The main narratives of prevailing ideas of the Fourth Estate were articulated in the era of traditional mass media, and these traditional narratives are challenged by the changing media landscapes. This raises the question whether traditional narratives of the Fourth Estate should be maintained. We will argue – through a close reading of Derrida’s reflections on the relationship between communicative significance and silence, combined with a deliberative ideal for democracy – that the new structures of communication (...) call for a Fourth Estate that focuses on creating spaces for flexible structures of silence in the public sphere. The Fourth Estate has an obvious assignment of counteracting problematic structures of silence. In this article, we will, however, bring out assignments of creating spaces of silence in the public sphere: by silencing certain dominant voices, making room for an increased lack of answers and creating an awareness of the insufficiencies of the public spheres. (shrink)

Due to the development of transnational communicative and economic structures, nation states are increasingly unable to be the starting point for journalistic regulation. In this chapter, therefore, I raise the question whether it is possible – and desirable – to have transnational rules for ethically good journalism. I argue that ethical evaluations should focus upon the meeting between normative ideals and factual realities. This meeting is always open because ideals can challenge reality, just as reality can challenge ideals. Ethical questions (...) are thus always raising a fundamental “maybe”. Traditionally the ideals of journalists have been articulated in close affiliation with ideas of the Fourth Estate. However, due to our globalised communicative structure, this articulation is in need of revision. I argue that the ethical requests change because the structure of Internet-based publics changes. Departing from this situation I suggest that journalistic products are ethically urgent insofar as they both bring communities together and give voice to the inarticulate or voiceless. I argue that in order to substantiate this approach it is important to articulate rules, because rules further the possibility of deliberating disagreements. The notion of deliberating disagreement is at the core of ethical discussions. I suggest that Habermas’ discourse ethics account may serve as a starting point for articulating a robust body of journalistic ethics. However, two moderations are important: On one hand, the rules and codes should be articulated against a “globalised we”, rather than against the nation state. On the other hand, it is important to realise that the rules do not robustly prescribe what to do. They should serve as a starting point for articulating and discussing disagreements. The openness of the global “maybe” does not call for global agreement but rather for the possibility of discussing disagreements. (shrink)

This article assesses some major democratic norms commonly invoked in relation to means of communication or 'media', especially in the context of 'media policy'. The paper argues that freedom of communication provides the most appropriate normative discourse in which to re-articulate the case for the European policy practice of 'regulated pluralism' outside Europe. Recent developments in Australia provide a brief case-study of this thesis.

In this paper, which brings together aging research and media research, we will contribute to the mapping of the complicated cartography of anti-aging by analyzing the press coverage of anti-aging medicine. The mass media decisively shape societal impacts of the expert scientific discourse on anti-aging. While sensitivity towards the heterogeneity of the field of anti-aging is increasing to some degree in the social-gerontological discussion, the role of the media in transmitting the various anti-aging messages to the general public has so (...) far not been systematically scrutinized. Current opinions on the press coverage of anti-aging medicine range from proponents’ complaints of a media witch-hunt against them to opponents’ reproaches about uncritical reporting of this complex topic. This paper discusses whether the media act accordingly to the ideal of the fourth estate, controlling the increased power of science in the 20th century. Our areas of investigation are two Western countries: the USA and Germany. Both countries have experienced an apparent increase in the average age of their populations, which has led to increasingly vigorous public debate since the late 20th century. The subjects of our study are three organizations that represent different approaches to anti-aging medicine: the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, the German Society of Anti-Aging Medicine, and the Methuselah Foundation. The article discusses the programs, goals, and media strategies of these organizations and compares them with the anti-aging messages that actually make their way to the reader in the media “interdiscourse.” The article asks whether transatlantic learning processes within the anti-aging medicine movement as well as in the media can be identified. The paper’s methods and sources are those of contemporary history and ethnography. The three approaches to anti-aging medicine are drawn from publications of spokespersons from the three presented anti-aging medicine organizations and from participant observation of anti-aging medicine conferences in Germany and Europe during the period from 2005 to 2008. The media analysis is based on the study of about 300 articles that appeared between 1990 and 2009 in US and German dailies and weeklies such as Newsweek, The New York Times, Der Spiegel, and Die Welt. Our analysis shows that, against the backdrop of pessimistic demographic apprehensions, the leitmotiv of both nations’ medical journalism between 1990 and 2009 was overwhelmingly pro anti-aging medicine. It is criticized that medical journalism on anti-aging medicine refrains from own investigations on potential risks. Scrutinizing activities of the media in terms of a fourth estate require stimulation from science itself. Hence, we argue for sensitization of medical journalism regarding ageism. (shrink)

Members of licensed occupations benefit from legal standards that limit entry into their professions. Is it ethical for these professionals to give political support to these standards? I examined the case of real estate brokers and found that their educational requirements raise average commissions by one quarter of a percentage point, costing consumers $5.4 billion per year without improving the quality of brokerage services. The case raises interesting ethical issues which are difficult to resolve.

