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Institution

Institution

This article is about institutions as social mechanisms. Please see Organization article for formal establishments. ---- Institutions are structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation, governing the behavior of two or more individuals. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence, transcending individual human lives and intentions, and with the making and enforcing of rules governing cooperative human behavior. The term, institution, is commonly applied to customs and behavior patterns important to a social community, as well as to particular formal organizations of government and public service. As structures and mechanisms of social order among humans, institutions are one of the principal objects of study in the social sciences, including sociology, political science and economics. Institutions are a central concern for law, the formal regime for political rule-making and enforcement. The creation and evolution of institutions is a primary topic for history.
Aspects of Institutions
Although individual, formal organizations, commonly identified as "institutions," may be deliberately and intentionally created by people, the development and functioning of institutions in society in general may be regarded as an instance of emergence; that is, institutions arise, develop and function in a pattern of social self-organization, which goes beyond the conscious intentions of the individual humans involved. As mechanisms of social cooperation, institutions are manifest in both objectively real, formal organizations, such as the U.S. Congress, the Roman Catholic Church or the Bank of England, and, also, in informal social order and organization, reflecting human psychology, culture, habits and customs. Most important institutions, considered abstractly, have both objective and subjective aspects: examples include money and marriage. The institution of money encompasses many formal organizations, including banks and government treasury departments and stock exchanges, which may be termed, "institutions," as well as subjective experiences, which guide people in their pursuit of personal economic well-being and wealth. Powerful institutions are able to imbue a paper currency with certain value, and to induce millions into cooperative production and trade in pursuit of economic ends abstractly denominated in that currency's units. The subjective experience of money is so pervasive and persuasive that economists talk of the "money illusion" and try to disabuse their students of it, in preparation for learning economic analysis. Marriage and family, as a set of institutions, also encompass formal and informal, objective and subjective aspects. Both governments and religious institutions make and enforce rules and laws regarding marriage and family, create and regulate various concepts of how people relate to one another, and what their rights, obligations and duties may be as a consequence. Culture and custom permeate marriage and family. In the United States and western Europe, a transition from a conception of marriage, as license for sexual intercourse granted by Church and State, to a conception of marriage as a form of contract, freely entered into, has occasioned momentous social and political controversies regarding laws and customs governing the freedom of women, divorce, cohabitation outside marriage, contraception, and homosexuality.
Perspectives of the Social Sciences
While institutions tend to appear to people in society as part of the natural, unchanging landscape of their lives, study of institutions by the social sciences tends to reveal the nature of institutions as social constructions, artifacts of a particular time, culture and society, produced by collective human choice, though not directly by individual intention. The relationship of institutions to human nature is a foundational question for the social sciences. Institutions can be seen as "naturally" arising from, and conforming to, human nature -- a fundamentally conservative view -- or institutions can be seen as artificial, almost accidental, and in need of architectural redesign, informed by expert social analysis, to better serve human needs -- a fundamentally progressive view. Adam Smith anchored his economics in the supposed human "propensity to truck, barter and exchange". Modern feminists have criticized traditional marriage and other institutions as elements of an oppressive and obsolete patriarchy. Economics, in recent years, has used game theory to study institutions from two perspectives. Firstly, how do institutions survive and evolve? In this perspective, institutions arise from Nash equilibria of games. For example, whenever people pass each other in a corridor or thoroughfare, there is a need for customs, which avoid collisions. Such a custom might call for each party to keep to their own right (or left -- such a choice is arbitrary, it is only necessary that the choice be uniform and consistent). Such customs may be supposed to be the origin of rules, such as the rule, adopted in many countries, which requires driving automobiles on the right side of the road. Secondly, how do institutions affect behaviour? In this perspective, the focus is on behaviour arising from a given set of institutional rules. In these models, institutions determine the rules (i.e. strategy sets and utility functions) of games, rather than arise as equilibria out of games. For example, the Cournot duopoly model is based on an institution involving an auctioneer who sells all goods at the market-clearing price. While it is always possible to analyse behaviour with the institutions-as-equilibria approach instead, it is much more complicated. Public choice theory, a branch of economics with a close relationship to political science, considers how government policy choices are made, and seeks to determine what the policy outcomes are likely to be, given a particular political decision-making process and context. Sociology traditionally analyzed social institutions in terms of interlocking social roles and expectations. Social institutions created and were composed of groups of roles, or expected behaviors. The social function of the institution was executed by the fulfillment of roles. Basic biological requirements, for reproduction and care of the young, are served by the institutions of marriage and family, for example, by creating, elaborating and prescribing the behaviors expected for husband/father, wife/mother, child, etc. In history, a distinction between eras or periods, implies a major and fundamental change in the system of institutions governing a society. Political and military events are judged to be of historical significance to the extent that they are associated with changes in institutions. In European history, particular significance is attached to the long transition from the feudal institutions of the Middle Ages to the modern institutions, which govern contemporary life.
See also

- nation, country, state.
- effect on individuals institutionalisation
- institutional economics
- establishment
- Institute
- Institution (computer science)
References

External links

- Avner Greif, [http://www-econ.stanford.edu/faculty/Greif_Instutions/GreifBook.html Institutions: Theory and History], Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
- [http://www.isnie.org International Society for New Institutional Economics]
- [http://www.institutionalreform.org Institutional reform]
- category:Political science category:Economics ko:기관 (조직) ja:制度

