Suggestions for Writing

1. In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), African American intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois took Booker T. Washington to task. Acknowledging that Washington “stands as the one recognized spokesman of his ten million fellows and one of the most notable figures in a nation of seventy million,” DuBois criticizes him for promoting “a gospel of Work and Money to such an extent as apparently almost completely to overshadow the higher aims of life.” Read Chapter 3 of DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk called “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” and then explain whether you agree with Washington or DuBois. You might also want to read Dudley Randall’s poem “Booker T. and W.E.B.,” which captures and comments on the debate between Washington and DuBois. The selections by DuBois and Randall can both be found at bedfordstmartins.com/languageofcomp.

   Question

   WvD/qlpt4lzzWb4zUwGWBQhKPjtDvqj8sRamu7J1DAyqPwYZ7lQ7Wr5WbEA=

   Chapter 7 - Suggestions for Writing: In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), African American intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois took Booker T. Washington to task. Acknowledging that Washington “stands as the one recognized spokesman of his ten million fellows and one of the most notable figures in a nation of seventy million,” DuBois criticizes him for promoting “a gospel of Work and Money to such an extent as apparently almost completely to overshadow the higher aims of life.” Read Chapter 3 of DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk called “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others,” and then explain whether you agree with Washington or DuBois. You might also want to read Dudley Randall’s poem “Booker T. and W.E.B.,” which captures and comments on the debate between Washington and DuBois. The selections by DuBois and Randall can both be found at bedfordstmartins.com/languageofcomp.
2. How has the economy been portrayed in popular culture, either in the past or today? You might consider films such as Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), Inside Job (2010), and Margin Call (2011), periodicals such as the Onion, or television programs such as The Colbert Report. Select one genre, such as movies, comedy shows, or cartoons. Do they extol the virtues of labor? Do they ennoble work? Do they satirize economics and economists? Explain using examples.

   Question

   WvD/qlpt4lzzWb4zUwGWBQhKPjtDvqj8sRamu7J1DAyqPwYZ7lQ7Wr5WbEA=

   Chapter 7 - Suggestions for Writing: How has the economy been portrayed in popular culture, either in the past or today? You might consider films such as Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), Inside Job (2010), and Margin Call (2011), periodicals such as the Onion, or television programs such as The Colbert Report. Select one genre, such as movies, comedy shows, or cartoons. Do they extol the virtues of labor? Do they ennoble work? Do they satirize economics and economists? Explain using examples.
3. In City of God, St. Augustine tells the story of a pirate captured by Alexander the Great. “The Emperor asked him, ‘How dare you molest the seas?’ The pirate replied, ‘How dare you molest the whole world? Because I do it with a small boat, I am called a pirate and a thief. You, with a great fleet, molest the world and are called an emperor.’” St. Augustine “approved of the pirate’s response.” In our time, there are many who bemoan the greed with which our financial system is riddled, while observing at the same time the punishments meted out to the poor for minor offenses. Consider the implications of the pirate’s response and St. Augustine’s thought. Write an essay in which you evaluate the application of the story to our nation’s current economic situation, using the works presented in this chapter for support.

   Question

   WvD/qlpt4lzzWb4zUwGWBQhKPjtDvqj8sRamu7J1DAyqPwYZ7lQ7Wr5WbEA=

   Chapter 7 - Suggestions for Writing: In City of God, St. Augustine tells the story of a pirate captured by Alexander the Great. “The Emperor asked him, ‘How dare you molest the seas?’ The pirate replied, ‘How dare you molest the whole world? Because I do it with a small boat, I am called a pirate and a thief. You, with a great fleet, molest the world and are called an emperor.’” St. Augustine “approved of the pirate’s response.” In our time, there are many who bemoan the greed with which our financial system is riddled, while observing at the same time the punishments meted out to the poor for minor offenses. Consider the implications of the pirate’s response and St. Augustine’s thought. Write an essay in which you evaluate the application of the story to our nation’s current economic situation, using the works presented in this chapter for support.
4. In “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” (p. 369), first published in the New York Times Magazine in 1999, philosopher and bioethicist Peter Singer writes, “So how does my philosophy break down in dollars and cents? An American household with an income of $50,000 spends around $30,000 annually on necessities, according to the Conference Board, a nonprofit economic research organization. Therefore, for a household bringing in $50,000 a year, donations to help the world’s poor should be as close as possible to $20,000. The $30,000 required for necessities holds for higher incomes as well. So a household making $100,000 a year could cut a yearly check for $70,000. Again, the formula is simple: whatever money you’re spending on luxuries, not necessities, should be given away” (para. 22). What effect would Singer’s solution have on the economy? Write a response to Singer in which you refer to the “Forbes Price Index of Luxury Goods” (p. 498) and at least two other selections from this chapter.