With the exception of what they seized or inherited from eastern kings, the Roman emperors gathered and administered their estates like private individuals. Imperial estates differed only in being bigger. For just this reason, however, more is known of them, and it is the purpose of these notes to shed light on large private holdings, and on the range of their economic potential, by looking at three unusual kinds of activity on crown lands: the raising of herds, the exploitation of (...) forests, and the making of bricks. (shrink)

This paper aims to systematically explore and provide answers to the following key questions: When is government secrecy justified? In a conflict between government secrecy and the public's right to be informed on matters of public interest, which ought to take priority? Is Julian Assange a journalist and what justifies his role as a journalist? Even if Julian Assange is a journalist of the new media, was he justified in disseminating classified information to the public? Who decides what is in (...) "the public interest"? Is it only journalists of the Fourth Estate who decide that or also journalists of the Fifth Estate ? This paper will answer the aforementioned questions by arguing that the media in the form of both the Fourth and Fifth Estates should inform the public on matters of public interest truthfully and ethically, even if sometimes they have to breach government secrecy. (shrink)

In the opinion of Aristotle and Plutarch the growth of latifundia and consequent decline of the citizen population at Sparta were due to the absence of restrictions on gifts and bequests of land. According to Plutarch this freedom of gift and bequest, so far as it applied to the κλροι or entailed estates, was introduced by the τρα of an ephor named Epitadeus, who removed the ban on gift and bequest imposed by Lycurgus.

In the opinion of Aristotle and Plutarch the growth of latifundia and consequent decline of the citizen population at Sparta were due to the absence of restrictions on gifts and bequests of land. According to Plutarch this freedom of gift and bequest, so far as it applied to the κλροι or entailed estates, was introduced by the τρα of an ephor named Epitadeus, who removed the ban on gift and bequest imposed by Lycurgus.

Recently, William H. Dutton has argued that a new form of public space is emerging in what he calling the Fifth Estate. For his, Internet could be as important – if not more so – to the 21st century as the Fourth Estate has been since the 18th. Well, according to Dutton, this paper analyzes and critically reviews Habermas’s conception of the emergency and modern transformation of the public sphere. Finally, it proposes the institutionalization of the Virtual (...) Parliamentary Group. (shrink)

As the editors of the series, New Literary Theory, proclaim in the preface of the book, the purpose of the series is to make more room in literary theory for playful and accessible approaches to li...

The paper discusses the normative grounds for recognizing a watchdog role to the news media as concerns the dissemination of information about an institutional failure menacing a well-ordered society. This is, for example, the case of the news media’s role in the diffusion of whistleblowers’ disclosures. We argue that many popular justifications for the watchdog role of the news media (as a ‘fourth estate’; a trustee of the people’s right to know; expert communicator) fail to ground that role (...) in some unique feature that makes the news media special as concerns the performance of the role. We offer an alternative argument that shows how the watchdog role of the news media shares a justificatory ground with the role that any member of a well-ordered society has in terms of a general duty of answerability in the face of institutional failures. Although this duty does not bear only on the news media, we concede that in some contingent circumstances the news media might be better positioned to discharge it and, therefore, to initiate corrective actions of institutional failures effectively and conscientiously. However, the establishment of the news media’s responsibility in this sense is an empirical, not a conceptual or a normative matter. (shrink)

This mixed-methods study examines autonomy and shifts in the evolving digital news industry. Autonomous agency of news workers is an essential indicator of how journalism work is fulfilling its role as the Fourth Estate in American democracy. This work responds to calls in media ethics, media sociology and moral ecology to better understand how organizational structure and individual moral psychology factors influence the levels at which digital news workers exhibit autonomy within their digital news organizations. Using participant observation, (...) a unique survey and respondent interviewing, I worked for one year with a digitally native hyper-local news organization to examine how organizational structure, leadership, socialization, and individual factors influenced autonomy levels in the staff. Results found overall high levels of autonomy in the editorial staff, but with many constraints such as financial pressures, perceived lack of time, a high pressure to perform multiple jobs and duties outside of the scope of typical legacy journalism job descriptions. (shrink)

