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Compound Empowerment
Compound empowerment refers to the way in which public infrastructure is used to radically increase the accumulation of private wealth. The term denotes how commonwealth—tax-supported resources such as public education, financial and legal infrastructure, etc. -- is translated into private or corporate profit. While wealth might be generated in part by intangible or personal qualities such as intelligence or a strong work ethic, this wealth is ''compounded'' by ''empowering'' structures such as access to stable markets, consistent law enforcement, and the use of resources held in common, such as public roads. The greater the wealth of an individual or corporation, the more they use commonwealth in order to increase and sustain their earnings. Private wealth and common wealth The concept of compound empowerment stresses the degree to which the acquisition of great private wealth depends upon common structures. For example, while a wealthy individual such as Bill Gates might owe hi ...
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Infrastructure
Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and private physical structures such as roads, railways, bridges, tunnels, water supply, sewerage, sewers, electrical grids, and telecommunications (including Internet access, Internet connectivity and Broadband, broadband access). In general, infrastructure has been defined as "the physical components of interrelated systems providing Commodity, commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal quality of life, living conditions" and maintain the surrounding environment. Especially in light of the massive societal transformations needed to Climate change mitigation, mitigate and Climate change adaptation, adapt to climate change, contemporary infrastructure conversations frequently focus on sustainable development and gre ...
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Intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information, and to retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment or context. Intelligence is most often studied in humans but has also been observed in both non-human animals and in plants despite controversy as to whether some of these forms of life exhibit intelligence. Intelligence in computers or other machines is called artificial intelligence. Etymology The word ''intelligence'' derives from the Latin nouns '' intelligentia'' or '' intellēctus'', which in turn stem from the verb '' intelligere'', to comprehend or perceive. In the Middle Ages, the word ''intellectus'' became the scholarly technical term for understanding, and a translation f ...
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Work Ethic
Work ethic is a belief that work and diligence have a moral benefit and an inherent ability, virtue or value to strengthen character and individual abilities. It is a set of values centered on importance of work and manifested by determination or desire to work hard. Social ingrainment of this value is considered to enhance character through hard work that is respective to an individual's field of work. Factors of a good work ethic Proponents of a strong work ethic consider it to be important for achieving goals, that it gives strength to their orientation and the right mindset. A work ethic is a set of moral principles a person uses in their job. People who possess a strong work ethic embody certain principles that guide their work behaviour; to develop and process a strong work ethic will inevitably result in the production of high-quality work which is consistent. The output motivates them to stay on track. A good work ethic fuels an individual's needs and goals, it is rel ...
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Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), President (corporate title), president and software architect, chief software architect, while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014. He was a major entrepreneur of the Home computer, microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. Gates was born and raised in Seattle. In 1975, he and Allen founded Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It became the world's largest personal computer software company. Gates led the company as chairman and CEO until stepping down as CEO in January 2000, succeeded by Steve Ballmer, but he remained chairman of the board of directors and became chief software architect. During the late 1990s, he was Criticism of Microsoft, criticized for his bu ...
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George Lakoff
George Philip Lakoff (; born May 24, 1941) is an American cognitive linguistics, cognitive linguist and philosopher, best known for his thesis that people's lives are significantly influenced by the conceptual metaphors they use to explain complex phenomena. The conceptual metaphor thesis, introduced in his and Mark Johnson (philosopher), Mark Johnson's 1980 book ''Metaphors We Live By'' has found applications in a number of academic disciplines. Applying it to politics, literature, philosophy and mathematics has led Lakoff into territory normally considered basic to political science. In his 1996 book ''Moral Politics'', Lakoff described Conservatism, conservative voters as being influenced by the "strict father model" as a central metaphor for such a complex phenomenon as the State (polity), state, and Liberalism, liberal/Progressivism, progressive voters as being influenced by the "nurturant parent model" as the folk psychology, folk psychological metaphor for this complex phen ...
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Linguist
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguistics is concerned with both the cognitive and social aspects of language. It is considered a scientific field as well as an academic discipline; it has been classified as a social science, natural science, cognitive science,Thagard, PaulCognitive Science, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). or part of the humanities. Traditional areas of linguistic analysis correspond to phenomena found in human linguistic systems, such as syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences); semantics (meaning); morphology (structure of words); phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages); phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language); and pragmatics (how social contex ...