Organization
:Alternative meaning: Organisation (band). An organisation (Commonwealth English) or organization (American English, and Oxford English) is a formal group of people with one or more shared goals. This topic is a broad one. Organisations are studied by researchers from several disciplines: sociology, economics, political science, psychology, engineering, etc. The area is commonly referred to as organisation theory, organisational behaviour or organisation analysis. it however consists of a number of different theories and perspectives, some of which are compatible and others that are competing. Among those that are or have been most influential are:
- Weberian organisation theory (referring to Max Weber's chapter on Bureaucracy in his book 'Economy and Society'
- Marxist organisation analysis
- Scientific Management (mainly following Frederick W Taylor)
- Human Relations Studies (going back to the Hawthorne studies, Maslow and Hertzberg)
- Administrative theories (with work by e.g. Henri Fayol and Chester Barnard)
- Contingency theory
- New institutionalism and new institutional economics
- Network analysis
- Economic Sociology
- Organisation ecology (or demography of organisations)
- Transaction cost economics
- Agency theory (sometimes called principal - agent theory)
- Studies of organisation culture
- Postmodern organisation studies
- Labour Process Theory
- Critical Management Studies
- Unicist Natural Organisation The most prestigious scientific journals focused on the study of organisations include organisation, Organisation Studies, Administrative Science Quarterly and Academy of Management Review. "Organisation" can also be used to define how the different parts of computer hardware are linked in order to execute the many computational activities most efficiently. Organisations that are legal entities: government, international organisation, non-governmental organisation, armed forces, corporation, partnership, charity, not-for-profit corporation, cooperative, university. The study of organisations includes a focus on optimising [organisational structure]. According to management science, most human organisations fall roughly into four types:
- Pyramids or hierarchies
- Committees or juries
- Matrix organisations
- Ecologies Organisation studies also includes research efforts to inform the effective management of organisations, and addresses organisational culture, organisational learning and managing change as major factors affecting organisational effectiveness, beyond the basics of organisational structure.
Pyramids or hierarchies
A hierarchy exemplifies an arrangement with a leader who leads leaders. This arrangement is often associated with bureaucracy. Hierarchies were satirised in The Peter Principle (1969), a book that introduced the term hierarchiology and the saying that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence". An extremely rigid, in terms of responsibilities, type of organisation is exemplified by Führerprinzip.
Committees or juries
These consist of a group of peers who decide as a group, perhaps by voting. The difference between a jury and a committee is that the members of the committee are usually assigned to perform or lead further actions after the group comes to a decision, whereas members of a jury come to a decision. In common law countries legal juries render decisions of guilt, liability and quantify damages; juries are also used in athletic contests, book awards and similar activities. Sometimes a selection committee functions like a jury. In the middle ages juries in continental Europe were used to determine the law according to consensus amongst local notables. Committees are often the most reliable way to make decisions. Condorcet's jury theorem proved that if the average member votes better than a roll of dice, then adding more members increases the number of majorities that can come to a correct vote (however correctness is defined). The problem is that if the average member is worse than a roll of dice, the committee's decisions grow worse, not better! Staffing is crucial. Parliamentary procedure, such as Robert's Rules of Order, helps prevent committees from engaging in lengthy discussions without reaching decisions.
Staff organisation or cross-functional team
A staff helps an expert get all his work done. To this end, a "chief of staff" decides whether an assignment is routine or not. If it's routine, he assigns it to a staff member, who is a sort of junior expert. The chief of staff schedules the routine problems, and checks that they are completed. If a problem is not routine, the chief of staff notices. He passes it to the expert, who solves the problem, and educates the staff -- converting the problem into a routine problem. In a "cross functional team," like an executive committee, the boss has to be a non-expert, because so many kinds of expertise are required.
Matrix organisation
This organisational type assigns each worker to two bosses in two different hierarchies. One hierarchy is "functional" and assures that each type of expert in the organisation is well-trained, and measured by a boss who is super-expert in the same field. The other direction is "executive" and tries to get projects completed using the experts. Projects might be organised by regions, customer types, or some other schema. See matrix management.
Ecologies
This organisation has intense competition. Bad parts of the organisation starve. Good ones get more work. Everybody is paid for what they actually do, and runs a tiny business that has to show a profit, or they are fired. Companies who utilise this organisation type reflect a rather one-sided view of what goes on in ecology. It is also the case that a natural ecosystem has a natural border - ecoregions do not in general compete with one another in any way, but are very autonomous. The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline talks about functioning as this type of organisation in [http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1294443,00.html this external article] from The Guardian.
"Chaordic" organisations
The chaordic model of organising human endeavours emerged in the [1990]s, based on a blending of chaos and order (hence "chaordic"), comes out of the work of Dee Hock and the creation of the VISA financial network. Blending democracy, complex system, consensus decision making, co-operation and competition, the chaordic approach attempts to encourage organisations to evolve from the increasingly nonviable hierarchical, command-and-control models. Similarly, see Emergent organisations, and the principle of self-organisation. See also group entity for an anarchist perspective on human organisations.
See also

- Affinity group
- Bureaucracy
- Charitable trust
- Collective
- Conversation organisation
- Fraternal organisation
- Fraternities and sororities
- International organisation
- Meeting
- Mutual organisation
- Non-governmental organisation
- Open source movement
- Organisational development
- Organised crime
- Pacifist organisation
- Project
- Requisite organisation
- Service club
- Service organisation
- Terrorist organisations
- Virtual organisation
- Voluntary association
Related lists

- List of environmental organisations
- List of trade unions
- List of civic, fraternal, service, and professional organisations
- List of organisations
References

- Organisations by Richard Scott: ISBN 0132663546
- Organisations and Institutions by Richard Scott
- Understanding organisations by Charles Handy.
- The Peter Principle, Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull, Pan Books 1970 ISBN 0-330-02519-8
- The Nature of the Firm by Ronald Coase.
External links

- [http://www.globaldharma.org Website of Global Dharma Center, a not-for-profit organisation offering (free) training modules, research papers, workshop exercises etc on Culture Development and Individual/Organisation Transformation] Category:Organizational theory

Sociology

and their consequences are the subject of sociology studies. Here we see people engaged in various actions on the stairs of the institution of Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.]] Sociology is a social science on the study of the social lives of people, groups, and societies, sometimes defined as the study of social interactions. It is a relatively new academic discipline that evolved in the early 19th century. It concerns itself with the social rules and processes that bind and separate people not only as individuals, but as members of associations, groups, and institutions. Sociology is interested in our behavior as social beings; thus the sociological field of interest ranges from the analysis of short contacts between anonymous individuals on the street to the study of global social processes. In a broad sense, sociology is the scientific study of social groups, the entities through which humans move throughout their lives. There is a current trend in sociology to make it a more "applied" discipline, applicable in areas such as non-profit organizations and nursing homes. The results of sociological research aid educators, lawmakers, administrators, and others interested in resolving social problems and formulating public policy. Most sociologists work in one or more specialties, such as social organization, social stratification, and social mobility; racial and ethnic relations; education; family; social psychology; urban, rural, political, and comparative sociology; sex roles and relationships; demography; gerontology; criminology; and sociological practice.

History of sociology

Main Article: History of sociology Sociology is a relatively new academic discipline among other social sciences including economics, political science, anthropology, history, and psychology. The ideas behind it, however, have a long history and can trace their origins to a mixture of common human knowledge and philosophy. Sociology as a scientific discipline emerged in the early 19th century as an academic response to the challenge of modernity: as the world was becoming smaller and more integrated, people's experience of the world was increasingly atomized and dispersed. Sociologists hoped not only to understand what held social groups together, but also to develop an antidote to social disintegration. social disintegration The term "sociology" was coined by Auguste Comte in 1838 from Latin socius (companion, associate) and Greek logia (study of, speech). Comte hoped to unify all studies of humankind--including history, psychology and economics. His own sociological scheme was typical of the 19th century; he believed all human life had passed through the same distinct historical stages and that, if one could grasp this progress, one could prescribe the remedies for social ills. Sociology was to be the 'queen of sciences'. The first book with the term 'sociology' in its title was written in the mid-19th century by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer. In the United States, the discipline was taught by its name for the first time at the University of Kansas, Lawrence in 1890 under the course title Elements of Sociology (the oldest continuing sociology course in America and the Department of History and Sociology was established in 1891 [http://www.ku.edu/%7Esocdept/about/],[http://www.news.ku.edu/2005/June/June15/sociology.shtml]) and the first full fledged independent university department of sociology in the United States was established in 1892 at the University of Chicago by Albion W. Small, who in 1895 founded the American Journal of Sociology [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJS/home.html]. The first European department of sociology was founded in 1895 at the University of Bordeaux by Émile Durkheim, founder of L'Année Sociologique (1896). The first sociology department to be established in the United Kingdom was at the London School of Economics and Political Science (home of the British Journal of Sociology) [http://www.lse.ac.uk/serials/Bjs/] in 1904. In 1919 a sociology department was established in Germany at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich by Max Weber and in 1920 in Poland by Florian Znaniecki. Florian Znaniecki] International cooperation in sociology began in 1893 when René Worms founded the small Institut International de Sociologie that was eclipsed by the much larger International Sociologist Association [http://www.ucm.es/info/isa/] starting in 1949 (ISA). In 1905 the American Sociological Association, the world's largest association of professional sociologists, was founded. Other "classical" theorists of sociology from the late 19th and early 20th centuries include Karl Marx, Ferdinand Toennies, Émile Durkheim, Vilfredo Pareto, and Max Weber. Like Comte, these figures did not consider themselves only "sociologists". Their works addressed religion, education, economics, psychology, ethics, philosophy, and theology, and their theories have been applied in a variety of academic diciplines. Their most enduring influence, however, has been on sociology, (with the exception of Marx, who is a central figure in the field of economics as well) and it is in this field that their theories are still considered most applicable. theology] Early theorists' approach to sociology, led by Comte, was to treat it in the same manner as natural science, applying the same methods and methodology used in the natural sciences to study social phenomena. The emphasis on empiricism and the scientific method sought to provide an incontestable foundation for any sociological claims or findings, and to distinguish sociology from less empirical fields like philosophy. This methodological approach, called positivism, became a source of contention between sociologists and other scientists, and eventually a point of divergence within the field itself. As early as the 19th century positivist and naturalist approaches to studying social life were questioned by scientists like Wilhelm Dilthey and Heinrich Rickert, who argued that the natural world differs from the social world, as human society has unique aspects like meanings, symbols, rules, norms, and values. These elements of society result in human cultures. This view was further developed by Max Weber, who introduced antipositivism (humanistic sociology). According to this view, which is closely related to antinaturalism, sociological research must concentrate on humans and their cultural values. This has led to some controversy on how one can draw the line between subjective and objective research and also influenced hermeneutical studies. Similar disputes, especially in the era of Internet, have also led to the creation of branches of sociology such as public sociology.