   Question

   WvD/qlpt4lzzWb4zUwGWBQhKPjtDvqj8sRamu7J1DAyqPwYZ7lQ7Wr5WbEA=

   Chapter 7 - Suggestions for Writing: In “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” (p. 369), first published in the New York Times Magazine in 1999, philosopher and bioethicist Peter Singer writes, “So how does my philosophy break down in dollars and cents? An American household with an income of $50,000 spends around $30,000 annually on necessities, according to the Conference Board, a nonprofit economic research organization. Therefore, for a household bringing in $50,000 a year, donations to help the world’s poor should be as close as possible to $20,000. The $30,000 required for necessities holds for higher incomes as well. So a household making $100,000 a year could cut a yearly check for $70,000. Again, the formula is simple: whatever money you’re spending on luxuries, not necessities, should be given away” (para. 22). What effect would Singer’s solution have on the economy? Write a response to Singer in which you refer to the “Forbes Price Index of Luxury Goods” (p. 498) and at least two other selections from this chapter.
5. Write a response to Barbara Ehrenreich, Eric Schlosser, or Fareed Zakaria in the voice of a financially successful or powerful contemporary person, such as Donald Trump or Bill Gates. Indicate areas of common ground as well as disagreement.

   Question

   WvD/qlpt4lzzWb4zUwGWBQhKPjtDvqj8sRamu7J1DAyqPwYZ7lQ7Wr5WbEA=

   Chapter 7 - Suggestions for Writing: Write a response to Barbara Ehrenreich, Eric Schlosser, or Fareed Zakaria in the voice of a financially successful or powerful contemporary person, such as Donald Trump or Bill Gates. Indicate areas of common ground as well as disagreement.
6. John Ruskin, whom you have read in this chapter, wrote about duty and responsibility as those values relate to business. To what extent do his views relate to our contemporary economy? Focus on both the microeconomic and macroeconomic implications.

   Question

   WvD/qlpt4lzzWb4zUwGWBQhKPjtDvqj8sRamu7J1DAyqPwYZ7lQ7Wr5WbEA=

   Chapter 7 - Suggestions for Writing: John Ruskin, whom you have read in this chapter, wrote about duty and responsibility as those values relate to business. To what extent do his views relate to our contemporary economy? Focus on both the microeconomic and macroeconomic implications.
7. In “The Arts of Selling,” one of the essays in Brave New World Revisited (1958), Aldous Huxley, author of the dystopian novel Brave New World, wrote about advertising. Read the following paragraph from that work, and compare Huxley’s ideas with those presented in John Kenneth Galbraith’s contemporaneous piece, “The Dependence Effect.” Write an essay in which you compare the two and evaluate which one comments more cogently and eloquently on our nation’s economy. Refer to at least two other selections in this chapter for support.

