Characteristics of the Market Essay

a. National market Processing the small specialty foods with a broad product line and sales of $300 million per year which a food brokers represent the company to the retail food chains by the network. This company more focused on ethnic food specialties which including salad dressings, sauces for Italian pasta and condiments such as specialties pickles. b. Two plants produced product One in the Central Valley of California at Fresno and the other in Illinois south of Chicago which they buy the ingredients from other foods suppliers to avoid the peak seasonal characteristics encountered by food packers. The company production has take place in large quantities to maintain low production costs and assure consistent product quality. c. Generally order on small quantity Company has ordered from supplier amounting to five to six cases per order only or about 150 to 200 pounds at a time. d. Poor delivery However, customers have commented that the company have a poor delivery services because of many of ingredients are shipped over long distances and it has depending on the season. e. Two major department management This is include the Marketing and Sales and also has Production department and several staff units for personnel, purchasing and finance. Both of departments are responsible for marketing the product lines such promotion, product inventory at the public warehouses, providing sales support and also merchandising. There is also a national sales manager who responsibility for maintaining contact with food brokers, coordinating public warehouses and arrange for delivery 1) Case Summary (What’s the issue?) Horizon Foods Corporation (hereafter â€Å"Horizon†) is a still-growing, nationwide foods organization that is widely known for its high quality products. With $300 million sales each year, the firm has been relatively successful so far, gaining good reputation and arousing much interest of the public through its brokers and local retailers. However, as the company prospers and customers demand more, Horizon foresees a coming crisis. The distribution issue, which the company has faced for a while, is now causing stock-outs, and increasing competition in the market is threatening the company’s market share. Authorities involved fail to scrutinize the issue and its cause, and they are eager to blame each other for the problems. The division of labor between two major departments – Marketing and Sales, and Production – seems to need a complete rearrangement for a more efficient process. Horizon should also analyze its current brand positioning in the market and rework its strategies if needed. 2) Q1. What are the characteristics of the market served by the Horizon Foods Corporation? Horizon is a specialty foods processor. It has served a national market composed of food brokers who represent retail store chains. The food brokers make orders to Horizon. Generally, the orders are small. The production is done in two different plants thanks to the ingredients from some food suppliers. The plants are located in agricultural areas to reduce the cost of transportation. Moreover, Horizon produces in large quantities, and the food produced is very good in quality. The production is dispatched to several public warehouses. Then, these warehouses use contract carriers to deliver the products to the customers. Because of the small orders, the transportation cost to retail stores can be high. The market is very competitive since many of Horizon’s food competitors also offer a complete production line

Tradition Hinders Progress Essays

Tradition Hinders Progress Essays Tradition Hinders Progress Paper Tradition Hinders Progress Paper Tradition is the enemy of progress Weather its religious traditions preventing the study of the dead for better understanding of the living to the churches traditions stopping the progress into the realization that the Earth is not the center of the universe or to take something recent Umbilical cord debates over weather to use them for life saving stem cell research. Tradition is the common enemy among Progress into the future people want the results of science we live our lives due to science but often many of our general populous does not agree with the means we use to get the radical discoveries of science. I can see how traditions can hinder progress:if you subscribe to past ideals it can deter from advancement. If we are going to look back at what Mary and John did in the past to solve a problem every time, then how are we going to move forward? What am saying is that look back once or twice get the formula then learn and apply that knowledge, improve on it then build but we keep going back and back and back and back!! It is in fact the enemy for progress. I think that traditions do prevent progess. The best example of this can be seen rulal areas where knowledge is just passed over from one generation to another and children are not allowed to study more they are just used as a labour. Another example is of early marriage of girls who are married at an age of 10 or 11 which ruin their lives. in the end i would like to conclude that these tradions r blocking our way to new things. First, what is tradition? And also what is progress? Tradition is a natural enemy to progress because progress is the antithesis to tradition. The words are antonyms. However, if you mean, for example, the belief in God being an obstacle to progress, or anything along that line, that is beyond a question of tradition and progress. I hope we are speaking just of scientific inquiry. Otherwise, this topic doesnt work well as an argument because the natural and supernatural are different, and thus cannot be easily compared. in many ways it is. hings like religion, and marriage stand in the way. religion is telling people how to think and what to do rather than have people think for themselves and adjust to the times and environment appropriately. yes tradition is an obstacle to progress. TRADITIONS ARE UNWRITTEN BELIEFS AND CUSTOMS THAT ARE HANDED DOWN FROM GENERATIONS TO GENERATIONS .. PROGRESS MEANS TO ADVANCE FROM ONE STAGE TO ANOTHER WE HAVE NEVER BEEN DEVELOPED FROM OUR ANCESTORS RATHER WE ARE HEADING TOWARDS DESTRUCTION BY BREAKING T HE TRADITIONAL VALUES. TRADITION INVOKES THE PRINCIPLE THAT OLD WAYS OF DOING THINGS ARE MORE SAFER, MORE RELIABLE AND HENCE BETTER THAN THE NEW ONES , WHICH ARE BASED ON UNTESTED WAYS . IN SHORT OLD IS GOLD . IN TRADITION OLD PRACTICES HAVE VALUES SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY ARE OLD OR AT LEAST THEY GIVES US A SENSE OF CONTINUITY WITH THE PAST . IN CONTRAST MODERN CONCEPT OF PROGRESS DISCARDS TRADITION AS OBSOLETE AND DISPROVEN . THE MODERN CONCEPT SAYS IF IF THE OLDER TRADITIONAL IDEAS ARE SUPPOSEDLY THE BETTER ONES THEN THE MODERN TECHNOLOGICAL IDEAS ARE EVEN SUPERRIOR think that traditions are just what we believe in blindly. take an example of superstitions we say if we sneeze once then it is a bad omen but if we sneeze twice it becomes our lucky charm. how many of us in this busy life pay attention n count their sneezes. we have often beliefs that if we wear this ring our future will be fruitful and also we see many now if that would be the case then there would be no need to study well wear a ring and not s tudy hard and get a gud result. hat we need is good judging of things taking place in our society. we say we come across a badluck when a black cat cuts our way. if it is so then if a student is studious n he is going to give interview n he is well deserved but when he is on his way a cat cuts off his path it means no need to go to give interview u r failed. we should change our mentality as we emerge into new time being or else well lag behind still following old and useless customs which have no value and no profit in this time.