The science and mathematics of sociology

Sociologists study society and social behaviour by examining the groups and social institutions people form, as well as various social, religious, political, and business organizations. They also study the behaviour of, and social interaction among, groups, trace their origin and growth, and analyze the influence of group activities on individual members. Sociologists are concerned with the characteristics of social groups, organizations, and institutions; the ways individuals are affected by each other and by the groups to which they belong; and the effect of social traits such as sex, age, or race on a person’s daily life. The results of sociological research aid educators, lawmakers, administrators, and others interested in resolving social problems and formulating public policy. Most sociologists work in one or more specialties, such as social organization, social stratification, and social mobility; racial and ethnic relations; education; family; social psychology; urban, rural, political, and comparative sociology; sex roles and relationships; demography; gerontology; criminology; and sociological practice. Although sociology emerged in large part from Comte's conviction that sociology eventually would subsume all other areas of scientific inquiry, in the end, sociology did not replace the other sciences. Instead, sociology came to be identified with the other social sciences (i.e., psychology, economics, etc.). Today, sociology studies humankind's organizations, social institutions and their social interactions, largely employing a comparative method. The discipline has concentrated particularly on the organization of complex industrial societies. Recent sociologists, taking cues from anthropologists, have noted the "Western emphasis" of the field. In response, many sociology departments around the world are encouraging multi-cultural and multi-national studies. Today, sociologists research micro-structures that organize society, such as race or ethnicity, social class, gender roles, and institutions such as the family; social processes that represent deviation from, or the breakdown of, these structures, including crime and divorce; and micro-processes such as interpersonal interactions and the socialization of individuals. Sociologists often rely on quantitative methods of social research to describe large patterns in social relationships and in order to develop models that can help predict social change. Other branches of sociology believe that qualitative methods - such as focused interviews, group discussions and ethnographic methods - allow for a better understanding of social processes. Some sociologists argue for a middle ground that sees quantitative and qualitative approaches as complementary. Results from one approach can fill gaps in the other approach. For example, quantitative methods could describe large or general patterns while qualitative approaches could help to understand how individuals understand those patterns.

Social theory

Main article: social theory Social theory refers to the use of abstract and often complex theoretical frameworks to explain and analyze social patterns and macro social structures in social life, rather than explaining patterns of social life. Social theory always had an uneasy relationship to the more classic academic disciplines; many of its key thinkers never held a university position. While nowadays social theory is considered a branch of sociology, it is inherently interdisciplinary, as it deals with multiple scientific areas such as anthropology, economics, theology, history, and many others. First social theories developed almost simultaneously with the birth of the sociology science itself. Auguste Comte, known as 'father of sociology', also laid the groundwork for one of the first social theories - social evolutionism. In the 19th century three great, classical theories of social and historical change were created: the social evolutionism theory (of which social darwinism is a part of), the social cycle theory and the Marxist historical materialism theory. Although the majority of 19th century social theories are now considered obsolete they have spawned new, modern social theories. Modern social theories represent some advanced version of the classical theories, like Multilineal theories of evolution (neoevolutionism, sociobiology, theory of modernisation, theory of post-industrial society) or the general historical sociology and the theory of subjectivity and creation of the society. Unlike disciplines within the “objective“ natural sciences -- such as physics or chemistry -- social theorists are less likely to use the scientific method and other fact-based methods to prove a point. Instead, they tackle very large-scale social trends and structures using hypotheses that cannot be easily proved, except by the history and time, which is often the basis of criticism from opponents of social theories. Extremely critical theorists, such as deconstructionists or postmodernists, may argue that any type of research or method is inherently flawed. Many times, however, social theory is defined as such because the social reality it describes is so overarching as to be unprovable. The social theories of modernity or anarchy might be two examples of this. However, social theories are a major part of the science of sociology. Objective science-based research can often provide support for explanations given by social theorists. Statistical research grounded in the scientific method, for instance, that finds a severe income disparity between women and men performing the same occupation can complement the underlying premise of the complex social theories of feminism or patriarchy. In general, and particularly among adherents to pure sociology, social theory has an appeal because it takes the focus away from the individual (which is how most humans look at the world) and focuses it on the society itself and the social forces which control our lives. This sociological insight (or sociological imagination) has through the years appealed to students and others dissatisfied with the status quo because it carries the assumption that societal structures and patterns are either random, arbitrary or controlled by specific powerful groups -- thus implying the possibility of change. This has a particular appeal to champions of the underdog, the dispossesed, and/or those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder because it implies that their position in society is undeserved and/or the result of oppression.

Social research methods

Main article: social research There are several main methods that sociologists use to gather empirical evidence, which include questionnaires, interviews, participant observation, and statistical research. The problem with all of these approaches is that they are all based on what theoretical position the researcher adopts to explain and understand the society the researcher sees in front of themselves. If one is a functionalist like Émile Durkheim, they are likely to interpret everything in terms of large-scale social structures. If a person is a symbolic interactionist, they are likely to concentrate on the way people understand one another. If the researcher is a Marxist, or a neo-Marxist, they are likely to interpret everything through the grid of class struggle and economics. Phenomenologists tend to think that there is only the way in which people construct their meanings of reality, and nothing else. One of the real problems is that sociologists argue that only one theoretical approach is the "right" one, and it is theirs. In practice, sociologists often tend to mix and match different approaches and methodologies, since each method produces particular types of data. The Internet is of interest for sociologists in three ways: as a tool for research, for example, in using online questionnaires instead of paper ones, as a discussion platform, and as a research topic. Sociology of the Internet in the last sense includes analysis of online communities (e.g. as found in newsgroups), virtual communities and virtual worlds organisational change catalysed through new media like the Internet, and societal change at-large in the transformation from industrial to informational society (or to information society).

Sociology and other social sciences

In the early 20th century, sociologists and psychologists who conducted research in industrial societies contributed to the development of anthropology. It should be noted, however, that anthropologists also conducted research in industrial societies. Today sociology and anthropology are better contrasted according to different theoretical concerns and methods rather than objects of study. Sociobiology is a relatively new field to branch from both the sociology and biology disciplines. Although the field once rapidly gained acceptance, it has remained highly controversial as it attempts to find ways in which social behavior and structures can be explained by evolutionary and biological processes. Sociobiologists are often criticized by sociologists for depending too greatly on the effects of genes in defining behavior. Sociobiologists often respond, however, by citing a complex relationship between nature and nurture. In this regard, sociobiology is closely related to anthropology, zoology, and evolutionary psychology. Nonetheless, for most in the discipline, its ideas are unacceptable. Some sociobiologists, such as Richard Machalek, call for the field of sociology to encompass the study of non-human societies along with human beings. Sociology has some links with social psychology, but the former is more interested in social structures and the latter in social behaviors. A distinction should be made between these and forensic studies within these disciplines, particularly where anatomy is involved. These latter studies might be better named as Forensic psychology. As shown by the work of Marx and others, economics has influenced sociological theories.

