Declaring english as the official language Research Paper

Declaring english as the official language - Research Paper Example As a result, approximately 300 languages continue to exist, which are in correlation to the cultural diversity present in the country (Shmidt, 2000). This makes it difficult for people, especially immigrants, to have the urge to learn English. This paper is a critical evaluation of why English should be declared as the official language of communication in the United States. Declaring English as the Official Language English is a language, which is spoken by approximately 2 billion people worldwide. 98% of Americans understand and speak English, regardless of whether it is their first or second language of communication (Shmidt, 2000). It is therefore, ironic that the government continues to frustrate the calls to declare it as the official language of conducting business, especially in public institutions. By so doing, a lot of money, which could be used to enhance growth in other sectors of the economy, is spent on duplicating government services in order to accommodate the high nu mber of languages spoken in the country. For example, services such as printing of public documents like court decisions, ballot papers, the constitution, road signs among others requires the reproduction of those materials in different languages, so as to deliver the desired messages to the audience. According to reports, the California state in 2002 spent approximately $2.2 million for the sole purpose of translation in the department of motor vehicles while St. Cloud spent more than $200000 for translation services in 2003 (US English Inc, 2012). If the English language is declared official, then every citizen would be obligated to acquire the necessary skills or else be ready to incur the expenses involved in translation. Having an official language is important in any given society as it facilitates the smooth running of businesses. This is due to the fact that business operators would not have to incur the expenditure of hiring interpreters to serve customers, who may be force d to buy in those shops that have people who speak the same language as they do. For example, it would be difficult for a person of Hispanic origin to go to a Chinese restaurant in which all the menus are printed in Chinese. In the same sense, a Chinese person may find it limiting to go to Japanese or an Italian restaurant under the same conditions without feeling uncomfortable, since they speak different languages. As a result, it may be found out that such customers would prefer going to their respective restaurants, which are operated in that language, which they understand. In this context, it becomes difficult for these people to socialize with people outside their cultural groupings, thereby resulting to a segregated society. America is one country and in order to promote unity, especially due to its history of racism, English should be made the official language of communication (Crawford, 2000). This would facilitate the unification of all races as it would make it possible for citizens to understand each other at the intellectual level and not on the basis of their origins. Countries, such as Japan and China, have created an identity and respect for themselves through their official languages, i.e. Japanese and Mandarin, to the extent that anyone wishing to do business in these countries must study the official language for him to be successful. It is therefore necessary and long overdue for the US to create its own identity so as to encourage Americanization and a sense of responsibility among the

Fortune 500 Company Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Fortune 500 Company Analysis - Essay Example Fortune 500 Company Analysis Wal-Mart Corporation is the biggest global retailer and by the end of January 2010, the company had amassed more than $400 billion in revenues, $24 billion in operating income, and operate 8,500 stores with approximately 1 billion square feet of space (Datamonitor: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. 2010). Through low prices and development, Wal-Mart grew from their Arkansas roots to a global market leader. Wal-Mart is the largest firm in the global general merchandise stores sector, creating a 31.5% share of the sector's worth. Despite considerable opposition in the retail setting, Wal-Mart became a global leader by providing discounted price products to their customers. Wal-Mart manages three business divisions in the general merchandise industry: Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, and the international segment. Internet revenues are also an essential input to Wal-Mart’s achievement and the company’s Internet activities will continue to be a part of the future syne rgies of their business plan. Wal-Mart’s huge merchandise offerings and the wide blend of goods make it possible to differentiate them from the competition. Wal-Mart supplies branded and private label merchandise in several categories including groceries, recreation, electronics, apparel, wellbeing, interior design, and monetary services.

