The right to the city

The right to the city is not merely a right of access to what already exists, but a right to change it. We need to be sure we can live with our own creations. But the right to remake ourselves by creating a qualitatively different kind of urban sociality is one of the most precious of all human rights. We have been made and re‐made without knowing exactly why, how, and to what end. How then, can we better exercise this right to the city? But whose rights and whose city? Could we not construct a socially just city? But what is social justice? Is justice simply whatever the ruling class wants it to be? We live in a society in which the inalienable rights to private property and the profit rate trump any other conception of inalienable rights. Our society is dominated by the accumulation of capital through market exchange. To live under capitalism is to accept or submit to that bundle of rights necessary for endless capital accumulation. Free markets are not necessarily fair. Worse still, markets require scarcity to function. The inalienable rights of private property and the profit rate lead to worlds of inequality, alienation and injustice. The endless accumulation of capital and the conception of rights embedded threin must be opposed and a different right to the city must be asserted politically. Derivative rights (like the right to be treated with dignity) should become fundamental and fundamental rights (of private property and the profit rate) should become derivative. But new rights can also be defined: like the right to the city which is not merely a right of access to what the property speculators and state planners define, but an active right to make the city different, to shape it more in accord with our heart's desire, and to re‐make ourselves thereby in a different image.     

Employers' Unfair Advantage in the United States of America: Symposium on the Human Rights Watch Report on the State of Worker's Freedom of Association in the United States, continued

Articles featured in the symposium:
Author's reply to Wheeler–Getman–Brody papers by Lance Compa, School of Industrial and Labor Relations
The Wagner Act Model: A Toxic System beyond Repair by Roy J. Adams De Groote, School of Business, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
Choosing an Interpretation of the Right to Freedom of Association by Sheldon Leader, Department of Law and the Centre for Human Rights, University of Essex     

Who's in charge of the central city? The conflict between efficiency and equity in the design of a metropolitan area

A circular metropolitan area consists of a central city surrounded by a suburb. Households sort over the two jurisdictions based on public service levels and their costs of commuting to the metropolitan center. Using numerical simulations, we show that (1) there typically exist two equilibria: one in which the poor form the voting majority in the central city and the other in which the rich form the majority in the central city; (2) there is an efficiency vs. equity trade-off as to which equilibrium is preferred; and (3) if the central city contains only poor households, equity favors expanding the central city to include rich households. The third result arises not because of a fiscal subsidy from rich to poor households induced by a property tax but rather because of a change in house price capitalization.     

Ethics,gratuities, and professionalization of the purchasing function

This study investigated (1) whether potential future purchasing agents were predisposed to accept gratuities or whether the practice of gratuity acceptance is a manifestation of the job itself, (2) whether the existence of a code of ethics forbidding gratuity acceptance curtails the occurrence, and (3) whether disparities in ethics policies between the sales and purchasing functions affect gratuity acceptance. Hypotheses based upon the concepts of organizational concern and institutionalized ethics are developed and empirically tested. Results suggest that future purchasing agents are predisposed to accept gratuities and that formal written ethics policies decrease the acceptance of gratuities. Disparities in ethics policies between the sales and purchasing functions concerning gratuities failed to affect gratuity acceptance significantly.Gregory B. Turner is assistant professor of marketing at Livingston University. He has published inThe International Journal of Logistics Management and theTransportation Journal.G. Stephen Taylor is Associate Professor of management at Mississippi State University. His research interests include ethics in computer usage, performance appraisal, and turnover control.Mark F. Hartley is Assistant Professor and National Association of Purchasing Management/Carolinas-Virginia chair of Purchasing at the College of Charleston. His research interests include ethics and professionalization of the purchasing function.     

Application of replacement theory in dairy cows and its use in disease treatment

A model to simulate the costs and returns of an individual dairy cow over 14 years under various assumptions of genetic potential, health status and management was developed especially to evaluate the effects of diseases that reduce production and reproduction efficiency and to evaluate alternative management interventions. Data were collected from the Food Animal Health Resource Management System (FAHRMX), Today's Electronic Planning (TELPLAN), Today's Electric Farm Accounting (TELFARM) databases and secondary sources at Michigan State University. A case study of cystic ovaries was analysed using the model. The results showed that it is more economical to treat cystic ovaries than not to treat, and treatment with Gonadotropin Releasing Hormone (GNRH) was superior to Human Chrionic Gonadotropin (HCG). Four to five lactations were the optimum for keeping a dairy cow to replacement and it was estimated that there is a loss of US$0.45 per day of extended calving interval (days open beyond the optimal 70 days).     

The complex integration strategies of multinationals and cross country dependencies in the structure of foreign direct investment

The behavior of many multinational enterprises is not well described by existing models of foreign direct investment (FDI). Firms often follow strategies that involve vertical integration in some countries and horizontal integration in others, a strategy known as complex integration. This paper presents a three-country model that is used to analyze why firms might follow a strategy of complex integration. My analysis reveals that complex integration strategies create complementarities between potential host countries that have important implications for the structure of FDI. The analysis also shows that falling transport cost between countries may increase the importance of complex integration strategies.