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Rockridge Institute
The Rockridge Institute was an American non-profit research and progressive think tank founded in 1997 and located in Berkeley, California from 2003 until April 30, 2008. Its stated goal was to strengthen democracy by providing intellectual support to the progressive community. The Rockridge Institute promoted progressive ideas and values, studied their implications, and worked to provide an effective articulation of those values to shift public discourse. Framing Founded by the prominent cognitive linguist George Lakoff, the Rockridge Institute sought to examine the way that frames—which Lakoff describes as "the mental structures that influence our thinking, often unconsciously"—determine our opinions and values. Based on extensive research in human cognition, the Rockridge Institute argued that the way an issue is framed—the language used to describe it and the metaphors used to understand it—influences our political views as much, or more, than the particulars of a gi ...
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John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1999, the latter presented by President Bill Clinton, in recognition of how Rawls's work "revived the disciplines of political and ethical philosophy with his argument that a society in which the most fortunate help the least fortunate is not only a moral society but a logical one". In 1990, Will Kymlicka wrote in his introduction to the field that "it is generally accepted that the recent rebirth of normative political philosophy began with the publication of John Rawls's ''A Theory of Justice'' in 1971". Rawls has often been described as one of the most influential political philosophers of the 20th century. He has the unusual distinction among contemporary political philosophers of being frequently cited by the courts of law in the Unite ...
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Tax Cuts
A tax cut represents a decrease in the amount of money taken from taxpayers to go towards government revenue. Tax cuts decrease the revenue of the government and increase the disposable income of taxpayers. Tax cuts usually refer to reductions in the percentage of tax paid on income, goods and services. As they leave consumers with more disposable income, tax cuts are an example of an expansionary fiscal policy. Tax cuts also include reduction in tax in other ways, such as tax credit, deductions and loopholes. How a tax cut affects the economy depends on which tax is cut. Policies that increase disposable income for lower- and middle-income households are more likely to increase overall consumption and "hence stimulate the economy". Tax cuts in isolation boost the economy because they increase government borrowing. However, they are often accompanied by spending cuts or changes in monetary policy that can offset their stimulative effects. Types Tax cuts are typically cuts in th ...
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Progressive Taxation
A progressive tax is a tax in which the tax rate increases as the taxable amount increases.Sommerfeld, Ray M., Silvia A. Madeo, Kenneth E. Anderson, Betty R. Jackson (1992), ''Concepts of Taxation'', Dryden Press: Fort Worth, TX The term ''progressive'' refers to the way the tax rate progresses from low to high, with the result that a taxpayer's average tax rate is less than the person's marginal tax rate.Hyman, David M. (1990) ''Public Finance: A Contemporary Application of Theory to Policy'', 3rd, Dryden Press: Chicago, ILJames, Simon (1998) ''A Dictionary of Taxation'', Edgar Elgar Publishing Limited: Northampton, MA The term can be applied to individual taxes or to a tax system as a whole. Progressive taxes are imposed in an attempt to reduce the tax incidence of people with a lower ability to pay, as such taxes shift the incidence increasingly to those with a higher ability-to-pay. The opposite of a progressive tax is a regressive tax, such as a sales tax, where the poor pay ...
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Tax Cut
A tax cut represents a decrease in the amount of money taken from taxpayers to go towards government revenue. Tax cuts decrease the revenue of the government and increase the disposable income of taxpayers. Tax cuts usually refer to reductions in the percentage of tax paid on income, goods and services. As they leave consumers with more disposable income, tax cuts are an example of an expansionary fiscal policy. Tax cuts also include reduction in tax in other ways, such as tax credit, deductions and loopholes. How a tax cut affects the economy depends on which tax is cut. Policies that increase disposable income for lower- and middle-income households are more likely to increase overall consumption and "hence stimulate the economy". Tax cuts in isolation boost the economy because they increase government borrowing. However, they are often accompanied by spending cuts or changes in monetary policy that can offset their stimulative effects. Types Tax cuts are typically cuts in th ...
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Economic Inequality
There are wide varieties of economic inequality, most notably income inequality measured using the distribution of income (the amount of money people are paid) and wealth inequality measured using the distribution of wealth (the amount of wealth people own). Besides economic inequality between countries or states, there are important types of economic inequality between different groups of people. Important types of economic measurements focus on wealth, income, and consumption. There are many methods for measuring economic inequality, the Gini coefficient being a widely used one. Another type of measure is the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, which is a statistic composite index that takes inequality into account. Important concepts of equality include equity, equality of outcome, and equality of opportunity. Whereas globalization has reduced global inequality (between nations), it has increased inequality within nations. Income inequality between nations peak ...
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