Public relations in music and media subject Article

Public relations in music and media subject - Article Example This "Public relations in music and media subject" article describes "Ears Music Limited" a fiction company utilised for the purpose of this work. On this basis, as a start up venture intending to establish a self sustaining operation by the end of the first three years trading within Ears Music Limited has decided to move away from the traditional music publishing model and set up a publishing company primarily geared towards the film and television industry and through licensing and synchronisation deals, combine the increasing demand and customer base in the lucrative film and television market with the increased use of digital music consumption through the placement of songs in online advertising. This part of Ears Music Limited’s development will be part of phase 1 in developing the initial growth of the company, which will include a combination of licensing deals, potential joint venture deals and signing staff writers for song placements. Ears Limited will utilise funds developed during phase 2 to further develop joint ventures with digital media agencies to grow the business in online song placement. The intention will then be to re-strategise the business and develop further by developing in-house recording facilities and key song-writer signings. The philosophy of Ears Music Limited is to look towards successfully exploiting opportunities in music publishing outside the traditional music publishing model and continue creating new opportunities in the marketplace to sustain longevity. Moreover, it is submitted that that the contemporary marketplace, the evolution of the internet business model has forced the music business in particular to rethink corporate marketing strategy and this is further highlighted by the proliferation of the multi-channel retailing paradigm as required retailers to "innovate" in order to maintain position in the marketplace (Levy & Weitz, 2008; Kusek, 2008; Gordon; 2008). As such, it is submitted

Flipkart Case Study Essay Example for Free

Flipkart Case Study Essay Flipkart.com is a story of the two young computer science graduates brothers Sachin Bansal (26) and Binny Bansal (25) from IIT-Delhi 2005 batch who left their jobs in amazon.com (an American multinational E-commerce company) in 2007 with a dream to become India’s top retail Outlet In E-commerce Industry. They came up with an idea to sell books including novels online. Flip kart’s timeline shows it was to start as a price comparison platform, but there werent enough e-commerce sites to compare. So, both the Bansals, who were colleagues at IITDelhi, and then at Amazon.com, thought, â€Å"why not start an e-commerce site?† That was the genesis of Flip kart. From an initial investment of Rs. 4 Lakh this So they started to make a website, although it was a bigger task to create a website with 50,000 titles but wouldn’t be impossible for IITians†¦ so finally they created which took about a month and a half to start a basic working website with 50,000 titles and grown our catalogue to over 1 Lakh available titles. On 5th September 2007 they launched the company’s URL i.e. Flipkart.com for the first time in just an apartment room. . The website was launched on 15th Oct 2007. Flip kart is an Indian ecommerce company headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka. From a start-up with an investment of just four lakh rupees, Flip kart has grown into a 100 million revenue online retail giant in just five years. Flip kart focused on online sales of books initially. The process involved in online shopping for books has gone through drastic changes and is more secure right now. A customer could use our user-friendly web page to place an order, once the order is placed online – the book is taken off the online inventory. In case of unavailability – it will be purchased from a supplier. The Book will then get packed and couriered on the same day. Flip kart is currently tied up with around 12 courier service providers. Flip kart also use Indian Postal services to reach areas without courier providers. Logistics play an important role in our business. But it later expanded to electronic goods and a variety of other products. The key differentiators are Availability of variety of goods of various categories, online shopping experience on the site and post sales experience. Apart from this the Cash on Delivery service is also one of the main reasons which keep it apart from  other E- commerce portals. The cash-on-delivery model adopted by Flip kart has proven to be of great significance since credit card and net banking penetration is very low in India. . Flip kart offers multiple payment methods like credit card, debit card, net banking, e-gift voucher, and Cash on Delivery. IDEA Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal saw