   Effective rational propaganda becomes possible only when there is a clear understanding, on the part of all concerned, of the nature of symbols and of their relations to the things and events symbolized. Irrational propaganda depends for its effectiveness on the general failure to understand the nature of symbols. Simple-minded people tend to equate the symbol with what it stands for, to attribute to things and events some of the qualities expressed by the words in terms of which the propagandist has chosen, for his own purposes, to talk about them. Consider a simple example. Most cosmetics are made of lanolin, which is a mixture of purified wool fat and water beaten up into an emulsion. This emulsion has many valuable properties: it penetrates the skin, it does not become rancid, it is mildly antiseptic and so forth. But the commercial propagandists do not speak about the genuine virtues of the emulsion. They give it some picturesquely voluptuous name, talk ecstatically and misleadingly about feminine beauty and show pictures of gorgeous blondes nourishing their tissues with skin food. “The cosmetic manufacturers,” one of their number has written, “are not selling lanolin, they are selling hope.” For this hope, this fraudulent implication of a promise that they will be transfigured, women will pay ten or twenty times the value of the emulsion which the propagandists have so skillfully related, by means of misleading symbols, to a deep-seated and almost universal feminine wish—the wish to be more attractive to members of the opposite sex. The principles underlying this kind of propaganda are extremely simple. Find some common desire, some widespread unconscious fear or anxiety; think out some way to relate this wish or fear to the product you have to sell; then build a bridge of verbal or pictorial symbols over which your customer can pass from fact to compensatory dream, and from the dream to the illusion that your product, when purchased, will make the dream come true. “We no longer buy oranges, we buy vitality. We do not buy just an auto, we buy prestige.” And so with all the rest. In toothpaste, for example, we buy, not a mere cleanser and antiseptic, but release from the fear of being sexually repulsive. In vodka and whisky we are not buying a protoplasmic poison which, in small doses, may depress the nervous system in a psychologically valuable way; we are buying friendliness and good fellowship, the warmth of Dingley Dell and the brilliance of the Mermaid Tavern. With our laxatives we buy the health of a Greek god, the radiance of one of Diana’s nymphs. With the monthly best seller we acquire culture, the envy of our less literate neighbors and the respect of the sophisticated. In every case the motivation analyst has found some deep-seated wish or fear, whose energy can be used to move the customer to part with cash and so, indirectly, to turn the wheels of industry. Stored in the minds and bodies of countless individuals, this potential energy is released by, and transmitted along, a line of symbols carefully laid out so as to bypass rationality and obscure the real issue.

   Question

   WvD/qlpt4lzzWb4zUwGWBQhKPjtDvqj8sRamu7J1DAyqPwYZ7lQ7Wr5WbEA=

   Chapter 7 - Suggestions for Writing: In “The Arts of Selling,” one of the essays in Brave New World Revisited (1958), Aldous Huxley, author of the dystopian novel Brave New World, wrote about advertising. Read the following paragraph from that work, and compare Huxley’s ideas with those presented in John Kenneth Galbraith’s contemporaneous piece, “The Dependence Effect.” Write an essay in which you compare the two and evaluate which one comments more cogently and eloquently on our nation’s economy. Refer to at least two other selections in this chapter for support. Effective rational propaganda becomes possible only when there is a clear understanding, on the part of all concerned, of the nature of symbols and of their relations to the things and events symbolized. Irrational propaganda depends for its effectiveness on the general failure to understand the nature of symbols. Simple-minded people tend to equate the symbol with what it stands for, to attribute to things and events some of the qualities expressed by the words in terms of which the propagandist has chosen, for his own purposes, to talk about them. Consider a simple example. Most cosmetics are made of lanolin, which is a mixture of purified wool fat and water beaten up into an emulsion. This emulsion has many valuable properties: it penetrates the skin, it does not become rancid, it is mildly antiseptic and so forth. But the commercial propagandists do not speak about the genuine virtues of the emulsion. They give it some picturesquely voluptuous name, talk ecstatically and misleadingly about feminine beauty and show pictures of gorgeous blondes nourishing their tissues with skin food. “The cosmetic manufacturers,” one of their number has written, “are not selling lanolin, they are selling hope.” For this hope, this fraudulent implication of a promise that they will be transfigured, women will pay ten or twenty times the value of the emulsion which the propagandists have so skillfully related, by means of misleading symbols, to a deep-seated and almost universal feminine wish—the wish to be more attractive to members of the opposite sex. The principles underlying this kind of propaganda are extremely simple. Find some common desire, some widespread unconscious fear or anxiety; think out some way to relate this wish or fear to the product you have to sell; then build a bridge of verbal or pictorial symbols over which your customer can pass from fact to compensatory dream, and from the dream to the illusion that your product, when purchased, will make the dream come true. “We no longer buy oranges, we buy vitality. We do not buy just an auto, we buy prestige.” And so with all the rest. In toothpaste, for example, we buy, not a mere cleanser and antiseptic, but release from the fear of being sexually repulsive. In vodka and whisky we are not buying a protoplasmic poison which, in small doses, may depress the nervous system in a psychologically valuable way; we are buying friendliness and good fellowship, the warmth of Dingley Dell and the brilliance of the Mermaid Tavern. With our laxatives we buy the health of a Greek god, the radiance of one of Diana’s nymphs. With the monthly best seller we acquire culture, the envy of our less literate neighbors and the respect of the sophisticated. In every case the motivation analyst has found some deep-seated wish or fear, whose energy can be used to move the customer to part with cash and so, indirectly, to turn the wheels of industry. Stored in the minds and bodies of countless individuals, this potential energy is released by, and transmitted along, a line of symbols carefully laid out so as to bypass rationality and obscure the real issue.
8. Write an argument defending or challenging the large salaries paid to athletes, movie stars, or corporate executives. Develop a logical argument with clearly drawn reasons—or write your response as a satire.