Subfields of sociology

- Collective behavior
- Comparative sociology
- Computational sociology
- Environmental sociology
- Interactionism also known as the social action theory and symbolic-interactionism
- Economic development
- Economic sociology
- Feminist sociology
- Functionalism
- Historical sociology
- Human ecology (sometimes included into sociology proper)
- Industrial sociology also known as sociology of industrial relations or sociology of work
- Media Sociology
- Medical sociology
- Political sociology also known as sociology of politics or sociology of the state
- Program evaluation
- Public sociology
- Pure sociology
- Rural sociology
- Social change also known as sociology of change
- Social demography
- Social inequality
- Social movements
- Sociology of culture
- Sociology of conflict also known as Conflict theory
- Sociology of deviance also known as criminology
- Sociology of disaster
- Sociology of gender
- Sociology of the family
- Sociology of markets also known as behavioral finance
- Sociology of religion
- Sociology of science and technology
- Sociology of sport
- Sociography
- Urban sociology
- Visual sociology

External links

Self-study courses:
- [http://www.trentu.ca/trentradio/tklassen/ Free audio Lectures, An Introductory Sociology produced for the Trent University, Canada]
- [http://core.ecu.edu/soci/juskaa/SOCI2110/soci1.htm Lectures notes from Introduction to Sociology Course, East Carolina University] Other resources:
- [http://www.thearda.com American Religion Data Archive]
- [http://www.asanet.org/ American Sociological Association]
- [http://www.anovasofie.net/ Analysing and Overcoming the Sociological Fragmentation in Europe: European Virtual Library of Sociology]
- [http://www.ku.edu/%7Esocdept/centuryofsoc.pdf A Century of Sociology at University of Kansas, by Alan Sica (Adobe Acrobat PDF file)]
- [http://www.ucm.es/info/isa/ International Sociological Association]
- [http://gsociology.icaap.org/methods/ Resources for methods in social research]
- [http://www.sociosite.net/ SocioSite - Social Sciences Information System]
- [http://www.sociologyprofessor.com/ Social theories and theorists]
- [http://www.sociolog.com/ The Sociolog. Comprehensive Guide to Sociology]
- [http://www.theory.org.uk Theory.org.uk] - idiosyncratic but content-rich social theory site by David Gauntlett
- [http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy]

References

- John J. Macionis, Sociology (10th Edition), Prentice Hall, 2004, ISBN 0131849182
- Piotr Sztompka, Socjologia, Znak, 2002, ISBN 8324002189
- Stephen H. Aby, Sociology: A Guide to Reference and Information Sources. 3rd edn. Littleton, CO, Libraries Unlimited Inc., 2005, ISBN 1563089475

Law

:This article is about law in society. For other possible meanings, see law (disambiguation). Law (a loanword from Old Norse lag), in politics and jurisprudence, is a set of rules or norms of conduct which mandate, proscribe or permit specified relationships among people and organizations, provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide punishments of/for those who do not follow the established rules of conduct. Law is typically administered through a system of courts, in which judges hear disputes between parties and apply a set of rules in order to provide an outcome that is just and fair. The manner in which law is administered is known as a legal system, which typically has developed through tradition in each country. Legal practitioners, most often, must be professionally trained in the law before they are permitted to advocate for a party in a court of law, draft legal documents, or give legal advice.

Legal traditions

There are generally four broad legal traditions that are practiced in the world today.

Civil law

The Civilian system of law is a codified law that sets out a comprehensive system of rules that are applied and interpreted by judges. It is by and large the most commonly practiced system of law in the world, with almost 60 % of the world's population living in a country ruled on the civilian system. The most important difference to common law is that normally, only legislative enactments are considered to be legally binding, but not precedent cases. However, as a practical matter, courts normally follow their previous decisions. Furthermore, in some civil law systems (e.g. in Germany), the writings of legal scholars have considerable influence on the courts. In most jurisdictions the core areas of private law are codified in the form of a civil code, but in some, like Scotland it remains uncodified. The civil law system has its origins in Roman law, which was adopted by scholars and courts from the late middle ages onwards. Most modern systems go back to the 19th century codification movement. The civil codes of many, particularly Latin countries and former French and Spanish colonies closely trail the Code de Napoléon in some fashion. However, this is not true for most Central and Eastern European, Scandinavian and East Asian countries. Notably, the German BGB was developed from Roman law with reference to German legal tradition. The importance of the Code Napoléon should also not be overemphasized as it covers only the core areas of private law, while other codes and statutes govern fields such as corporate law, administrative law, tax law and constitutional law.

Common law

The Common law is an Anglo-Saxon legal tradition, based on unwritten laws developed through judicial decisions that create binding precedent. The common law system is currently in practice in Australia, Canada (excluding Quebec), United Kingdom, and the United States (excluding Louisiana). In addition to these countries several others have adapted the common law system into a mixed system. For example, India and Nigera operate largely on a common law system but incorporate a good deal of customary law and religious law.

Customary law

Customary law are systems of law that has evolved largely on their own within a given country and have been adapted to meet the needs of the particular culture. Note that customary law may also be relevant within jurisdictions following another legal tradition in fields or subfields of law where no legislative enactment exists. For example, in Austria, scholars of private law often claim that customary law continues to exist, whereas public law scholars dispute this claim. (In any case, it is hard to find any practically relevant examples.)

Religious law

Many countries base their system of law on religious tenants. The most dominant system of this form of law is Muslim law (or "Sharia") which is a codified law that is found within the Koran. These laws deal primarily with the personal rights and dispute resolution between individuals. It is used in some Middle Eastern nations; such as in the Iran and Saudi Arabia. On a smaller level there are still regions of the world that practice canon law, which is followed by Catholics and Anglicans, and a similar legal system is used by the Eastern Orthodox Church. The same can be said for Jewish law (halakha or halacha), which is followed by Orthodox and Conservative Jews, in substantially different forms.

Bodies of law

In the broadest sense, bodies of law can be subdivided on the basis of who the parties to an action are. It is frequent that practiced fields of law overlap into several of these bodies of law.

Private law

The area of private law in a legal system concerns law that oversees disputes between private individuals. This area is, to a large extent, the most comprehensive area of law, dealing with all non-criminal harm one person does to another.

Public law

The area of public law, in a general sense, is the law in a given legal system that concerns disputes between the government and private individuals residing within the country. The state can bring actions against people for criminal acts, as well as breach of regulatory laws. Equally, individuals can bring actions against the government for harm it has done. This includes grounds on the basis of a breach of regulations, legislate on matters beyond their competence, or violation of an individuals rights. These last two points are often protected under a countries’ constitution.

Procedural law

Procedural law concerns the areas of law that regulate how all actions are dealt with. This includes who can have access to the court system, how complaints are submitted, and what are the rights of the parties involved. Procedural law is often known as "adjective" law as it is the law that concern how other laws are to be applied. Typically, this is broadly covered by a government’s civil and criminal procedure rules. But equally this includes the law of evidence which determines what means are used to prove facts, as well as, the law regarding remedies.

International law

International law governs the relations between states, or between citizens of different states, or international organizations. Its two primary sources are customary law and treaties.

Philosophy of law

Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy and jurisprudence which studies basic questions about law and legal systems, such as "what is the law?", "what are the criteria for legal validity?", "what is the relationship between law and morality?", and many other similar questions. In the western tradition there are several schools of thought on the philosophical basis of law. First, there is natural law, which attempts to describe law as an inherent quality in humans that is derived from natures. Second, there is the positivism which believes that law is a purely human-made construct that society uses to maintain social order. Third, there is legal realism which believes that law is an arbitrary set of rules that are largely established through the tastes and preferences of judges.