Marketing Assignment Sample

Marketing Assignment Sample Marketing Assignment Sample A marketing assignment is an exercise which is widely used in the various educational programs. Simulating a marketing plan of an imaginary company gives students the opportunity to test their skills in practice with no real risk of loss. The marketing assignment sample provides an example of a marketing plan of an imaginary logistic company: it fully describes the structure of the enterprise and the basic principles of its functioning. Goals Creating freight forwarding company with the formation of the regional offices (branches, separate subdivisions) of the cargo delivery; Organization of the complex service for the small-lot shipments of the potential customers, including freight forwarding, insurance, warehousing, and door-to-door delivery; Increasing the market share of freight forwarding and warehousing services. Departments The sales department is responsible for customer service, acceptance of applications and documents on transportation, registration of waybills, the regional carriers, and attraction of the new customers. The legal department is working on the claims, interaction with the regional representatives on legal issues as well as the preparation and management of contracts both with the clients and the transport companies. Regional development department works with the opening of the new branches, the search for warehouses, offices and regional carriers, the regional cargo marketing research, and the advertising campaigns. Freight forwarding department is responsible for rolling stock and ensuring the implementation of applications for the delivery of cargo. The maintenance of its own vehicle park, including the passage of inspection and obtaining permits, also belongs to its expertise. The provision of the additional services for the carriage of goods by other types of transport (railways, planes, container transportation) as well as the organization and control of the international expedition of goods are also common here. Planning Budget The beginning of the procedure of formation of the budget is the notification sent by email to all heads of the financial responsibility centers for 5 days prior to the deadline for the submission of the budget requests. After that, the responsibility center managers present their budget requests within the monthly budget not later than on the 10th day of the month preceding the beginning of the budget period. For the effective control over the expenditure of cash, it is needed to introduce the additional operational planning, which should be complementary to the budget. Operational financial planning includes the preparation and execution of the payment schedule, the cash plan, and the credit plan. Setting the Price The value of services in the eyes of the customers can significantly vary. Hence, the lack of the account in the pricing leads to the fact that a considerable amount of money remains in someone else’s pocket. It is not always easy to adapt to the scale of price fluctuations in the value of the buyer but it is the only way to prevent the failure of missing the major opportunities for profit. It is also necessary to consider the interests of the loyal customers. For it, it is proposed to introduce a discount card system. The essence of the introduction of a discount card is supposed to ensure that clients are provided with continuous constant or cumulative discount rates in all areas of the company, which is expressed in the percentage of the fare or the specific numerical terms. Start When choosing a freight forwarding company, which is engaged in cargo transporting, the customer is always focused on the urgency of the delivery as well as the price-quality ratio. This is one of the most important criteria by which the client makes his or her choice. Even if the company offers the low price to the customer but does not comply with the stated schedule for shipping, the customer goes to the company with the higher prices but with a regular frequency of shipments projected in the terms of delivery. Many new companies make this mistake that leads to their bankruptcy at the only beginning of the working period. Therefore, to avoid such mistakes, it is important to show the projected shipments frequency to the client that will be available to view online at any time of a day. Likewise, to reach the proper speed of delivery and quality at the opening of the company, it is necessary to use the services of the other logistic companies. Based on this scheme, the initial operations would give no profit or even give some loss. In any case, such step is inevitable, as without it, the development of freight forwarding activity would be impossible. At you can get a high-quality custom assignment on any Marketing topic you need.

