effects on inequality within and between countries say? And how should trade's effects on things like inequality or the wages of the less skilled in rich countries be balanced against the jobs it creates for poorer workers in developing countries, as well as its less remarked upon but widely dispersed benefits for consumers at large?  I wonder also whether fair and free ought to be seen as being in constant conflict. Is part of the reason that trade seems unfair that it is not free enough (for example, because of continuing agricultural subsidies in rich countries?) I look forward to a lively exchange between Ms Woods and Mr Bhagwati, and I hope that you, our readers, will take an active part in the discussion.

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

The proposer's opening remarks

Trade has a pretty bad name in some quarters某些方面. "Trade robs poor people of a proper living, and keeps them trapped in poverty" writes Oxfam on its website. The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) reckon Britain lost some 250,000 jobs to China, India, eastern Europe and other countries in the decade up to 2004. The "giant sucking sound" of jobs disappearing abroad is invoked in each American election. Others criticise the rigged rules of the trading system. Recall the raucous protests at the WTO's 1999 meeting in Seattle. There is a widely held popular view that trade is unfair.

Making trade fairer is important to avert避免 a further public backlash against trade. It is also important so as better to reconcile trade goals with other important national goals such as environmental and social protection. Finally, the so-called free trade system needs to be made fairer so that it does not stymie阻碍 competition, and crush innovation and entrepreneurship. It needs to offer a more level playing field to commercial newcomers and competitors in rich and poor countries alike平等.

Advocating freer trade will not resolve the unfairness of trade. Free trade is the dream of most textbook-wielding economists. But few others go much beyond the slogan. Free trade is a useful banner for traders who want access to other people's markets. "Free trade" has been used successfully by powerful countries to prise open markets to sell pharmaceuticals药品 and banking services, and to gain access to government procurement contracts.

At home the story is different. Large firms have little appetite for没有兴趣 free trade and competition in their own backyard. They prefer to enjoy the advantages and protections for which they have carefully lobbied. Robust competition has little appeal for those who understand that they will make more profit if they can corner the market, whether at home or abroad. The invisible hand of the market and free trade is reserved for deploying against competitors.

Making trade fairer is about addressing both outcomes and processes of trade. Fairness is not just moral pleading. It affects behaviour. The fairness of outcomes has been explored in recent years by economists using a simple experiment. A player is given a sum of money to share with another. The first player can offer any portion of the money he or she likes to the other who can either accept or reject it. If the second player rejects the offer, neither player gets any money. Obviously, self-interest would suggest that whatever is offered—whether perceived as "fair" or not—is worth the second player accepting (since it represents a net gain). Yet players offered small amounts often reject on the grounds of unfairness.

Fairness may become yet more influential. According to a recent report by The Economist, notions of fairness increase steadily as societies achieve greater market integration: "People from better-integrated societies are also more likely to punish those who do not play fair, even when this is costly to themselves." In international trade then, the fairness of outcomes may matter more and more not less and less.

The world expects trade outcomes to be somewhat unequal. But when Oxfam reported back in 2002 that 97% of the income generated by international trade benefits rich and middle-income countries, while 3% flows to poor countries, it made a stir.
Standards of fairness had been breached.

Fairer trade rather than freer trade could change some of these outcomes. A persuasive case is made by my Oxford colleagues, Paul Collier and Tony Venables. Carefully deployed special preferences and protectionism could be used intelligently to help to catalyse growth加速 in African countries, and to improve the lives of the bottom billion. Conversely, the dismantling of special preferences has levied some high costs.

Fairness is also important in the governance统治 of trade. International trade negotiations have resulted in rules which open up markets mostly for the goods and services exported by rich and emerging economies, while keeping markets closed in agriculture and other goods which are the main produce of poorer countries. The rules are made in negotiations in which the powerful call the shots, and do not always do so in good faith. In the Uruguay乌拉圭 Round of negotiations industrialised countries were perceived to have exacted precise and far-reaching commitments from developing countries, in exchange for vague promises, such as to liberalise agriculture, which they have not kept. The Doha Round keeps failing to restart, in large part because there is too little trust in the fairness of its likely outcomes, as well as the fairness of the negotiating process, something Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the WTO, is trying valiantly to change.

The enforcement of trade rules is also unfair. When countries break trade rules, they are not systematically policed. They will be caught when their actions affect countries in which business groups are organised and well resourced enough to play a key role in gathering information and financing the preparation of the case against the offender. For most small countries, bringing a case against an important trade partner is unthinkable. They could lose discretionary自由意志 trade access, aid or geostrategic地缘战略 assistance. Were they to win, they would secure the right to apply retaliatory报复 measures which might have little effect—a pyrrhic极大代价获得 victory for many.