a good opportunity in the market around e-commerce. Also, regular job was not as challenging. The excitement and satisfaction that comes with building something of a long lasting value is addictive enough for them to continue this. They started flipkart.com because they themselves felt the need for a good online book store. E-commerce sector is one of the toughest to get into in India. They believe that they can make a difference here. They wanted to create something which has a long lasting value and which we can be proud of. An attractive neutral name is what they looked for. Good domain names were hard to get. They were looking at names that did not just speak of books alone, but one that could suit any category of Products that we may add in future. Also, they wanted to have a catchy name with high recall potential. Flip kart could in simple terms mean ‘Flipping things into your Kart’. CURRENT POSITION OF FLIP KART Flip kart started with selling books. In 2010, they added to their catalogue media (including music, movies and games) and mobile phones and accessories. In 2011, product launches included cameras, computers, pens office supplies, computer accessories, home and kitchen appliances, personal care, health care, gaming consoles, audio players and televisions. In 2012, product launches includes health beauty products, Life style products which includes watches, belts, bags luggage. In November 2011, Flip kart launched a new Electronic Wallet feature that allows shoppers to purchase credit to their Flip kart account using credit or debit cards, and can subsequently be utilised to make purchases on the site, as and when required. From June 2012, Flip kart allowed people to buy toys, posters and from October 2012, Flip kart entered into apparel retailing. ACQUISITIONS MADE BY FLIPKART.COM 2010 â€Å"WE READ†, social book discovery tool 2011 MIME260, a digital content platform com 2011 Chakpak.com is a bolly wood news site that offers updates, news photos and videos 2012 Letsbuy.com is Indias second largest e-retailer in electronics. Flip kart has bought the company for an estimated US$25 million. ACHIEVEMENTS MADE BY FLIPKART.COM Flip kart owners have been featured in Business Today as one of the top 25 start-ups of 2009.They have been also nominated for Ernst and young award for the best entrepreneur of 2010. Apart from that they have been featured multiple times in start up news as well as mainstream news. Today, they are recognized as number one in the industry. As a testimony to the superior customer experience, the company has consistently recorded repeat purchase rates of more than 50%. They have also managed to get a registered buyer in every small town and city and hope to constantly improve their service standards. Flip kart’s reported sales as follows:- IN FY 2008–2009- 40 million IN FY 2009–2010- 200 million IN FY 2010–2011- 750 million IN FY 2011–2012- set to cross the 5 billion As Internet usage in the country increases and people get accustomed to making purchases online. Flip kart projects its sales to reach US$1billion by year 2014 and is aiming at generating a revenue of 50 billion (US$1billion)2015. Ranks among the countries top 30 website. Customer base of more than 2 million. 30 shipment on daily basis Daily sales have increased to 2.5 crores. POPULAR PRODUCT CATEGORIES 1. Clothing: T-shirts, Jeans, Sports Wear, Trousers, etc. 2. Footwear: Casual Shoes, Formal Shoes, Flats, Heels, etc. 3. Beauty Personal Care: Trimmers, Shavers, Soaps, Brushes, etc. 4. Mobiles Tablets: Samsung, Micromax, Nokia, Sony, etc. 5. Laptops Accessories: HP, Dell, Sony, Lenovo, Pen Drives, etc. 6. Books: Literature Fiction, Biographies, Novels, EBooks, etc. 7. Baby Care Toys: Vehicle Action Toys, Stuffed Toys, Diapers, etc. 8. Sports Fitness: Cricket, Football, Basketball, Badminton, etc. TOP BRANDS 1. Clothing: Adidas, Puma, Reebok, Lee, etc. 2. Footwear: Puma, Adidas, Reebok, Fila, etc. 3. Watches: Casio, Fastrack, Citizen, Timex, etc. 4. TV: Sony, LG, Samsung, Philips, Panasonic, etc. 5. Sports Fitness: Speedo, Nivia, Yonex, Cosco BUSINESS MODEL Creating and maintaining a person-to-person trading community Function as a value added facilitator Provide a supportive infrastructure Zero inventory without having traditional sales force Profit centers: Domestic business International business and Payment Largest online trading forum Compelling and entertaining environment Establishing trust safety programs Cost effective and Convenient trading Strong community affinity An intuitive user interface ORDER LIFECYCLE Get the item Procure from Supplier (Just-in-time) (Supplier selection) Keep Inventory (Inventory Prediction, Planning) Clean Check for sanity Pages missing, MRP printed lesser than told to you Pack the item Tamper proof, weather proof, breakage proof Select courier hand-over Courier performances vary across regions a LOT Get tracking id