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Radical Monopoly
Radical monopoly is a concept defined by philosopher and author Ivan Illich in his 1973 book, ''Tools for Conviviality'', and revisited in his later work, which describes how a technology or service becomes so exceptionally dominant that even with multiple providers, its users are excluded from society without access to the product. His initial example is the effect of cars on societies, where the car itself shaped cities by its needs, so much so that people without cars become excluded from participation in cities. A radical monopoly is when the dominance of one type of product supersedes dominance by any one brand. While the concept of "Radical Monopoly" has been referenced informally by "cultural studies bloggers and academics", an example of the concept getting more formal traction includes a paper published in the journal ''Problems of Education in the 21st century'' whose abstract describes an example whereby, "information and communication technologies might possess potent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ivan Illich
Ivan Dominic Illich ( ; ; 4 September 1926 – 2 December 2002) was an Austrian Catholic priest, Theology, theologian, philosopher, and social critic. His 1971 book ''Deschooling Society'' criticises modern society's institutional approach to education, an approach that demotivates and alienates individuals from the process of learning. His 1975 book ''Limits to Medicine, Medical Nemesis'', importing to the sociology of medicine the concept of Iatrogenesis, medical harm, argues that industrialised society widely impairs quality of life by overmedicalising life, pathologizing normal conditions, creating false dependency, and limiting other more healthful solutions. Illich called himself "an errant pilgrim." Biography Early life Ivan Dominic Illich was born on 4 September 1926 in Vienna, First Austrian Republic, Austria, to Gian Pietro Ilic (Ivan Peter Illich) and Ellen Rose "Maexie" née Regenstreif-Ortlieb. His father was a civil engineer and a diplomat from a landed Catholic f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Technology
Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible tools such as Kitchen utensil, utensils or machines, and intangible ones such as software. Technology plays a critical role in science, engineering, and everyday life. Technological advancements have led to significant changes in society. The earliest known technology is the stone tool, used during prehistory, followed by the control of fire—which in turn contributed to the Brain size, growth of the human brain and the development of language during the Pleistocene, Ice Age, according to the cooking hypothesis. The invention of the wheel in the Bronze Age allowed greater travel and the creation of more complex machines. More recent technological inventions, including the printing press, telephone, and the Internet, have lowered barriers to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brand
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and store value as brand equity for the object identified, to the benefit of the brand's customers, its owners and shareholders. Brand names are sometimes distinguished from Generic brand, generic or store brands. The practice of branding—in the original literal sense of marking by burning—is thought to have begun with the ancient Egyptians, who are known to have engaged in livestock branding and branded slaves as early as 2,700 BCE. Branding was used to differentiate one person's cattle from another's by means of a distinctive symbol burned into the animal's skin with a hot branding iron. If a person stole any of the cattle, anyone else who saw the symbol could deduce the actual owner. The term has been extended to mean a strategic person ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giffen Good
In microeconomics and consumer theory, a Giffen good is a product that people consume more of as the price rises and vice versa, violating the law of demand. For ordinary goods, as the price of the good rises, the substitution effect makes consumers purchase less of it, and more of substitute goods; the income effect can either reinforce or weaken this decline in demand, but for an ordinary good never outweighs it. By contrast, a Giffen good is so strongly an inferior good (in higher demand at lower incomes) that the contrary income effect more than offsets the substitution effect, and the net effect of the good's price rise is to increase demand for it. This phenomenon is known as the Giffen paradox. Background Giffen goods are named after Scottish economist Sir Robert Giffen, to whom Alfred Marshall attributed this idea in his book '' Principles of Economics'', first published in 1890. Giffen first proposed the paradox from his observations of the purchasing habits o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Veblen Good
A Veblen good is a type of luxury good, named after American economist Thorstein Veblen, for which the demand increases as the price increases, in apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. The higher prices of Veblen goods may make them desirable as a status symbol in the practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. A product may be a Veblen good because it is a positional good, something few others can own. Background Veblen goods are named after American economist Thorstein Veblen, who first identified conspicuous consumption as a mode of status-seeking (i.e., keeping up with the Joneses) in ''The Theory of the Leisure Class'' (1899). The testability of this theory was questioned by Colin Campbell due to the lack of complete honesty from research participants. However, research in 2007 studying the effect of social comparison on human brains can be used as an evidence supporting Veblen. The idea that seeking ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signalling (economics)
Signalling (or signaling; see American and British English spelling differences#Doubled consonants, spelling differences) in contract theory is the idea that one party (the law of agency, agent) credibly conveys some information about itself to another party (the principal (commercial law), principal). Signalling was already discussed and mentioned in the seminal Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, which is considered to be the text that created the research field of game theory. Although signalling theory was initially developed by Michael Spence based on observed knowledge gaps between organisations and prospective employees, its intuitive nature led it to be adapted to many other domains, such as Human Resource Management, business, and financial markets. In Spence's job-market signaling model, (potential) employees send a signal about their ability level to the employer by acquiring education credentials. The informational value of the credential comes from the fact that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