The Human Rights Act and life sentence prisoners Essay

The Human Rights Act and life sentence prisoners - Essay Example There was a powerful presumption against the retrospective application of the Act, and in relation to transactions that had taken place prior to the coming into force of the Act; there could be no question of interpretation under s 3 and accordingly no power to grant a declaration under s 4. 1 (Human Rights, Article 7) Three decisions of the House can be cited to illustrate the strength of the interpretative obligation under section 3(1). The first is R v A (No. 2) [2002] 1 AC 45 which concerned the so-called rape shield legislation. The problem was the blanket exclusion of prior sexual history between the complainant and an accused in section 41(1) of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999, subject to narrow specific categories in the remainder of section 41. In subsequent decisions, and in academic literature, there has been discussion about differences of emphasis in the various opinions in A. What has been largely overlooked is the unanimous conclusion of the House. The House unanimously agreed on an interpretation under section 3 which would ensure that section 41 would be compatible with the ECHR. The formulation was by agreement set out in paragraph 46 of Lord Steyn's opinion in that case as follows: "The effect of the decision today is that ... o the importance of seeking to protect the complainant from indignity and from humiliating questions, the test of admissibility is whether the evidence (and questioning in relation to it) is nevertheless so relevant to the issue of consent that to exclude it would endanger the fairness of the trial under article 6 of the Convention. If this test is satisfied the evidence should not be excluded." (Lord Steyn, 2006a) Case: Re S Care plan 2002 UKHL 10 House of Lords and Starred Care Plans Re S (Minors) 3 The House of Lords did not uphold the Court of Appeals creation of starred care plans, a bold attempt to devise a way for care plans which were not being implemented coming back to court; instead they stressed the need for the government to urgently review this - power of section 3 HRA limited, court must be mindful of outer limit. Interpretation up to courts but enactment and amendment matter for Parliament - starred milestones departed substantially from Parliamentary intentions so far as it is possible to do so, primary legislation must be read and given effect in a way which is compatible with convention rights . (Child adoption) Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead 4 The Torbay case: The appeals concern four children, two in the Torbay case and two in the Bedfordshire case. The cases are factually unrelated. In the Torbay case the mother had three children: P, who is a boy born in August 1987, M, a boy born in January 1991, and J, a girl born in January 1992. The children are now 14, 11 and 10 years old. The appeal concerns the two younger children. The father of P, the eldest child, played no part in these proceedings. The mother met the father of M and J in 1987. They started to cohabit in 1989. Serious problems emerged in May 1999 when P ran away from home and

Financial planning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Financial planning - Essay Example The purchase of own residence would require one time down payment for the property. The salaries and the income of the household are mostly spent in the expenses for livelihood and therefore the source of funds is an issue for the couple to purchase the property. The couple is also worried about Vincent’s health as he is prone to heart attack as a hereditary symptom for which the family needs idle funds during emergency. The third on the priority list is to plan for a holiday tour in Europe which is desired by the client. Educational Planning Vincent and Linda are concerned about the high school education of their child Julie who is about 3 years old at present. The couple want to save for their child’s education in about 9 years time for which they wanted to start saving. The issues related to the education planning of their child is that Vincent may lose his job of an accountant due to strategic take-over of his employer by another bigger player in the industry. Also Vincent and Linda are not expecting any further increase in their salaries in the recent years. Thus the financial constraints in financing their child’s education could be serious issue for Vincent and Linda. Investment planning The investment planning of Linda is the next issue that is being faced. While Linda and Vincent are concerned about streamlining her investments, they also have the obligation to meet their monthly instalments payments of various liabilities. This requires sorting out of Linda’s superannuation funds which is currently distributed into three different schemes into one scheme so that the payments and receipts could be properly tracked. Risk Management Vincent and Linda should take into account the risk of repayment of new credit card debt that they have acquired recently. This requires a payment of $5000 on a monthly basis while the actual surplus of the family is $3000 after meeting all expenditures. Thus the client faces the issue of defaultin g on the payment of credit card debt. Financial planner’s assistance to the client The various ways in which the client could be assisted through financial planning in order to address the identified needs are given as follows. Assistance: Home and Health needs In order to address the first three needs against which specific issues have been identified as above, the client should be advised to undertake loans from the banks as well as undertake investment strategies to increase their wealth in order to meet the needs within a period of five years. In order to buy the home, the client could be advised to undertake a loan from the bank for purchase of property. By showing their employment proofs, the client would be able to get the loans. The savings of rental payments which were happening before could be used to accumulate funds for meeting medical emergencies like heart attacks. The accumulated savings could also be used to finance holiday plans as per the priority of the cli ent (Cordell, 1999, p.57). Assistance: Educational needs The educational need of their child is ranked fourth in the priority list of Vincent and Linda’