communicate to customer Follow-up for timely delivery Take care of returns (faulty product/user changes their mind) Minimize returns MARKETING STRATEGY Flip kart has been mostly marketed by word of mouth advertising. Customer satisfaction has been their best marketing medium. Flipkart very wisely used SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Google Ad-words as the marketing tools to have a far reach in the online world. Flipkart.com official Face book page has close to 9 lakh likes. Flipkart recently launched a series of 3 ads with the tag line No Kidding No worries Kids were used to create the adverts to send out the message if a kid can do it, you can also do it. All in all to create a great customer experience. EXPANSION PLANS They aim at 10 times growth and eyes at $ 1Billion sales by 2015. They will look at bigger investments in their supply chain and technology. Investment will be made in large warehouses and increased automation of their process, so that the product is not delayed. They intend to enter in to various new categories and expand their current categories as well. Everything except for groceries and automobiles will be available on Flipkart in future. To go further in the value chain, Flipkart is looking at associations with a larger number of suppliers and partners, both nationally and internationally. PERSONEL ANALYSIS Great customer service Easy to use website, hassle free payment system Cash on delivery/Card on delivery mode of payment Focused on user experience ADVANTAGES Attract users to the site Provide selection Make it easy to Find Discover products Provide details to evaluate a product Description, Specifications, UGC. Price well Have to be competitive to the most obvious options Provide convenient payment options Online, COD Confirm payment CONCLUSION They started off in 2007 by setting up three centres across India without funding. Six months ago, they reached number one status. They are also four times bigger than their nearest competitor. The company started off small; today they have grown ten times over the last one year and aim to touch the Rs 400 crore mark by March 2013.

Essay on the Metamorphosis of Tom in The Glass Menagerie

The Metamorphosis of Tom in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams      Ã‚   In Tennessee William's play, The Glass Menagerie, the character of Tom is both a son and a brother. Tom has also been forced into the role as the man of the house because of his father's departure. He is very unique and somewhat unpredictable in his words and actions. Tom is selfish, yet caring, and he has a strong need for adventure. Without doubt, Tom is the most round and dynamic character in the play. Tom's role in his household is to provide for his sister and mother by working at the shoe warehouse. He basically gives up his life so his family can live. So how can one say that Tom is selfish? The reader has to look further than skin deep. Tom works at the warehouse but he truly despises it, because in scene three he said, "I'd rather somebody picked up a crowbar and batter out my brains than go back mornings."(Williams 1036).   Also, it seems Tom does not care if he gets fired or not judging by the amount of time that he spends writing poetry at work. Tom does not appreciate what he has or that his family is provided for. Tom also shows a hint of selfishness when he tells Amanda that there is nothing in that house that he can honestly call his own. Tom also goes to the movies or gets drunk almost every night and he knows that Amanda and Laura are worried about him but that changes nothing. He still goes out without thinking of how it affects his mother or sister.   To escape from his slow life while he was at home Tom goes to the movies almost every night. It is at the movies that Tom can drink and somehow live his adventurous life through his imagination and the characters in the movies. The movies only satisfied Tom's thirst for adve... .... Works Cited Bloom, Harold Ed. Modern Critical Views: Tennessee Williams. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. Fordyce, William. "Tennessee William's Tom Wingfield"   Papers on Language and Literature 34.3 (Summer 1998): 250-272.   ProQuest.   Jacobs Library, Oglesby, IL.   11 July 2001. <http://www.umi.com/proquest>. Jolemore, Nancy.   "Lecture Notes and Study Guide Questions for Tennessee William's The Glass Menagerie."   Old Dominion University.   18 January   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   2000.   29 June 2001. <http://courses.lib.odu.edu/engl/njolemor>. Reser, Rob.   "A Touch of Glass."   29 June 2001. <http://www.filmspot.com/glassmenagerie.html>. Williams, Tennessee.   The Glass Menagerie.   Literature and The Writing Process.   5th ed. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X. Day, and Robert Funk. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 1999.   693-734.

