whythawk ratings: measuring effective development

1.
(Comments)

... Why do 20% of the world live in absolute poverty? As for starting a political party, you can\'t change society through parliament. Parliament is a management structure for the status quo. The deci...

2.
(Comments)

... laws are there to ensure a working social and economic system. The fact that the most impoverished in our society have trouble clearing these hurdles is a problem that must be addressed, but mischara...

3. When no-one is held accountable, everyone suffers
(Analysis/Analysis)

... - face fines of 10% of turnover. This satisfies our natural urge to punish those responsible for causing society harm. However, who exactly is carrying the pain here? A penalty like that does more...

4. Netscape, the Internet and Creative Destruction
(Analysis/Analysis)

... trust that a chaotic market-driven system, with nothing but the individual pursuit of profit, can benefit society. Compare the availability of the Internet with the availability of electricity. Dec...

5. This festive season: the accumulating effects of individual activity
(Analysis/Analysis)

...oot-out against Germany. Individual production is hardly efficient. If it were those terrible leaches on society – capitalists – who would sell their own grandmothers, children and wives...

6. Ending poverty means abandoning charity and accepting reality
(Analysis/Analysis)

...up. Proto-societies end up in particular places based on the choices made during their lifetimes. If one society has to be self-sufficient – if everything it wants it either has to make, buy, ...

7. Scrogues Converse: Open-space, Identity and the Missing Web
(Analysis/Analysis)

...I enjoy about the internet is its flatness. So I am perturbed by indications of the creation of a classed society by all the miscreants who claim that this is precisely what they don't want. I d...

8. Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, and Rupert Murdoch
(Analysis/Analysis)

...firms pounce to buy up the assets of weaker firms and maintain their competitive advantage. Customers and society win as inefficient products are removed from the market and the base standard rises. ...

9. Atlas Shrugged at 50
(Analysis/Analysis)

...recognises where it must end and decides to rebel. Over a twelve year period he accelerates the decline of society by convincing the most ambitious and able industrialists and thinkers in America to a...

10. South Africa's two tiers
(Analysis/Analysis)

... Economic Zones?" His answer was brief and confident, "We don't want to create a two-tiered society." That sounds like the sort of answer regularly heard from trade protectionists...

11. The tragedy of innovation: how brilliant ideas are criminalised
(Analysis/Analysis)

...e have seen how pesticides and herbicides have harmed our environment and made us sick."African civil society organisations at the World Social Forum in Nairobi, 2007 Reading Farming Solutions, ...

12. "Be sure, we will be watching you," the other GB and the pursuit of social justice
(Analysis/Analysis)

...omination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ...

13. What comes after Capitalism?
(Analysis/Analysis)

The panel debated long and loud. Much argument both for and against. Civil society groups protested outside, each outdoing the next in plaintive cries and outlandish dress. Eventually the chairman

14. The efficiency of markets and how protectionism leaves the poor behind
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ken away. It isn't possible. The poor cannot approach that level of efficiency until they too have a society built on such systems. And then they'll be rich too. The petty and self-serving...

15. Do you hate the poor enough to be charitable?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...st strategy. So is communism. Capitalism can assist those people who know the ideology and rules of that society to become wealthy. What happens to those who have no such capacity? If you are heal...

16. Freedom of speech is fine, just don't try to use it, says Patricia de Lille
(Analysis/Analysis)

...r the Internet de Lille launches forth, "We are already struggling to repair the social fabric of our society, and to tolerate a platform for this kind of sexual predation and deviance against ou...

17. Internet Bubble 2.0: the future of dotcom depends on the mobile phone
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ervice – than there are Internet users.  The vast bulk of MXit users are from the poorer end of society.  And MXit charges for every single message sent.  Clearly the “freen...

18. Lawrence Lessig, take note: Digital freedom still needs digital responsibility
(Analysis/Analysis)

“A lot of the conflict happening in society comes from shifting identities brought about by technological change,” said Western Cape Premier, Ebrahim Rasool.  “The more uncertai

19. Leveraging your good name; the power of a positive credit rating
(Analysis/Analysis)

...k you to get the back signed by a priest or public representative you have known for a decade or more. As society has grown larger and – more importantly – as our interactions have become...

20. Climate Change: measurement, responsibility and risk
(Analysis/Analysis)

...en more shrill.  George W Bush, who can hardly be blamed for creating the entire structure for modern society, is regularly acused of climate genocide. The debate has stopped being about whether...