Freud and Neuroses Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Freud and Neuroses - Essay Example According to psychodynamic theory, neurosis, are the manifestations of one's attempts to ignore unconscious conflicts (Ricker 2006). Prior to Freud doctors and analysts believed that neuroses - metal disorders like depression, excessive anxiety were due to heredity. However, detailed investigations led Freud to believe that it was the malfunction of sexual instincts of childhood or adulthood that was at the bottom of neuroses, "there are grounds for regarding the neurosis as an acquired one, careful enquiry directed to that end reveals that a set of noxae and influences from sexual life are the operative aetiological factors" (Standard Edition, 1905 3: 99). Though some causes like emotional imbalances, physical tiredness, and stressful mishaps, other acute illnesses were more prominent, they were only secondary reasons for neurosis. According to Fine (1962) "Freud's thought in the 1890's centers around one major clinical observation: Neurosis involves a defense against unbearable ide as." (p.12) Using the concept of inner conflict, which is central to all psychoanalysis, Freud observed two distinct processes, the dominant one that propelled towards immediate release, and the other secondary one that tried to keep things under check and control; these he later named as 'ego and id' (Fine, 1962:13). Freud states that, "The tension between the harsh super-ego and the ego that is subjected to it, is called by us the sense of guilt; it expresses itself as a need for punishment" (Civilization and Its Discontents, 1962: 70). Fine observes the accuracy of Freud's analyses as "the primary and secondary processes, the main trend and the compromise trend of the nervous system, the two biological rules of attention and defense, the indications of quality, reality, and thought, the state of the psycho-sexual group, the sexual determination of repression, and, finally, the factors determining consciousness as a perceptual function" (Fine, 1962:10). The essay titled "Sexual Aberrations" in the three essays that explicate Freud's The Theory of Sexuality (1905) states that "the tension" created by the conflict, was "to be relieved the libido needs an object" and the object may be anything, including "male and female genitals" (Fordham, 1992:11-12). The ego is introduced through the introduction of an inner conflict - which sets in motion the 'anxiety'. In neurotics however, when the vision of the object is lost, it is perceived as the loss of the object itself, the imaginary sense of loss is thus, slightly more exaggerated. Which loss becomes 'unbearable'; ego is able to keep alive this perceived loss in short, he explored the conflict as two sides with the defense idea on one side and the 'unbearable' idea on the other. And from his investigations he understood that the 'unbearable' idea mostly involved the past of the neurotic patient, rather than a happening of the present (Fine, 1962:10). Repression and Hysteria Fordham observes that, "Freud had extensive evidence from the psychoanalysis of the neuroses, especially hysteria and the obsessional neuroses, in which he discovered the so-called perversions that had become repressed." (1998:12). Furthermore, for Freud, the concept of "repression," was very important to his

Can People Choose their Identity?

Can People Choose their Identity? Can People Choose their Identity? Discuss in Relation to the Media This question raises two issues that are currently at the forefront of political and social debate – namely those of publicly displaying a belonging to a particular culture or society, and the ideological notion of choice. In addressing the question of choosing our cultural identity we have to establish what we understand by the term ‘cultural identity’ and, secondly, if we (as individuals) are able to freely choose an identity. For the purpose of this discussion I will attempt to unpack what is meant by the catch-all term ‘cultural identity; and also if it is something that can be ascribed to a person or if, indeed, a cultural identity is indelibly inscribed. Of course the idea that an individual is born to a certain set of social and cultural values has not been taken seriously since the advent of cognitive and behavioural theories of human socialisation. In fact use to the term national identity had been appropriated to cover these reductive descriptions. The debate surrounding cultural identity is often conflated with that of the construction of national identity, and in some cases a cultural identity comes from an association with a specific national identity, for example Irishness with a rigid set of conventions that determine the individual as different from being English, or even British. The words culture and nation can have wide ranging definitions depending on the context in which they are used. They are complex terms in their own right, and Raymond Williams has written a definition of what culture is, he states ‘the complexity, †¦, is not finally in the word but in the problems which its variations of use significantly indicate’ (Williams 1976:92). In order to set the terms of reference for this discussion a cultural identity is more fluid than a national identity. Anderson has stated in his definition of a nation, ‘it [a nation] is an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign’ (Anderson 1991:6). The nation state is imagined by its population as it is not possible for individuals to know all the members of that state, it therefore only exists as an imaginary construct within the individual. The human individual is a complex mixture of social and behavioural experiences and these factors are often obtained through socialisation within the family; social influences gained through friends and school; gender; and influence from various forms of mass media. First and foremost it is familial and social influences that determine our sense of identity. It is through the primary socialisation from our parents that a person develops a sense of the self and with it a consciousness of who and what they are. An individual begins to position her/himself in relation to other people who they know and have contact with. This environment is similar to that observed by Bourdieu who used the term ‘habitus’. He wrote ‘the habitus is both the generative principle of objectively classifiable judgements and the,system of classification†¦of these practices’ (Bourdieu 1984:170). This definition returns to the relationship between class and capital in the construction of a sense of the self, and the spaces occupied by that individual. The habitus can describe a place or space that a person feels comfortable inhabiting on a regular basis. For instance as a student I feel that my habitus is the university. This is a place where I feel that I belong to a wider community (of students) who have common interests and goals in their lives. The habitus may also be a location in which social conformity is necessary in order to be a part of that community. I am thinking here of dressing and talking in a certain way, acting or behaving. The habitus applies equally to gang culture. These are sub-cultures that have their own hierarchies and rules that must be followed in order for a member to remain a part of it. The fact that many of