The FLSA: Exempt Vs. Non-exempt Employees Essay -- Labor Compare Contr

The FLSA: Exempt Vs. Non-exempt Employees President Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted the FLSA on June 25, 1938. It was signed in as a federal labor law to provide criteria for governing general labor practices such as overtime, minimum wages, child labor protections and equal pay. The Fair Labor Standards Act is a long and extensive document in and of itself. It defines many exceptions and exemptions. For purposes of this paper the portion of the FLSA that will be concentrated on is the difference between exempt and non-exempt employees.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Let’s begin by defining exempt and non-exempt. Non-exempt employees are those that are paid on an hourly basis and receive overtime compensation at one and one-half times their base pay for all hours worked in excess of some standard threshold. In most cases this â€Å"threshold† is 40 hours, but that is not always the case. Dividing the annual salary by 2080 to give a base hourly amount can derive the base pay for most, not all but most, employees. Exempt employees are those that do not receive compensation of any kind for hours worked in excess of whatever the threshold maybe. By definition of law exempt employees must be paid on a salary basis and job duties performed by said employee must be high-level such as executive, administrative or professional. To decide whether an employee meets the criteria for being exempt, there are two tests – the duties test and the salary basis test.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  For the salary basis test, employees ...

Marxist and Neoclassical Economics

Marx's economic theories mainly deal with the comparison and contrast between Marxism and Capitalism. Karl Marx had many theories that dealt with many different aspects of society. This concept deals with the exploitation of workers and the components involved in production. The first part of Marx's value of labour theory deals with commodities. Commodities are defined as an object outside of us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another (Miliband, 1977, 243). These commodities have different values and according to Marx every commodity has two values: exchange value and use value. The use value of a commodity refers to the fact that is has some sort of use; it serves some purpose or meets some want. Every commodity must have a use or it has no value and is not a commodity. Exchange value refers to the ratio at which a commodity can be exchanged with another. In certain quantities all commodities can be exchanged for other commodities (Miliband, 1977, 254). Even the most worthless commodity, when taken in big enough quantities, can be exchanged for the most valuable of commodities. For example, a large quantity of corn or apples can be exchanged for a diamond. The next part of Marx's theory deal with the values of the labour. Marx argued that what commodities all have in common is the fact that they are all products of human labour. It is human labour that has created them and it is the amount of human labour that goes into them that determines value. Karl Marx's labour theory of value asserts that the value of an object is solely a result of the labour expended to produce it. According to this theory, the more labour or labour time that goes into an object, the more it is worth. Marx defined value as â€Å"consumed labour time†, and stated that â€Å"all goods, considered economically, are only the product of labour and cost nothing except labour†(Parekh, 1982, 386). One crucial element of classical political economy that was eventually displaced in the neoclassical revolution of the nineteenth century was the idea that labour was a primary or even exclusive determinant of value. Now, readings of Marx that posit him either as the last of the great classicals or as the leading left-wing critic of classical political economy often share the claim that Marx extracted from the classicals the view that labour is the sole source of value. Marx is applauded for his consistent formulation of a labour theory of value and, thus, for his adherence to the view that social relations of production determine the distribution of social labour and the value and exchange-value of commodities. That is, as for many other Marxists, the fact that individuals may desire beings and motivated in their economic behaviours by instinct, affection, emotion, and so forth is relegated to the status of secondary phenomena insofar as the determination of value, the social allocation of labour, and the distribution of income and wealth are involved. For many Marxists, the essential causes of economic activity are labour and production. Thus, the labouring body, rendered in some versions of this story as a truly trans-historical corporeal entity, is given pride of place in establishing the conditions for that which is uniquely human and thereby economic. This ‘productionist’ bias of Marxists