How should we understand the familiar demand that journalists ‘be objective’? One possibility is that journalists are under an obligation to report only the facts of the matter. However, facts need to be interpreted, selected, and communicated. How can this be done objectively? This paper aims to explain the concept of journalistic objectivity in methodological terms. Specifically, I will argue that the ideal of journalistic objectivity should be recast as a commitment to John Rawls’s conception of public reason. Journalism plays (...) a vital role in the operation of all modern liberal democracies, functioning as the public watchdog, the fourth estate, or the conduit through which vital information flows to the citizenry. Journalism is, therefore, an institution that is best understood as part of the basic structure of society. In Political Liberalism, Rawls explicitly excludes media of any kind from the demands of public reason because he doesn’t think that they play a political role that is important enough to bring them under the official auspices of public reason. I will argue that overlooking the political significance of journalism is a mistake, but one that can be corrected while keeping within the spirit and most important elements of his theory. This revision will widen the scope for what counts as journalism beyond traditional outlets and forms of media but will impose the demands of public reason on anyone who intends to participate in the institution. (shrink)

In 1913 the British Idealist Sir Henry Jones (1852-1922) spoke of journalism as an 'organic filament'2 that helped unite individuals in a greater citizenship. This Idealist perception of the media coalesced with the contemporaneous growth of a broader notion of journalism as a fourth estate. Beginning with the social philosophy of Edward Caird (1835-1908) and its extension into the Idealist conception of journalism, this article explores the attitudes of Idealist thinkers in Britain and Australia toward print and radio (...) media. It further examines how Idealist belief in journalism translated into publication of Idealist thought. The media and academic publications of four Australian Idealists are considered. Also identified is a sympathetic Australian media environment. Through this study emerges an Australian Idealism that, whilst anchored within the broader empire of Idealist philosophy, acquired a local, public form through a consistent and, at times, intensive use of print and radio media. (shrink)

This book provides journalism students with an easy-to-read yet theoretically rich guide to the dialectics, contradictions, problems, and promises encapsulated in the term 'journalism ethics'. Offering an overview of a series of crises that have shaken global journalism to its foundations in the last decade, including the Coronavirus pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the 2020 US presidential election, the book explores the structural and ethical problems that shape the journalism industry today. The authors discuss the three principle existential (...) crises that continue to plague the news industry: a failing business model, technological disruption, and growing public mistrust of journalism. Other topics covered include social media ethics, privacy concerns, chequebook journalism, as well as a new analysis of journalism theory that critiques the well-worn tropes of objectivity, the Fourth Estate, freedom of the press, and the marketplace of ideas to develop a sophisticated materialist reimagining of journalism ethics. This is a key text for students of journalism, mass communication, and media ethics, as well as for academics, researchers, and communications professionals interested in contemporary journalism ethics. (shrink)

The themes explored include political liberty, "legal tyranny," defences of influence in government, recognition of the Opposition, and the development of organic categories of political analysis - the latter in a chapter that explodes the association often presumed between organicism and conservative modes of thought. A chapter on the "Fourth Estate" examines the gradual process of legitimation of "interests," culminating in the influence of the press. Central to the account of new political forces and their recognition is the (...) idea of public opinion, which evolved during this period from the notion of public spirit. Chapters on the classical legacy of the century and on the High-Tories examine two backward-looking aspects of the political cultrure. Tracing the persistent influence of High-Toryism, Gunn questions the conventional wisdom about eighteenth-century ideological consensus in general and Whig solidarity in particular. He demonstrates that theories of government from the seventeenth century survived to a degree not previously admitted by modern scholarship. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAs the number of freelance journalists increases, the changing nature of work in journalism has effects and possible implications for the kinds of news discourses that are circulated. This paper explores the experiences of freelance journalists in the Republic of Ireland in the context of increasing casualised work. We consider whether challenging working conditions impacts the type of journalism work carried out by freelancers and by extension influences the construction of news and wider discourse. Following the constructionist school, this paper (...) explores the journalistic routines and practices employed by freelancers who are often constrained by resources and time. We do so to consider the impact of these influences on discourse before the text. The study was conducted by interviewing freelance journalists about their lived experiences. This paper contributes to debates around journalism’s so called ‘fourth estate’ function. In particular we question if this role is undermined by changes in the... (shrink)