these rules are dysfunctional, for example initiation into that gang through violent or anti-social behaviour, is irrelevant. Bike gangs such as Hells Angels display these rigid rules whereby the identity of a member is determined by the wearing of group’s name along with the Hells Angels logo. Such has been the spread of this culture it is globally recognised as indicative of a particular cultural identity enjoyed by its members. This type of culture is typified by an association with certain objects, and in the case of Hells Angels motorcycles are the outward unifying signifiers. Members of this sub-culture have chosen this as their cultural identity – their machines, clothes, tattoos define who they are. And as with many sub-cultures membership is an act of public opposi tion to the dominant culture from which they emerged. Gang culture provides us with some easy to spot visual indicators of belonging to a particular culture. Other forms of cultural identity can be harder to unravel without providing a reductive account of that culture, for instance one based on race or religion. The most important factor that affects cultural identity is the mass media (film and television). The visual media have become an intrinsic part of the way we live our lives – mainly through the consumption of goods and services. Tomlinson (1989) has referred to a diachronic and synchronic way in which culture has developed over time. The former refers to a linear, historical form of evolution whereby one thing follows another. However in the contemporary image saturated world synchronic cultural development has taken place. Images are used in order to make meaning. One image relates to another but not necessarily in a linear and consequential manner. Styles can then be forged that are based on samples from other styles, resulting in meaning being derived from pure simulacra (Baudrillard 1982). This notion of the image breaks the linkage between sign and signifier and consequently changes the way in which we make meaning from images. The argument states that in a world dominated by signifiers (images) the concept of truth becomes meaningless as there is no such thing as a single truth or reality, a person can take what they want from images and that becomes a truth personal to the individual. In this way rap culture has taken this direction. It has taken other forms of representation in popular culture (such as soul music, rapping, reggae/dance hall) and produced something that has been socially radical for African Americans but has now become a global cultural identity for many people; an identity disseminated through television and film. In some ways the music has been appropriated by social groups to provide a cement for their identity. This has been evidenced by the use of jewellery, clothing, and speech. However although this is more of a general presence in social settings it is not true to say that rap is a cultural identity – it forms a part in the construction of a cultural identity, an identity that is also in opposition to mainstream white, male dominated culture. But can a white, Anglo-Saxon person be a part of this identity? Performers have tried, for example Vanilla Ice and Eminem, but they are active in the production and consumption of a good to be bought and sold. It is not the culture of rap, but the image (or rather the sound) that is being sold. The distinction between a cultural identity and a marketable product becomes strained at this point. The role of television and film in promoting products (music, clothes, cosmetics) and something that has a cultural resonance to an audience reduces an identity to a mere commodity. Gender roles are also affected by the adoption of certain forms of cultural identity. The rap/hip-hop culture has been criticised for the way in which women are portrayed. In quite vulgar ways women are portrayed as chattels and appendages to be worn like jewellery. This can be seen in music videos, lyrics in songs, and the language used by people who adopt this kind of life-style. But this is not only about representation, this kind of behaviour from women, as sex objects, is expected and it is a role that some women are expected to play out. So if females are to be a part of this identity they have to conform to a set of conventions that are regressive in their treatment as individuals and further compounds their status as secondary to men. In areas where particular cultural activities are dominant, then there is not necessarily the option of choice. If one lives in that community then one must behave in the way expected or be shunned by your contemporaries. The mass media are implicit in a process of ‘cultural imperialism’ (Tomlinson 1989) and promoting forms of street culture is a further extension of this process. Tomlinson put forward the argument that the global proliferation of television through satellite broadcasting and the selling of programme output at below cost has resulted in a homogenisation of culture throughout the world. Television can be accessed anywhere in the world and the social and moral values contained within this programming are spread to areas of the world where it previously did not have any influence. Not only does cultural imperialism pose a threat to indigenous cultures but selling programming cheaply makes it difficult for national broadcasters to make their own material, produced and performed by local people. The idea, then, of choosing your cultural identity is obscured by the influence of international mass media through the promotion of music, clothes, video games, and popular cultural f orms like film. Sport is one example of how cultural identity can be promoted and displayed in public, but it too raises some anomalies. During the recent cricket matches between England and Pakistan a reporter from BBC Radio 4 interviewed a group of British Asians and asked them who they were supporting. All of them supported Pakistan in the cricket, but then qualified it by saying they would support the England football team. Maybe this kind of poll shows more of people wishing to support favourites than any kind of partisan interest. However it does reveal that children of people from other countries who were born and educated in their adopted country show some ambivalence towards so called cultural identity. This identity can then be forged through the influence of mass media. In the time since Tomlinson wrote about cultural imperialism the volume and choice of television output has risen. There are many more niche channels catering for specific interests; international channels can be received such as those on the Asian Star satellite network. Access to this variety of material gives opportunity to sample images from different parts of the world, and children who have never left their adopted country experience sights and language vicariously and not