   Question

   WvD/qlpt4lzzWb4zUwGWBQhKPjtDvqj8sRamu7J1DAyqPwYZ7lQ7Wr5WbEA=

   Chapter 7 - Suggestions for Writing: Write an argument defending or challenging the large salaries paid to athletes, movie stars, or corporate executives. Develop a logical argument with clearly drawn reasons—or write your response as a satire.
9. In the following excerpts, Adam Smith and Henry David Thoreau consider price and cost as features of economy. Write an essay in which you compare the two and evaluate which speaks more accurately and eloquently to our time. In your essay, refer to at least three of the selections presented in this chapter as support.

   The real price of everything, what everything is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save for himself, and which it can impose on other people.

   —Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776

   If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance on the condition of man,—and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages,—it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

   —Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

   Question

   WvD/qlpt4lzzWb4zUwGWBQhKPjtDvqj8sRamu7J1DAyqPwYZ7lQ7Wr5WbEA=

   Chapter 7 - Suggestions for Writing: In the following excerpts, Adam Smith and Henry David Thoreau consider price and cost as features of economy. Write an essay in which you compare the two and evaluate which speaks more accurately and eloquently to our time. In your essay, refer to at least three of the selections presented in this chapter as support. The real price of everything, what everything is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save for himself, and which it can impose on other people. —Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776 If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance on the condition of man,—and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages,—it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. —Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
10. Which of the following quotations most accurately captures your attitude toward work and the economy? Write an essay about why the quotation speaks to you. In your essay, refer to the selections presented in this chapter.

    Never work just for money or for power. They won’t save your soul or help you sleep at night.

    —Marian Wright Edelman

    Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.

    —Vaclav Havel

    There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down.

    —David Ricardo

    Every man is rich or poor according to the degree to which he can afford the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life.

    —Adam Smith

    It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

    —Matthew 19:24

    Capital is dead labor that, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.

    —Karl Marx

    I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

    —Mark Twain

    I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of money.

    —Pablo Picasso

    Question

    WvD/qlpt4lzzWb4zUwGWBQhKPjtDvqj8sRamu7J1DAyqPwYZ7lQ7Wr5WbEA=

    Chapter 7 - Suggestions for Writing: Which of the following quotations most accurately captures your attitude toward work and the economy? Write an essay about why the quotation speaks to you. In your essay, refer to the selections presented in this chapter. Never work just for money or for power. They won’t save your soul or help you sleep at night. —Marian Wright Edelman Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. —Vaclav Havel There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down. —David Ricardo Every man is rich or poor according to the degree to which he can afford the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human life. —Adam Smith It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. —Matthew 19:24 Capital is dead labor that, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks. —Karl Marx I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position. —Mark Twain I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of money. —Pablo Picasso