Anthropology of law

:See main discussion at Honour Law has an anthropological dimension. It has been recognized from Montesquieu to the present that law is shaped by the kind of society in which it is practised. One continuum into which various societies can be placed contrasts the "culture of law" with the "culture of honour". In order to have a culture of law, people must dwell in a society where a government exists whose authority is hard to evade and generally recognised as legitimate. People take their grievances before the government and its agents, who arbitrate disputes and enforce penalties. This behaviour is contrasted with the culture of honour, where respect for persons and groups stems from fear of the revenge they may exact if their person, property, or prerogatives are not respected. Cultures of law must be maintained. They can be eroded by declining respect for the law, achieved either by weak government unable to wield its authority, or by burdensome restrictions that attempt to forbid behaviour prevalent in the culture or in some subculture of the society. When a culture of law declines, there is a possibility that an culture of honor will arise in its place.
History

Practice of law
Practice of law is typically overseen by either a government organization or independent regulating body such as a bar association or barrister society. To practice law – i.e. appear in front of a judge on behalf of someone, draft legal documents, etc. – the practitioner must be certified by the regulating body. This usually entails a two or three year program at a university’s faculty of law or a law school, followed by an entrance examination (eg. bar admissions). Once accredited, a legal practitioners will often work in law firm, as well as in government, a private corporation, or even work as sole practitioner. A significant component to the practice of law in the common law tradition involves legal research in order to determine the current state of the law. This usually entails exploring case reporters, legal periodicals, and legislation.
See also

- Law topics overview
- List of areas of law
- List of legal topics
- List of legal terms
- List of jurists
- List of legal abbreviations
- List of case law lists
- List of law firms
Further reading

- Cheyenne Way: Conflict & Case Law in Primitive Jurisprudence, Karl N. Llewellyn and E. Adamson Hoebel, University of Oklahoma Press, 1983, trade paperback, 374 pages, ISBN 0806118555
- The Bilingual LSP Dictionary. Principles and Practice for Legal language, Sandro Nielsen, Gunter Narr Verlag 1994.
- [http://browse.addall.com/Browse/Author/2088479-1 Other books by Karl N. Llewellyn]
- David, René, and John E. C. Brierley. Major Legal Systems in the World Today: An Introduction to the Comparative Study of Law. 3d ed. London: Stevens, 1985 (ISBN 0420473408).
External links

- [http://www.legalmatch.com LegalMatch] Legal Resource
- [http://ausicl.com The Australian Institute of Comparative Legal Systems]
- [http://www.lpig.org Law and Policy Institutions]
- [http://www.llbee.com/news.php?p=news Laws External Education- Legal News By Subject]
- [http://www.4lawschool.com 4LawSchool- Legal Reference]
- [http://ww3.definitions-legal.com:8567/ Law, Legal Definitions & Reference]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/1996-3/law.htm Essentials of Law-Related Education. ERIC Digest.]
- [http://www.law.cornell.edu LII - Topical overviews, US Supreme Court decisions, US Code (Acts of Congress)]
- [http://www.worldlii.org WorldLII - The World Legal Information Institute]
- [http://www.lawmoose.com LawMoose Legal Reference Library]
- [http://legallinks.jenkinslaw.org Legal Research Links]
- [http://www.findlaw.com FindLaw]
- [http://ausicl.com The Australian Institute of Comparative Legal Systems]
- [http://www.nolo.com/glossary.cfm Everybody's Legal Glossary] - From Nolo
- [http://www.alllaw.com/ AllLaw]
- [http://legal.wikicities.com/ WikiCities Legal Site]
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/law-ideology/ Law and Ideology]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/law-language/ Law and Language]
- [http://en.jurispedia.org/ The shared law] in Jurispedia
- [http://www.avocatura.com Romanian Law]
- [http://www.thedailylaw.com Daily Law news]
- [http://members.fortunecity.com/victorcauchi/lex/lexindex.htm Laws of Malta] Chapter summaries and a general Glossary of definitions.
- [http://LawyerIntl.com LawyerIntl.com] Legal Resource and Law Dictionary
- [http://LawGuru.com LawGuru.com] Legal Portal
- [http://forumprawne.org Prawo i porady prawne] - web discussion board about Polish law Category:Core issues in ethics ja:法 (法学) simple:Law th:กฎหมาย

Emergence

Emergence is the process of complex pattern formation from simpler rules. This can be a dynamic process (occurring over time), such as the evolution of the human brain over thousands of successive generations; or emergence can happen over disparate size scales, such as the interactions between a macroscopic number of neurons producing a human brain capable of thought (even though the constituent neurons are not themselves conscious). For a phenomenon to be termed emergent it should generally be unpredictable from a lower level description. Usually the phenomenon does not exist at all or only in trace amounts at the very lowest level: it is irreducible. Thus, a straightforward phenomenon such as the probability of finding a raisin in a slice of cake growing with the portion-size does not generally require a theory of emergence to explain. It may however be profitable to consider the emergence of the texture of the cake as a relatively complex result of the baking process and the mixture of ingredients. Sometimes the term is used in the colloquial meaning of emersion or appearance. Like intelligence in AI, or agents in DAI, it is a central concept in complex systems and yet hard to define and very controversial. There is no consensus amongst scientists what weak and strong forms of emergence are and how much emergence should be relied upon as an explanation in general. It does not appear possible to unambiguously decide whether a phenomenon should be classified as emergent, and even in the cases where classification is agreed upon it does not always help to explain the phenomena in any deep way (similar to the term self-organization, the more complex the phenomenon, the more intricated are the underlying processes, and the less the explanatory effect of the word emergence alone). In fact, calling a phenomenon emergent is sometimes used in lieu of any better explanation.

Emergent properties

self-organization An emergent behaviour or emergent property can appear when a number of simple entities (agents) operate in an environment, forming more complex behaviours as a collective. If emergence happens over disparate size scales, then the reason is usually a causal relation across different scales. In other words there is often a form of top-down feedback in systems with emergent properties. These are two of the major reasons why emergent behaviour occurs: intricated causal relations across different scales and feedback. The property itself is often unpredictable and unprecedented, and may represent a new level of the system's evolution. The complex behaviour or properties are not a property of any single such entity, nor can they easily be predicted or deduced from behaviour in the lower-level entities: they are irreducible. The shape and behaviour of a flock of birds or school of fish are good examples. One reason why emergent behaviour is hard to predict is that the number of interactions between components of a system increases combinatorially with the number of components, thus potentially allowing for many new and subtle types of behaviour to emerge. For example, the possible interactions between groups of molecules grows enormously with the number of molecules such that it is impossible for a computer to even count the number of arrangements for a system as small as 20 molecules. On the other hand, merely having a large number of interactions is not enough by itself to guarantee emergent behaviour; many of the interactions may be negligible or irrelevant, or may cancel each other out. In some cases, a large number of interactions can in fact work against the emergence of interesting behaviour, by creating a lot of "noise" to drown out any emerging "signal"; the emergent behaviour may need to be temporarily isolated from other interactions before it reaches enough critical mass to be self-supporting. Thus it is not just the sheer number of connections between components which encourages emergence; it is also how these connections are organised. A hierarchical organisation is one example which can generate emergent behaviour (a bureaucracy may behave in a way quite different to that of the individual humans in that bureaucracy); but perhaps more interestingly, emergent behaviour can also arise from more decentralized organisational structures, such as a marketplace. In some cases, the system has to reach a combined threshold of diversity, organisation, and connectivity before emergent behaviour appears. Unintended consequences and side effects are closely related to emergent properties. Luc Steels writes about a system with "emergent functionality" in his paper [http://cse.ucdavis.edu/~dynlearn/dynlearn/RoMADS/steels01/index.html Towards a Theory of Emergent Functionality]: "A component has a particular functionality but this is not recognizable as a subfunction of the global functionality. Instead a component implements a behavior whose side effect contributes to the global functionality [...] Each behavior has a side effect and the sum of the side effects gives the desired functionality". In other words, the global or macroscopic functionality of a system with "emergent functionality" is the sum of all "side effects", of all emergent properties and functionalities. Systems with emergent properties or emergent structures may appear to defy entropic principles and the second law of thermodynamics, because they form and increase order despite the lack of command and central control. This is possible because open systems can extract information and order out of the environment. Emergence helps to explain why the fallacy of division is a fallacy. According to an emergent perspective, intelligence emerges from the connections between neurons, and from this perspective it is not necessary to propose a "soul" to account for the fact that brains can be intelligent, even though the individual neurons of which they are made are not.