just from their parents. In a sense there is some element of choice in selecting a cultural identity, but that is also contingent upon one’s own social and ethnic origins. However the definitions of the terms culture and nation dictate the complexity of the subsequent debate. The sociological study performed by Bourdieu (1984) comes closest within the limitations of this discussion. Cultural identity can also be seen as a particular life-style, one that is fuelled by the influences of the mass media, but also one that is influenced by social class, ethnicity, and the interests of capital. Indeed there are elements of choice to be made within particular life-styles but cultural identity cannot be selected and commodified as if it exists in a catalogue. Bibliography Adorno, Theodor.W (1972), The Culture Industry: Enlightenment As Mass Deception, in The Dialectic of Enlightenment (U.K: Herder and Herder). Anderson, Benedict (1991) Imagined Communities (London: Verso) Baudrillard, Jean (1983), Simulations, translated by Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman (New York: Semiotext (e)). Bourdieu, Pierre (1984) Distinction – social critique of the judgement of taste (London: Routledge) Tomlinson, John (1991) Cultural Imperialism (London: Pinter) Williams, Raymond (1976) Keywords (London: Fontana Press) American Civil War: Effects Of Industrialization American Civil War: Effects Of Industrialization The American Civil War is widely regarded as the first great war of the industrial age. The impact of industrialization is most obviously seen in the introduction of new types of weapons, particularly at sea: the first battle between ironclads; the first ship sunk by a submarine; the use of mines (then called torpedoes). Except for the ironclads, however, these maritime innovations were too primitive or experimental to have much impact on the outcome. The impact of industrialization upon the Civil War, it has been argued, was far more crucial on the logistic and strategic levels than in weapons deployed on the field of battle. Put in brief, the Civil War has been widely understood as a war between an industrial powerthe Northand a largely pre-industrial society, that of the South. The contrast in their industrial capabilities showed most directly in the scale and conditions of their respective railroad networks. We are interested in two aspects of this familiar analysis. First, was it true? Second, and more subtly, to what degree were contemporaries aware of it? To the first point we must return at the end of this essay; we will only pause here to note that the Unions industrial superiority has become, along with the Confederacys structural internal weaknesses, the standard explanation for the outcome of the war. The second question is an interesting and important one in its own right; moreover, it bears upon the first. We have become accustomed to what may broadly be called an economic interpretation of war, and it is a modern commonplace that an industrial power has an overwhelming military advantage over a nonindustrial society. The more industrialized power can call upon both superior technology (e.g., advanced jet fighters) and upon a much greater and more reliable supply of materiel of all sorts. However, in the mid-nineteenth century, industrialization and modern technology were too new to have yet made a deep psychological impact. The British army, for example, issued until 1840 a little-modified version of the Brown Bess musket that had first been introduced before 1700. Until about the same time, Britannia ruled the waves with ships that were essentially only refined versions of those that defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588. Long before the industrial revolution, Western armies were routinely defeating non-Western opponents; the did so not through superior weapons or resources, but by an exceptionally formidible military tradition, ultimately perhaps the heritage of Rome. The Civil War, however, pitted two sides that shared the Western military heritage, but differed greatly in their industrial capacity. Robert E. Lee was most certainly not outclassed by any Union general in his understanding of the principles of modern (by 1860 standards) warfare. The generals of the two sides had learned their trade side by side, at West Point, in Indian wars, and in the Mexican War. In their understanding of the battle field arts there was no significant difference between the two sidessave, perhaps, that Southern generals were on the whole better at it. In Lee, the Confederacy had from the outset a field commander and strategist of the first class; Lincolns struggle to find an adequate field commander is famous. The South was, moreover, the most martial part of the United States (itself a cause of its advantage in generals). In fighting qualities, Confederate soldiers of every rank were certainly the equal of their Union counterparts, yet in the end the South lost. We argue that it lost largely because of the Unions industrial superiority, but to what degree was anyone, on either side, aware of this fact? Moreover, if the leaders (and people) of one or the other, or both, of the warring sides were not fully aware of these factors, to what degree could they make use of them? Let us begin the industrial comparison with the industry and technology that had the most direct impact, not on the battlefield but behind it. The North had a very much more extensive rail network, with not quite two and a half times as much rail mileage as the South. The Union could employ this network to move troops and materials to where they were needed; moreover, it had the basic industrial capacity to sustain and enlarge its rail network under the stress of war. In contrast, the railroad network of the South, limited to begin with, could not sustain itself in the face of either destruction at the hands of Union raiders, ormore important in the long runthe daily wear and tear of wartime operation. By the later years of the war, the Souths railroads were essentially useless, while the North was able to extend its railheads at need to meet the requirements of its forces. Even before the Souths railroads were worn down, this difference of degree was sufficient to be also a difference of kind; the Norths rail system was a true network, offering multiple routes between any given destinations. This both increased effective capacity, since troops and supplies could be sent along two or more routes, but also allowed the system to function even if a particular link were cut, by accident, a Confederate raid, or even a major Confederate advance. In contrast, the Souths railroads were more isolated; if a line was lost, there often was no other that could be used. Now, the Civil War was not the only major war of its era in which industrial powers were ranged on one or both sides. The decade and a half