has constituted the grounds by which Marxism has discursively ignored or excluded libido, excess, and true expenditure in the economic theory to which it has given rise. (Resnick, 2001, 56-60) Contemporary Marxian critics in the field of economics, then, often prefer to resurrect the nineteenth-century debates over the correct attribution of value to either ‘subjective’ desire or ‘objective’ labour. Their critique of neoclassical theory devolves on the claim that the bourgeois individualism, naturalism, and arcane abstraction consequent upon the use of axiomatic formulations in neoclassicism obscure the true (McCloskey, 2003, 12-14) conditions under which economic activities and institutions arise. Whereas production is viewed as ubiquitous across epochs and geographical boundaries, desire and utility maximization are seen as limited in historical importance to capitalist societies and, even there, they are more a consequence of a hegemonic false consciousness imposed by the self-promotion of the bourgeoisie (for example, to hide the ‘fact’ of exploitation or to explain away the waste and inefficiency of unplanned markets) than the objective conditions of life under capitalism. The modernism of much Marxism consists, at least partly, in its insistence in finding an ontological referent for the essential cause – labour – that emerges in Marxian economics as the source of value. The labouring body and the conditions of work, then, take precedence in everything from determining the nature of subjectivity (the individual who produces him/herself in the course of participating in social labour) and estimating the ‘good life’ (the elimination of alienation in work) to the primacy of certain struggles in the movements to transform and move beyond capitalism. Comparison and Contrast Karl Marx set the wheels of modern Communism and Socialism in motion with his writings in the late nineteenth century. In collaboration with his friend, Fredrich Englels, he produced the Communist Manifesto, written in 1848. Many failed countries' political and economic structures have been based on Marx's theories. That is why he is known as on of the most influential people of the history of the world. Marxism in its various forms has affected the world greatly throughout time. Both World Wars have involved communist countries to a great extent. Communism has gone wrong in many countries, with the state turning into an authoritarian one, with a few people at the top abusing their power for their own personal gain, at the expense of the other members of the public. (England, 1993, 37-53) Rather than codifying the classicals’ labouring body as a first principle, Marx can be said to have disrupted the order of the body established in classical political economy and in much Marxism. For us, Marx is not the inventor of a new anthropology (his work, we believe along with Althusser, represents a sharp rupture from the humanist anthropology that preceded – and, in the pretensions of the early neoclassicals, followed – him). Briefly stated, we view Marx’s contributions to be more along the lines of presenting the human body as a register of class and other economic and social processes, a place where the effects of capitalism are largely inscribed, rather than the site of the privileged origin (through labour) of subjectivity, agency, or socioeconomic relations. In other words, the body that Marx presents in his writings is over determined and has no centre or essential unity other than that which is the effect of the historical conditions of production, consumption, circulation, distribution, and so forth. In this sense, the body in Marx’s work is closer to some current neoclassical renditions, at least insofar as it is differentiated, dispersed, and brought to temporary unity by specific productions rather than by the presumption of its essentiality. (Cohen, 1978, 110-14) The problem, then, for some of the Marxian critics of neoclassical theory is that the story they prefer revives a view of the body and subjectivity that are fully part of the modernist project to promote an overarching and exhaustive notion of ‘man’. In this regard, the post-modern moments of Marxism are suppressed and the affinity that Marxists may have with other developments within which the humanism of the classicals is finally displaced is largely ignored. (Blaug, 1992, 319-22) To put this otherwise, the retention of the labouring body as prime cause of social and economic relations does little to undermine the humanist essentialism that, purportedly, many Marxists have been at pains to attack over the course of the last century. While recent neoclassicals and Marxists may make absurd bed mates, there is a sense in which Marxists can augment rather than blunt their attacks on bourgeois social order by acknowledging the fragmentation of the human body and the dismemberment of theoretical humanism that may have been accomplished by some neoclassicals. (Ollman, 1995, 201-10) A similar issue confronts post-Keynesian