Emergence in games

Emergent behavior is also important in games and game design. For example, the game of poker, especially in no limit forms without a rigid betting structure, is largely driven by emergent behavior. For example, no rule requires that any player should fold, but usually many players do. Because the game is driven by emergent behavior, play at one poker table might be radically different from that at another, while the rules of the game are exactly the same. Variations of games that develop are examples of emergent metaplay, the predominant catalyst of the evolution of new games. Will Wright is well known for using emergence in the design of his games. SimCity leverages this behavior to provide a game play experience with no pre-defined end state. This sandbox model is taken even further with his current project, Spore. Other games that are considered to exhibit emergent properties are Chess and Go.

Emergent structures in nature

Emergent structures are patterns not created by a single event or rule. There is nothing that commands the system to form a pattern, but instead the interactions of each part to its immediate surroundings causes a complex process which leads to order. One might conclude that emergent structures are more than the sum of their parts because the emergent order will not arise if the various parts are simply coexisting; the interaction of these parts is central. A biological example is an ant colony. The queen does not give direct orders and does not tell the ants what to do. Instead, each ant reacts to stimuli in the form of chemical scent from larvae, other ants, intruders, food and build up of waste, and leaves behind a chemical trail, which, in turn, provides a stimulus to other ants. Here each ant is an autonomous unit that reacts depending only on its local environment and the genetically encoded rules for its variety of ant. Despite the lack of centralized decision making, ant colonies exhibit complex behavior and have even been able to demonstrate the ability to solve geometric problems. For example, the ant colonies routinely find the maximum distance from all colony entrances to dispose of dead bodies. Besides emergence in ant colonies, which is like other emergent structures in social insects mainly based on pheromones and chemical scents, emergence can be observed in swarms and flocks. Flocking is a well-known behavior in many animal species from swarming locusts to fish and birds. Emergent structures are a favorite strategy found in many animal groups: colonies of ants, piles of termites, swarms of bees, flocks of birds, herds of mammals, shoals/schools of fish, and packs of wolves. Emergent structures can be found in many natural phenomena, from the physical to the biological domain. The spatial structure and shape of galaxies is an emergent property, which characterizes the large-scale distribution of energy and matter in the universe. Weather phenomena with a similar form such as hurricanes are emergent properties, too. Many speculate that consciousness and life itself are emergent properties of a network of many interacting neurons and complex molecules, respectively. Life is a major source of complexity, and evolution is the major principle or driving force behind life. In this view, evolution is the main reason for the growth of complexity in the natural world. If we speak of the emergence of complex living beings and life-forms, we refer therefore to processes of sudden changes in evolution. There is also a view that the beginning and development of evolution itself can be regarded as an emergent property of the laws of physics in our universe, or contrary to this the opposite view that the laws of phyiscs have like their constituents emerged during the course of time (in which case "evolution" and "emergence" would be the most fundamental principles in the universe).

Emergence in culture and engineering

Emergent processes or behaviours can be seen in many places, from any multicellular biological organism to traffic patterns, cities or organizational phenomena in computer simulations and cellular automata. The stock market is an example of emergence on a grand scale. As a whole it precisely regulates the relative prices of companies across the world, yet it has no leader; there is no one entity which controls the workings of the entire market. Agents, or investors, have knowledge of only a limited number of companies within their portfolio, and must follow the regulatory rules of the market. Through the interactions of individual investors the complexity of the stock market as a whole emerges. The World Wide Web (WWW) is a popular example of a decentralized system exhibiting emergent properties. There is no central organization rationing the number of links, yet the number of links pointing to each page follows a power law in which a few pages are linked to many times and most pages are seldom linked to. A related property of the network of links in the world wide web is that almost any pair of pages can be connected to each other through a relatively short chain of links. Although relatively well known now, this property was initially unexpected in an unregulated network. It is shared with many other types of networks called small-world networks. Emergent structures appear at many different levels of organization or as spontaneous order. Emergent self-organization appears frequently in cities where no planning or zoning entity predetermined the layout of the city. The interdisciplinary study of emergent behaviours is not generally considered a homogeneous field, but divided across its application or problem domains.

Emergence in physics

In physics, emergence is used to describe a property, law, or phenomenon which occurs at macroscopic scales (in space or time) but not at microscopic scales, despite the fact that a macroscopic system can be viewed as a very large ensemble of microscopic systems. Some examples include: # Color. Elementary particles such as protons or electrons have no color; it is only when they are arranged in atoms that they absorb or emit specific wavelengths of light and thus be said to have a color. (Note that while quarks have a characteristic which has been labeled color charge by physicists, this terminology is merely figurative and has no actual relation with the everyday concept of color.) # Friction. Elementary particles are frictionless, or more precisely the forces between these particles are conservative. However, friction emerges when considering more complex structures of matter, whose surfaces can convert mechanical energy into heat energy when rubbed against each other. Similar considerations apply to other emergent concepts in continuum mechanics such as viscosity, elasticity, tensile strength, etc. #Classical mechanics. The laws of classical mechanics can be said to emerge as a limiting case from the rules of quantum mechanics applied to large enough masses. This may be thought of as puzzling, because quantum mechanics is generally thought of as more complicated than classical mechanics- whereas lower level rules are generally less complicated (or at least less complex) than the emergent properties. # Statistical Mechanics. Statistical Mechanics was initially derived using the concept of a large enough ensemble that fluctuations about the most likely distribution can be all but ignored. Consequently, some concepts have to be modified or abandoned entirely for microscopic systems in which fluctuations become (relatively) sizable and important for a true description of the systems. For instance, small clusters do not exhibit sharp first order phase transitions such as melting, and at the boundary it is not possible to completely categorize the cluster as a liquid or solid, since these concepts are (without extra definitions) only applicable to macroscopic systems. Describing a system using statistical mechanics methods is very much simpler than using a low-level atomistic approach. The price in such coarse graining is that the low-level detailed atomic interactions are lost in the high-level description. Temperature is sometimes used as an example of an emergent macroscopic behavior. In classical dynamics, a snapshot of the instantaneous momenta of a large number of particles at equilibrium is sufficient to find the average kinetic energy per degree of freedom which is proportional to the temperature. For a small number of particles the instantaneous momenta at a given time are not statistically sufficient to determine the temperature of the system. However, using the ergodic hypothesis, the temperature can still be obtained to arbitrary precision by further averaging the momenta over a long enough time. Also, the (constant temperature) canonical distribution is perfectly well defined even for one particle. In thermodynamics, the inverse temperature is found from the change of the system entropy with its internal energy. Some care is required when applying this to finite systems, as this should only be applied in the equilibrium region where the free energy is at a minimum. For small numbers of particles the fluctuations in the internal energy are large and the system only spends some of its time at the free energy minimum. In some theories of particle physics, even such basic structures as mass, space, and time are viewed as emergent phenomena, arising from more fundamental concepts such as the Higgs boson or strings. In some interpretations of quantum mechanics, the perception of a deterministic reality, in which all objects have a definite position, momentum, and so forth, is actually an emergent phenomenon, with the true state of matter being described instead by a wavefunction which need not have a single position or momentum. In distinction to the behavioural sciences, an emergent property need not be more complicated than the underlying non-emergent properties which generate it. For instance, the laws of thermodynamics are remarkably simple, even if the laws which govern the interactions between component particles are complex. The term emergence in physics is thus used not to signify complexity, but rather to distinguish which laws and concepts apply to macroscopic scales, and which ones apply to microscopic scales.