bracketing the Civil War saw a series of European wars, from the Crimean War to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Although the first of these saw the introduction of ironclads for shore bombardment, it was essentially a pre-industrial war. By contrast, the War of 1870 was thoroughly industrial: both sides deployed new types of long-range battlefield weapons, while the Prussians won their decisive victory largely through their use of their railroads for mobilization and troop deployment. This use of railroads was an innovation by the Prussian General Staff, and was far more systematic than any use of railroads during the Civil War. Moreover, there is no reason to think that the Prussian planners were inspired by the Civil War railroad experience, or even that they were particularly aware of it. European military thinkers, indeed, tended in general to ignore the Civil War. It has been suggested that they did so to their great cost; the Civil War foreshadowed the First World War in that it showed what might happen in the industrial age if neither side in a war succeeded in delivering a swift knockout blow Therein lay the difference between the experience of railroads in warfare during the Civil War and during the War of 1870. No one on either side in the Civil War had neatly drawn-up timetables of the Prussian sort; in the nature of the case they could not. The use of railroads in the Civil War was discovered by improvization and experience. As we will see, the readiness to improvise and learn from experience was perhaps the subtlest, but mist profound, advantage that the Unions commanders had over their Confederate counterparts. The duration of the Civil War also expanded the strategic scope of railroads. In the War of 1870, the Prussian railroads had essentially done their work by the time the major military encounters began. In the Civil War, generals on both side found occasion to employ railroads in strategic movement. Here the advantage lay with the Confederacy, simply because it operated along interior lines; as early as the Shiloh campaign of 1862, they were able to move forces over hundreds of miles in order to concentrate them against Grant. Returning for now to the purely material aspect of industrialization, behind railroads lay a difference in overall industrial capacity. This industrial capacity not only underlay the sustenance of the rail network itself, but determined the degree to which supplies of all sorts, from artillery pieces to provisions to boots, could be provided. Items that sound trivial to the modern civilian were crucial to the soldier in the field; in one letter, a Confederate army nurse begs desperately for shoes, and her brothers in the ranks must have felt the lack even more urgently. At the most fundamental level of all, industrial capacity determined the degree to which manpower could be released for military service. At the beginning of the Civil War, the North was already a relatively urban society, in which a minority of the population (primarily the farmers of the West) were able to provide the necessities of life to the rest. A great deal of manpower could therefore be mobilized, year-round, without cutting critically into the Norths ability to survive. In contrast, the South was an agrarian society. It is true that much of the Souths prewar agriculture was cash-cropping, not subsistance, but this did not alter the fundamental issue. Once the Souths cash-crop market was denied it, it was thrown back upon its own resources to feed itself, and a substantial fraction of the healthy male population was required, at least at some times of the year, to be available to work the land. Desertions, particularly around harvest and planting times, were a perennial problem for the South. Above all, the industrial capacity of the North allowed the Union to put a much larger army in the field, ultimately tw ice the size of the Confederate army, approximately 600,000 as against 300,000. Finally, in speaking of the Souths wartime economic crisis, we are brought around in a sense to our starting pointthe maritime dimension of the war. The wars naval innovations were, in and of themselves, inconsequential. Had neither side had ironclads, or had there been no experiments with mines, torpedoes, or submarines, the outcome would not have been significantly different. The one exception is only partial, because it applies to a technology that was no longer innovative by 1861: steam propulsion. On the open sea, even steam changed nothing fundamentally; the Union could have blockade the South as well with sailing frigates as it did with steamers; the British had done so quite effectively during the War of 1812. On the Mississippi and other rivers, however, the situation was different. Sailing ships cannot operate effectively in the confined and shallow waters of a river, while oared galley gunboats are limited in size, and therefore the number and power of guns they can carry. They are in any case very costly in manpower, and cannot row upstream save on a very slow-flowing river. The Unions river operations, which eventually succeeded in cutting the Confederacy in two, were therefore distinctly a feature of the steam age. Moreover, on the rivers, as everywhere else, the Norths industrial might showed to effect. The South might have lacked a significant oceangoing merchant marine or blue-water shipbuilding capacity, but river steamers had long been a major feature of Southern life. Here, if anywhere, the South might have been able to compete on equal terms. But the North had the capacity to build and man large numbers of armed river steamers, including ironclads and tinclads. In the event, the South lost control of the Mississippi well before its armies on either bank were defeated, but once it lost the river, those armies were cut off and could no longer support one another. But we must now return to seapower, as opposed to river power, and thus to perhaps the most fundamental of all the consequences of the Norths industrial superiority. The industrial North had the shipbuilding capacity (and, perhaps equally important, the maritime community) to establish and maintain dominance at sea. The Union blockade could be run, but it could not be broken, so the South was never able to re-open the vital trade link by which it might have been able to export its cotton and thereby purchase and import munitions and other sinews of war. For the ordinary Southernereven for a Confederate generalthe economic strangulation of the South did not appear in a strategic light, but simply as a difficult fact of life. Inflation and shortages eventually rendered Confederate money more or less worthless, but in the memory of Confederate General Basil Duke, the money itself became almost irrelevant, having only a symbolic meaning. The South was thrown back effectively on a subsist ance economy, and