critics of neoclassical economics. Instead of using their trenchant questioning of the notions of certainty (and of probabilistic certainty), rationality, and much else that still abounds within neoclassical theory, together with their own exploration of the significance and effects of uncertainty, as the initial steps in decentring the body, post-Keynesian economists have largely resisted such a move. As we see it, the ‘radical uncertainty’ (de Marchi, 2001, 86-90) originally focused on by Keynes and now embraced by post-Keynesian economists has the potential of disrupting the modernist unity of the body, for example, by severing the necessary connection between, the presumed sequence of, some set of initial anticipations and the actions of economic agents as well as by ‘relativizing’ even the recognition of the degrees and forms of certain and uncertain knowledge on the part of those agents, making uncertainty into a variable and heterogeneous constituent and effect of bodily capabilities and orders. (Amariglio, 1994, 7-35) Conclusion Up to the end of the nineteenth century, the sensible presence of the monetary substance (gold, silver) which guaranteed more or less directly the value of the circulating sign, could lead us to forget that money was also a sign. The gold-standard system implied the circulation of gold by itself or the free convertibility of bank-notes into gold. And this, according to a creed which was almost unanimously shared by all economists and statesmen of the nineteenth century, regardless of their nationality, their religious beliefs, or philosophical opinions: ‘banknotes have value only because they represent gold’. Marx himself denied the possibility or the legitimacy of money which would be a mere sign. For him, the backing by commodity-money (produced by a certain amount of labour) is necessary. Nowadays, the direct representational possibility of monetary signs is suspended not only for circumstantial reasons, but completely suppressed, as we know, for reasons that became structural. Thus, we passed from a monetary regime where gold circulated in presencia to a regime where money was a sign representing gold; and finally to money which is a pure sign, without any reference to a gold-value, a regime of complete non-convertibility. The logical relationship between the non-convertibility of money and the dismissal of the labour theory of value by neoclassical economists and mainstream economics has been stressed. Post-Keynesians, however, tend to emphasize the extradiscursive ‘brute nature’ of uncertainty, reducing it to the limits on knowledge imposed by an unforeseeable future. Their view is that neoclassical economists (and, with them, others such as new Keynesian economists), by emphasizing certain (or, again, probabilistically certain) knowledge, have simply exaggerated the role and possibilities of rational calculation and diminished the ‘animal spirits’, ‘spontaneous optimism’, and other nonrational, corporeal determinants of economic behaviour. In this sense, post-Keynesian economists seek to reinscribe a more ‘balanced’ human body – one which, if not exactly derivative of the classicals, both recognizes the limitations of the body (for example, in terms of the ability to gather and process information) and recovers the kind of profusion of sentiments and emotions, conventions and habits, that were seen to be central to the activities and practices of economic agents prior to the marginalist revolution. It is this body which, for post-Keynesians, serves both to replace the ‘sterility’ of disembodied neoclassical decision-makers and to avoid the ‘nihilism’ occasioned by the post-modern decentring of the body. References Amariglio, J. and Ruccio, D. F. (1994) ‘Postmodernism, Marxism, and the Critique of Modern Economic Thought’, Rethinking Marxism 7 (Fall): 7-35. Blaug, M. (1992) The Methodology of Economics; Or How Economists Explain, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 319-22. Cohen, G.A. Karl Marx's Theory of History. Princeton University Press, Princeton. 1978. 110-14 de Marchi, N. (2001) ‘Introduction’ in N. de Marchi and M. Blaug (eds) Appraising Economic Theories, Aldershot: Elgar. 86-90 England, Paula (1993) ‘The Separative Self: Androcentric Bias in Neoclassical Assumptions’, in Marianne A. Ferber and Julie A. Nelson (eds) Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory and Economics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 37-53. McCloskey, D. N. (2003) ‘The Rhetoric of Economics’, Journal of Economic Literature, 21 (June) 12-14 Miliband, R. Marxism and Politics. Herron Publishing Inc., New York. 1977. 250-59 Ollman, B. Grolier's Encyclopedia, Karl Marx and Marxism. Grolier Electronic Publishing Inc. 1995. 201-10 Parekh, B. Marx's Theory of Ideology. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. 1982. P.386 Resnick, Stephen A., and Wolff, Richard D. (2001) Knowledge and Class: A Marxian Critique of Political Economy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 56-60