Trade needs saving. But freer trade will not do the trick. The perceived unfairness of trade leads people to press for less trade not freer trade. Fairer trade, by contrast, would bolster public support, allow a better reconciliation with national priorities such as environment and development, and could offer a more level playing field to ensure more open and vibrant competition积极开放.

lynnuanaUID: 2772328

The opposition's opening remarks

On the contrary. At the outset一开始, we have a problem of ambiguity. While we know what free trade means—we mean by it the absence of price or quantity interventions in trade that prevent the translation of world prices into domestic prices, keeping in mind that trade instruments can be decomposed into a sum of domestic policy instruments—it is a phrase that has no settled meaning in policy discourse政策表述. In fact, there are three main meanings which we can assign to it today.（给予3个意义） Fortunately, in each case, we can argue that making trade fairer will have malign effects whereas making trade freer will make us better off.（对比）

In the first meaning, often, in the United States in particular, free trade is considered unfair if other nations are less open than one's own. This notion of unfair trade was also manifest in Britain at the end of the 19th century when Germany and the United States had emerged as competitors to British hegemony霸权. Fair trade associations grew up at the time, agitating to end结束 Britain's unilateral单方面 free trade, much as the United States saw the demands for fair trade increased when it faced the rise of Japan in the 1980s and many feared that the principal source of relative American decline was the asymmetric不对称的 closed the Japanese market. This is, of course, a recurrent theme周期循环 in the United States: Japan has been replaced by China, currently prospering because its markets are considered to be closed relative to the American markets.

Now, if the demand for fair trade in the sense of意义 demanding reciprocity相互关系 in openness leads to others reducing their trade barriers, that is good. But if it leads to closing of one's own, because others do not yield to such demands, that is bad.（两个if假设，AW！！） Thus, the theory of unilateral trade and reciprocity teaches that if others open their markets when we open ours, we generally speaking get a double dividend双重红利两倍好处 (from opening ours and others opening theirs); that if such reciprocity does not obtain, we would still profit from our own unilateral freeing of trade; and that, in fact, if immediate reciprocity is denied, it may be prompteddown the road将来某个时候 in these initially non-liberalising nations by the demonstration of success with freer trade or the relative strengthening of pro-trade lobbies in these nations as they liberalise on their own: what I have called "induced reciprocity" (see "Going Alone", MIT Press, 2002).

In the second meaning, a more potent有效 notion in current discourse is the notion that fair trade requires that rival producers abroad should carry the same burdens on labour (and domestic-pollution) standards as one does. If the same industry carries differential burdens across countries, and yours is greater, then free trade will harm you.

These demands, when reflecting lobbying by被说服 specific industries complaining of unfair trade because their competitors are less burdened, are misplaced since there is no reason why there should be such identity of industry standards across countries. The shadow price of domestic pollution may well be different across countries for an industry: abundant fresh air and widespread dysentery痢疾 owing to polluted water in Kenya relative to the United States may legitimately合理的 mean that the polluter-pay tax be less in Kenya for air pollution and more for water pollution than in the United States.

The same goes for labour standards.（同样情况也发生在）
Except for consensus on达成一致 a very small (but possibly growing) set of universal labour standards such as the proscription of hazardous child labour非法童工, many standards will reflect local history, politics and economic circumstance. When labour unions in the United States typically ask, nonetheless, that others abroad raise their labour standards to the US standards, the argument is usually couched in terms of暗含 altruism: we are doing this for your workers. But, in truth（实际上换词）, the argument is prompted by self-interest, that is,（即强调） it is designed to raise the cost of production abroad so as to moderate competition which, it is wrongly feared, is harming one's own workers. Economists will recognise this as a form of export protectionism贸易保护主义, as an alternative to conventional import protectionism. If a beast is charging at you, you can catch it by the horns (as with import restrictions) or you can reach behind the beast, catch it by the tail and break the charge (as with export protectionism).（动物metaphor）

Some labour groups have turned instead to asking for acceptance of the core labour conventions at ILO（International Labor Organization） by a country as a requisite for freeing trade with it. Ironically, however, for several reasons, the United States has not ratified批准 a large fraction of them. Maybe the United States will begin by suspending all its exports until all core conventions are ratified: if charity begins at home, so must trade sanctions贸易制裁 for lack of ratification of the core conventions?

As for the third meaning, perhaps the most influential demand for fair trade today is in an altogether different sense. It derives from British charities like Oxfam and is really a demand for what economists call a just price to be paid to foreign suppliers in trade, a notion that goes back at least to Rowntree's practice of paying a higher-than-market price for cocoa beans processed into its chocolate.

This is of course a perfectly innocuous procedure, except that it turns into a form of protectionism if regular trade is sought to be eliminated in favour of fair trade. For example, retailers may be forced to carry only fair trade coffee. I believe that this is a mistake. In particular, when I pay a higher price for my fair trade coffee, I am providing a subsidy to the suppliers of this coffee vis-à-vis the market price. That may well be what I want to do as my altruistic activity. But I may want instead to use my altruistic funds on what I consider worthier causes like support of women's rights NGOs or children's nutrition. I see no reason why I should be forced to accept someone else's definition of how I should behave as an altruist.