21. The Last King, the Centralised State, and Democracy
(Analysis/Analysis)

...p; anyone or anything that acts to create work opportunities and promote different aspects of the whole of society. No one group can represent an entire nation’s multitude of interests, no matt...

22. Lies, damned lies, and curriculum vitae; or why ratings may be the future of education
(Analysis/Analysis)

...oice a concern that will grow louder and louder, "There are significant capacity constraints in civil society.  There is plenty of money available, but where are the skills coming from to en...

23. The Cold War, Global Warming and the War on Ideas
(Analysis/Analysis)

...re sacrificed for the good of the whole. At their core the two philosophies centred on an ideal:  is society better off when we allow unrestrained expression of all ideas, or when those ideas ar...

24. The redistribution of poverty
(Analysis/Analysis)

...y lifestyle to a healthier one is certainly painful and unpleasant; but it is worth it. Ending poverty in society is not a simple matter of taking wealth from one group of people and giving it to ano...

25. A story of an African Orphan
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ft millions of destroyed families and orphans in its path. This has prompted a flurry of activity in civil society in an attempt to shelter vulnerable and orphaned children. Questions always arise abo...

26. "Heads or Tails" ... resolution to a difficult choice
(Analysis/Analysis)

...light derivative of this approach is found in the public tender process. Determined to support a reforming society, these projects are awarded to organisations and individuals assessed as suitably dis...

27. The 'War Against Corruption' starts with ending the 'Culture of Entitlement'
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ho help themselves to the public purse. Corruption, though, is a close relative of entitlement.  Any society that feels that some historical slight gives the current people in power a manifest r...

28. We're from Mars and we want to help: four lessons in development
(Analysis/Analysis)

...tate does; any donations and the recipients must be easily available to anyone; work hard to develop civil society movements that act to counterbalance the power of the state (from newspapers, to NGOs...

29. Coffee, the miracle of poverty, and other wonders
(Analysis/Analysis)

Coffee has become a symbolic flashpoint for consumer and civil-society action.  Oxfam believes the price is too low and demands that consumers pay more through their Fair Trade scheme.  All

30. Enterprise Development and Employment: Experiences in South Africa and South Eastern Europe
(Analysis/Analysis)

...involves education and training. In the SEE region, the emphasis is on developing an enterprise culture in society, which is the key to job creation and competitiveness. By contrast, South Africa plac...

31. How do we prepare nonprofit organisations for the long term?
(Analysis/Analysis)

... process is to ensure that skills and capacity developed during the first process remain – for every society will forever require education and health-care, skills development and the nurturing ...

32. So how exactly do you invest in the Fortune At The Bottom Of The Pyramid?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...do this? When businesses turn up to hire cheap labour in impoverished countries they are accused by civil society types of exploitation.  When those same cheap goods return from overseas then de...

33. The Tyranny of Red Lights
(Analysis/Analysis)

...occur to break the rules and cross against red.  It may as well be a steel bar. It is a microcosm of society, that red light.  It isn’t real;  it is simply an agreement for the c...

34. Is the ownership of property at odds with the needs of the poor?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...ve learned sufficiently then I procure property that will assist me to earn a living.  If I live in a society that doesn’t allow for the individual ownership of property, then I may never m...

35. Does the new Apple iPhone cause poverty?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...rst the exclusive purvey of the very rich.  As they became commoditised they spread to all reaches of society.  Now, even a war zone like Somalia with no real government, has mobile phone a...

36. How much does a free education cost?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...’ education and attempting to fill their heads with all the hopes and aspirations they have for that society rather than allowing the child to find their own interests and dreams.  In CIDA...

37. What do Richard Branson and Che Guevara have in common?
(Analysis/Analysis)

...or a price of their choosing – just like everyone else. Any act to change the political system of a society will result in an adaptation in the way the effected people value things.  A gov...

38. Lessons in sustainable development
(Analysis/Analysis)

... denuded of vegetation and features artefacts pointing to a rich cultural heritage, as well as a collapsed society. The first European visitors discovered a forlorn rock where agriculture and deforest...

39. Interpreting Emerging Market Risk Curves
(Static Content)

...t that it can overwhelm even weak systems. Disruption Triggers: No economy is performing so well, and no society is gaining wealth so rapidly, that its growth cannot be derailed. A political elite, ...