there is a heroic quality in the ability of the Confederacy to supply its armies at all, even if badly. The fact of the blockade, and the Souths inability to break it by a decisive victory at sea, had a more more immediate military impact, however, than that of the eventual threat of starvation. It forced upon the South a fundamental inequality of objectives on the battlefield. Other things being equal, the Confederacy was doomed to be sooner or later strangled by the blockade. The only way it could escape this fate was by winning decisively on the field of battle. It had either to smash the Union armies so thoroughly that the North lay open to invasion, or at the least deal so crushing a blow that the Norths population lost the will to fight. In fact, thanks to its excellent generals, the Confederacy came close to doing so, but never quite close enough. In contrast, the Union had only to hold on, and avoid the defeat or demoralization that the Confederate generals sought so desperately to inflict. Its ultimate strategic victory was in effect certain, if only it could avoid defeat in the meantime. On occasions it barely did so, but the point remains that the fundamental objectives of the two sides were not equivalent, but rather complementary, and in a way that favored the North. The Confederacy had to win its battles. The Union had only to avoid losing them. Lee could not afford to go on winning and retreating, whereas Grant could afford to go on losing and advancing. We may now turn back to the matter of perception. Confederate generals, as noted earlier, were on the whole superior to their Union counterparts; this is one of the most familiar facts of the war, and has entered deeply into what may be called the legend of the war, particularly on the Southern side. Had Lincoln and Jefferson Davis begun the war with one anothers generals, we may suspect that it would have been ended very much earlier. But there is some evidence that many Southern commanders had a persistant blind spot in understanding that one aspect of industrializationrailroadsthat impinged directly upon their military tasks. Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston, for example, was distrustful if not scornful of the new technology of mechanized rail transport. He eventually gained some awareness of how railroads could be used in the movement of troops and material, but he was slow to do so. This blind spot was not universal, as the Shiloh concentration showed, but it may have been characteristic. The martial culture of the South was broadly backward-looking. To many Southerners, the railroad may have appeared not exactly as a Yankee innovation, but as part of that alien, urban, smokestack culture, foreign to their experience and values. Railroads hardly appeared in the Union soldiers vision either, however; Harvey Reid, who had the advantage of being a headquarters staffer with Shermans army, mentions railroads only in the context of the destruction of railroad facilities at Atlanta. This might well be a consequence simply of the of the fact that the Union forces were on the offensive; in the railroad age, unless enemy railroads were captured intactand the enemy was seldom so carelessthe railheads were left behind as soon as an army began to advance. In general, the industrial inequality of the two sides in the Civil War seems to have been little-recognized by contemporaries, at least in the general and conceptual sense. The importance of railroads was acknowledged, at least in a negative sense; destruction of enemy railroads was always a prime goal of raiders on both sides. But of the broader industrial disparity we find little acknowledgement. From the perspective of both sides, this is perhaps inevitable. Considering the Northern view first, the advantages of their superior capacity was something they probably took for granted. Soldiers do not write home to their wives to delight in the fact that ammunition, food, and shoes are available. So long as they remain available, they are largely taken for granted. More generally, if at the outset of the war many Northerners had the perception that their industrial superiority would assure victory, they were quickly disabused of it by the early and continued successes of Confederate armies. In the case of the South, something of a mirror image applies. If Southerners at the start of the war had held the perception that the Unions superior industrial base ensured its ultimate victory, they would scarcely have succeeded from the Union and marched to war with the confidence that they did. And, again, their victories long gave them reason to think they might prevail. As the effects of the disparity gradually made themselves felt, they appeared in the form of perennial shortages; a generals remark on high prices and the worthlessness of money, a nurses plea for shoes. On the ground, the fact was that Confederate armies fought well, and with determination, almost to the very end. We must come around again, then, to the first of the questions posed early in this discussion. Did the industrial superiority of the North lead to its victory. The consensus of historians is that it did. But as Gabor Boritt trenchantly points out, in much of the recent scholarly study of the Civil War and its outcome, the fact of the war itself seems almost to drop out of the equation. In response, he argues that the outcome was, in fact, ultimately contingent. In spite of all the material advantage accruing to the North, the Confederate armies won many of their battles; had they won a few moreGettysburg comes to mindthe Union war effort might have begun to disintegrate, and the war would then have had to be settled upon terms. A comparison may be made to the First World War; Germany was economically overwhelmed in much the way that the South was, but German offensives still came close to breaking the Allied armies as late as the summer of 1918. Had they done so, then (regardless of the specific terms of settlement), the war would have gone down as a German victory. Where the disparity of industrial power made itself felt, as was suggested earlier, was in the unequal victory conditions forced upon the two warring sides. To bring the war to a satisfactory close, the Confederacy had to win a strategically decisive victory, while the Union had only to avoid a strategically decisive defeat. Particularly in the earlier part of the warbefore the consequences of the industrial factors made themselves directly feltthe difference was critical. Had Jefferson Davis had as much difficulty finding a good general as Abraham Lincoln did, the outcome of the war might have been very different. The South had to win in the field, and it very nearly did. The North had to avoid defeat in the field, and it just managed to do so. That is the ultimate measure of the disparate industrial capacities of the two sides.