Bibliography

- P.W. Anderson, More is Different, Science, 177 (1972) 393-396
- John H. Holland, Emergence from chaos to order (1998) Oxford University Press, ISBN 0738201421
- Steven Johnson, Emergence (2002) Scribner, ISBN 0684868768
- Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) Ballantine Books, ISBN 0226039056
- Kevin Kelly, Out of Control (1994) Perseus Books Group, ISBN 0201483408
- Robert B Laughlin, A Different Universe (Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down),(2005) Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-03828-X.
- Stephen Wolfram, A New Kind of Science (2002), ISBN 1579550088.
- Mario Augusto Bunge, "Emergence and Convergence" (2001)
- Jochen Fromm, [http://www.upress.uni-kassel.de/abstracts/3-89958-069-9.html The emergence of complexity] (2004) Kassel University Press, ISBN 3899580699
- Douglas R Hofstadter, "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" (1979) Harvester Press
- Thomas C. Schelling, "Micromotives and Macrobehavior" (1978) W. W. Norton and Company
- Harold J. Morowitz, The Emergence of Everything: How the World Became Complex (2002) Oxford University Press, ISBN 019513513X
- Armand Delsemme, Our Cosmic Origins: From the Big Bang to the Emergence of Life and Intelligence (1998) Cambridge University Press
- John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry, The Major Transitions in Evolution (1997) Oxford University Press, ISBN 019850294X
- Tom De Wolf and Tom Holvoet, Emergence Versus Self-Organisation: Different Concepts but Promising When Combined, In Engineering Self Organising Systems: Methodologies and Applications, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 3464, pp 1-15, 2005, [http://www.cs.kuleuven.be/~tomdw/publications/ (download here)]
- Jochen Fromm, [http://arxiv.org/abs/nlin.AO/0506028 Types and Forms of Emergence] and [http://arxiv.org/abs/nlin.AO/0509049 Ten Questions about Emergence]

External links

Emergence in general:
- [http://llk.media.mit.edu/projects/emergence/ Exploring Emergence]: An introduction to emergence using CA and Conway's Game of Life from the MIT Media Lab
- [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=319102 emergence of property rights]: a game theory model
- [http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2002/02/22/johnson.html An interview with Stephen Johnson]
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Emergent Properties]
- [http://www.cs.kuleuven.be/~tomdw/publications/ Emergence Versus Self-Organisation: Different Concepts but Promising When Combined]: paper on the difference between emergence and self-organization.
- [http://ceh.kitoba.com/mechanism/emergence.html Principles of Emergent Design]
- [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=270593 emergence of law and order]
- [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/046503828X/103-6434527-0113402?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance/ A Different Universe]: book with strong views on emergence by a Noble Laureate Articles from the Robotics Domain:
- [http://www.santafe.edu/~dynlearn/dynlearn/RoMADS/mataric02/ Designing Emergent Behaviors: From Local Interactions to Collective Intelligence ], Maja J. Mataric, From Animals to Animats 2; Meyer, J-A., etal (eds)
- [http://cse.ucdavis.edu/~dynlearn/dynlearn/RoMADS/steels01/index.html Towards a Theory of Emergent Functionality], Luc Steels, From Animals to Animats 1; Meyer, J-A. & Wilson, S. (eds)

Money

Money is any marketable good or token used by a society as a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. Since the needs arise naturally, societies organically create a money object when none exists. In other cases, a central authority creates a money object; this is more frequently the case in modern societies with paper money. The value of money emerges in no small part from its utility as a medium of exchange, however its utility as a medium of exchange depends on it having recognised market value. Hence these two aspects of money are interdependent. Commodity money was the first form of money to emerge. Under a commodity money system, the object used as money has inherent value. It is usually adopted to simplify transactions in a barter economy; thus it functions first as a medium of exchange. It quickly begins functioning as a store of value, since holders of perishable goods can easily convert them into durable money. In modern economies, commodity money has also been used as a unit of account. Gold-backed currency notes are a common form of commodity money. Fiat money is a relatively modern invention. A central authority (government) creates a new money object that has minimal inherent value. The widespread acceptance of the fiat money is most frequently enhanced by the central authority mandating the money's acceptance under penalty of law and demands this money in payment of taxes or tribute. At various times in history government issued promisory notes have later become fiat currencies (US dollar) and fiat currencies have gone on to become a form of commodity currency (Swiss Dinar).

Essential characteristics of money

Money has all of the following three characteristics: 1. It must be a medium of exchange When an object is in demand primarily for its use in exchange -- for its ability to be used in trade to exchange for other things -- then it has this property. This characteristic allows money to be a standard of deferred payment, i.e., a tool for the payment of debt. 2. It must be a unit of account When the value of a good is frequently used to measure or compare the value of other goods or where its value is used to denominate debts then it is functioning as a unit of account. A debt or an IOU can not serve as a unit of account because its value is specified by comparison to some external reference value, some actual unit of account that may be used for settlement. For example, if in some culture people are inclined to measure the worth of things with reference to goats then we would regard goats as the dominant unit of account in that culture. For instance we may say that today a horse is worth 10 goats and a good hut is worth 45 goats. We would also say that an IOU denominated in goats would change value at much the same rate as real goats. 3. It must be a store of value When an object is purchased primarily to store value for future trade then it is being used as a store of value. For example, a sawmill might maintain an inventory of lumber that has market value. Likewise it might keep a cash box that has some currency that holds market value. Both would represent a store of value because through trade they can be reliably converted to other goods at some future date. Most non-perishable goods have this quality. Many goods or tokens have some of the characteristics outlined above. However no good or token is money unless it can satisfy all three criteria.

Credit as money

Credit is often loosely referred to as money. However credit only satisfies items one and three of the above "Essential Characteristics of Money" criteria. Credit completely fails criterion number two. Hence to be strictly accurate credit is a money substitute and not money proper. This distinction between money and credit causes much confusion in discussions of monetary theory. In lay terms, and when convenient in academic discussion, credit and money are frequently used interchangeably. For example bank deposits are generally included in summations of the national broad money supply. However any detailed study of monetary theory needs to recognize the proper distinction between money and credit. The rest of this article frequently uses the term money in the looser sense of the word.

Desirable features of money

To function as money in a modern economy, money should possess a number of features:
- It must have a stable value; a value intrinsic in itself.
- It must be difficult to counterfeit, and the genuine must be easily recognizable.
- It must be easily divisible and transportable; precious metals are divisible & a high value to weight ratio.
- It must be fungible. That is, one unit or piece must be equivalent to another.
- It must be liquid, easily tradable, with a low spread between the prices to buy and sell.

Modern forms of money

When using money anonymously, the most common methods are cash (either coin or banknotes) and stored-value cards. When using money substitutes in such a way as to leave a financial record of the transaction, the most common methods are cheques, debit cards, credit cards, and digital cash.

Money and economics

Money is one of the most central topics studied in economics and forms its most cogent link to finance. The amount of money in an economy affects inflation and interest rates and hence has profound effects. The monetary policy of government aims to manage money, inflation and interest to affect output and employment. A monetary crisis can have very significant economic effects, particularly if it leads to monetary failure and the adoption of a much less efficient barter economy. This happened in Russia (for instance) during the 1990s. Modern economics also faces a difficulty in deciding what exactly 'is' money. See money supply. There have been many historical arguments regarding the combination of money's functions, some arguing that they need more separation and that a single unit is insufficient to deal with them all. These arguments are covered in financial capital which is a more general and inclusive term for all liquid instruments, whether or not they are a uniformly recognized tender.

History of money

See main article History of money Money has developed over the years from conch shells to sophisticated international banking systems. The history of money has generally seen commodity money replaced by more formal systems, as money has been progressively brought under the control of governments.

Private currencies

In many countries, the issue of private paper currencies has been severely restricted by law. commodity money In the United States, the Free Banking Era lasted between 1837 and 1866, during which almost anyone could issue their own paper money. States, municipalities, private banks, railroad and construction companies, stores, restaurants, churches and individuals printed an estimated 8,000 different monies by 1860. If the issuer went bankrupt, closed, left town, or otherwise went out of business the note would be worthless. Such organizations earned the nickname of "wildcat banks" for a reputation of unreliability and that they were often situated in far-off, unpopulated locales that were said to be more apt to wildcats than people. On the other hand, according to Lawrence H. White's article in [http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=2794 FEE] "it turns out that “wildcat” banking is largely a myth. Although stories about crooked banking practices are entertaining—and for that reason have been repeated endlessly by textbooks—modern economic historians have found that there were in fact very few banks that fit any reasonable definition of wildcat bank." The National Bank Act of 1863 ended the "wildcat bank" period. In Australia, the Bank Notes Tax Act of 1910 basically shut down the circulation of private currencies by imposing a prohibitive tax on the practice. Many other nations have similar such policies that eliminate private sector competition. In Scotland and Northern Ireland private sector banks are licensed to print their own paper money by the government. Today there are several privately issued digital currencies in circulation that function as money. Transactions in these currencies represent an annual turnover value in billions of US dollars. Many of these private currencies are backed by older forms of money such as gold (digital gold currencies). Of course, because money is the fruit of power and can be used for wielding or gaining more power, the one who accepts gold as legitimate money gives power to the people who own gold's stocks. It is possible for privately issued money to be backed by any other material, although some people argue about perishable materials. After all, gold, or platinum, or silver, have in some regards less utility than previously (their electrical properties notwithstanding), while currency backed by energy (measured in joules) or by transport (measured in kilogramme
- kilometre/hour) or by food [http://www.economist.com/markets/bigmac/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3503641] is also possible and may be accepted by the people, if legalised. It is important to understand though that, as long as money is above all an agreement to use something as a medium of exchange, its up to the community (or to the minority which holds the power) to decide whether money should be backed by whatever material or should be totally virtual. Though these private, especially digital, monies has had some modest success, governments have established a coercive monopoly on what currency may be used in lending by enacting legal tender laws. One may borrow a private currency but repay the loan with a legal tender that has subsequently devalued against the private alternative, with the lender being required by law to accept it. This large and apparently insurmountable risk to lenders severely limits the proliferation of private money, as the interest rate would have to be exhorbitant to compensate for this tremendous risk premium.

Money supply

Main article: Money supply The money supply is the amount of money available within a specific economy available for purchasing goods or services. The supply is usually considered as four escalating categories M0, M1, M2 and M3. The categories grow in size with M3 representing all forms of money (including credit) and M0 being just base money (coins, bills, and central bank deposits). M0 is also money that can satisfy private banks' reserve requirements. In the United States, the Federal Reserve is responsible for controlling the money supply (monetary policy).

Growing the money supply

Historically money was a metal (gold, silver, etc,) or other object that was difficult to duplicate, but easy to transport and divide. Later it consisted of paper notes, now issued by all modern governments. With the rise of modern industrial capitalism it has gone through several phases including but not limited to: #Bank notes - paper issued by banks as an interest-bearing loan. (These were common in the 19th century but not seen anymore.) #Paper notes, coins with varying amounts of precious metal (usually called legal tender) issued by various governments. There is also a near-money in the form of interest bearing bonds issued by governments with solid credit ratings. #Bank credit through the creation of chequable deposits in the granting of various loans to business, government and individuals. (It is critical that we understand that when a bank makes a loan, that is new money and when a loan is paid off that money is destroyed. Only the interest paid on it remains.) Thus, all debt denominated in dollars -- mortgages, money markets, credit card debt, travelers cheques -- is money. However, the creation of dollar-denominated debt (or any generic obligation) only creates money when a bank (as opposed to a credit card company) is granting the debt. "High powered" money (M0) is created when the elected government spends money into the economy. The money created in the bank loan process is bank money and these two forms of money trade at par one with the other. Banks are limited in the amount of loans they can grant and thus in the amount of bank money (credit) they can create by both the net assets of the bank and by reserve requirements (M0). For most intents and purposes the aggregate of M0 multiplied by the reserve requirement will be an indicator of (but this is somewhat greater than) the aggregate of loans. If additional money is needed in the banking system to allow more loans the Federal Reserve will create money by purchasing Bonds or T-bills with money created from the ether. No matter who sells the bonds the money will end up in the banking system as M0. The Fed could purchase lolly pops if that would accomplish the purpose of expansion better than a purchase of Bonds.

Shrinking the money supply (M3)

Perhaps the most obvious way money can be destroyed is if paper bills are burned or taken out of circulation by the central bank. But, it should be remembered that legal tender usually constitutes less than 4% of the broad money supply. Another way money can be destroyed is when any bank loan is paid off or any government bond or T-Bill is purchased by the private sector. The money value of the contract or bond is destroyed — taken out of circulation. If a bank loan is defaulted upon then the "interest" paid by other borrowers will be employed to cover the default. A very large part of the "interest" paid on bank loans is actually a finance charge employed to cover bad loans. The group of good borrowers pay the loan instead of the original borrower. In cases where the default is huge such as loans to foreign governments Fed intervention has, in the past, rescued the banks. In this instance it would seem that the taxpayers and/or money holders (savers) will pay the debt. The effects on the money supply will be controlled, again, by the level of bond purchase or redemption or the level of T-Bill sales or purchases by the Treasury. Money can be destroyed if savers withdraw funds from a bank, in which case that money can no longer be used for lending. Bank savings are actually a kind of loans — savers loan their money to a bank at a low interest rate or merely in exchange for the benefit of convenience or its security (accepting that they lose a small amount of value to inflation). The bank may use this loan to manage its liabilities (its deposit liabilities created by loans). It must be recalled that the federal reserve banking system is mostly a closed system. A check written on bank A gets deposited in Bank B and a check written on bank B gets deposited in Bank C and a check on bank C gets deposited in bank A. At the end of the day the bankers go have a beer and see who needs to borrow from whom:) On a good day very little borrowing needs to be done because a bank gets as much in new deposits as it does in paid out funds. Even if a bank is short of reserves it can borrow the reserves from another bank at the discount rate. In extreme forms, a bank run or panic may drive a bank into insolvency and, if uninsured, the savings of all its depositors are lost. Such bank failures were a major cause of the tremendous contraction in the money supply that occurred during the Great Depression, particularly in the United States. In that country many banking reforms were subsequently enacted during the New Deal, including the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to guarantee private bank deposits.

External links

- [http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Econ/EconShep.htm Philosophy of Money] by Alla Sheptun
- [http://www.eh.net/ehresources/howmuch/poundq.php How much is that worth today?] - Comparing the purchasing power of money in Britain from 1600 to any other year up to 2002.
- [http://www.metrum.org/measures/heraion.htm The Heraion Standard. The first attempt to create money.]
- [http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100362&org=NSF Shell Beads from South African Cave Show Modern Human Behavior 75,000 Years Ago]
- [http://www.chabad.org/article.asp?AID=69943 Jewish view of money] ko:돈 ja:貨幣 simple:Money

Money illusion

Money illusion refers to the tendency of people to think of currency in nominal, rather than real, terms. The term was coined by Keynes in the early 20th century and Irving Fisher wrote an important book on the subject, Money Illusion, in 1929. The existence of money illusion is disputed by monetary economists who contend that people act rationally (ie think in real prices) with regard to their wea