Introduction Paul Boshears The following excerpt from Paul Amitai's In Between States: Field notes and speculations on postwar landscapes (2012) confounds its reader. Presenting an alternate history of the State of Israel as a space station orbiting Earth, the excitement of possibilities crackles across the texts and images. Like Chris Marker's La Jeteé , the accompanying static images distort the viewer's temporality: are these archaeological items, images from a past, or a future? Why isn't this our future? In Between States (...) can also be seen as complementing Larissa Sansour's provocative science fiction works, Space Exodus (2009) which "documents" the Palestinian space program, and her Nation Estate (2012), in which Palestine is relocated into a skyscraper. Amitai's vision opens onto an intergalactic diaspora, wherein the refugees of World War II are given the stars as Western Europe continues to fight over terrestial colonies. —PFB Auditorium, Hoechst AG headquarters, Industriepark-Höchst, 2011. In 1941 an investigation by the US Justice Department exposed a marriage cartel between John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil (now ExxonMobil) and I.G. Farben. The two corporations had formed a joint operation in 1927 called Standard IG Farben. It was revealed that the two had shared patents in order to control prices and markets in their respective regions. Standard was accused of hiding patents from the US Navy and supplying fuel to German submarines, which lead to charges of criminal conspiracy. The Pentagon intervened, requesting that President Roosevelt stop the investigation in order to protect war production and oil supply. Roosevelt agreed, and the Senate committee investigating the matter, headed by Senator Harry Truman, was halted. Standard Oil paid a fine of $5000 and promised to stop supplying fuel to the enemies. Auditorium, Hoechst AG headquarters, Industriepark-Höchst, 2011. Furious at the decision to terminate the investigation of acts he considered treason, Truman initiated a new inquiry into Standard Oil’s war-time practices after succeeding Roosevelt as president in 1945. With the chief executives of I.G Farben simultaneously on trial at Nuremburg, Truman brokered a deal with the Allies that reduced or withdrew criminal charges leveled against both corporations in exchange for Standard Oil and I.G. Farben’s sponsorship of one of Truman’s most ambitious postwar projects—the relocation of the Jewish people. Detail, Sanofi-Aventis advertisement, 2011. The third critical player in this bold experiment was the nascent North Atlantic Space Agency. Formed by Allied forces using the seized assets and engineering expertise of Hitler’s hitherto classified space program (conquer Earth, then the stars), the North Atlantic Space Agency was a pre-NATO foray into interstellar nation building, with orbital occupation as the first point of order. By 1947, NASA was nearly ready to deploy the first manned space station. Standard Oil and I.G. Farben’s advanced fuel refinement capacities and deep, war-enriched financial resources allowed NASA to speed up their launch schedule significantly. Detail, Sanofi-Aventis advertisement, 2011. Diplomatic efforts to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine were failing to gain traction, while post-colonial England held its ground on immigration restrictions and bands of Jews and Arabs battled over territory on the ground. More immediate was the issue of temporarily housing Holocaust survivors and refugees across scorched Europe. Leaders of the continental nations demonstrated, at best, reluctance to accommodate the Jews, who in turn were, at the least, resistant to returning to the same bloody cocktail from which they had fled. Truman used the impasse to advance a plan for NASA’s space station to be put to use as a temporary Jewish outpost, an orbital displaced persons camp, to be operated by the US Army. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. Final preparations advanced rapidly. Viewing the orbital displaced persons (ODP) camp as a solution to their immigration problem both at home and abroad, England came on board as a willing partner. Spaceship Exodus was positioned for takeoff on German farmland 20 kilometers southwest of Frankfurt. On December 30, 1947, one month after the UN General Assembly voted down the separation plan for Palestine, Exodus rocketed into the atmosphere hauling the first module of barracks designed to house 1,500 refugees. Transport vehicles arrived shortly thereafter, loaded down with leftover wartime military rations and 3,000 Jews of Russian and Polish origin. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. "The camp is the space that is opened when the state of exception begins to become the rule."—Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer , trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 96. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. The ODP camp proved to be a longer-term solution than originally envisioned. Additional installations were positioned to form swollen clusters of interlocking units – sleeping quarters, schools, clinics, canteens. The UN was brought in to monitor the camp following two chaotic years of US Army control in which food shortages, pandemic diseases, and rampant black market trade had brought the camp to near total collapse. No less bureaucratic or ineffectual, the UN relief agency at least had prior experience facilitating contexts of a similar magnitude and could potentially predict outcomes. Detail, Infaserv Höchst advertisement, 2011. What had been unexpected was the degree to which the camp would evolve into its own self-regulated, hive-like ecosystem where previously accepted rules of conduct were not applicable. The ODP camp was an exceptional space, a riverboat casino, an offshore research lab of social experimentation and entrepreneurial innovation. No longer Earth-bound, touching soil knotted by prescripts of Talmudic law, the camp residents were able to rationalize loopholes and detonate barriers standing in the way of absolute production. The Jewish archipelago was renamed Israel after the ancient homeland. If the temple couldn’t be rebuilt in the motherland, a post-national rhizome would sprout up in its stead. Eyes everywhere, beyond all borders. More information on the project at the author's site. (shrink)

Significant contributions to debates in the philosophy of evidence-based medicine (EBM) have come from a variety of different philosophical quarters, yet mainstream discourse in the field has been largely devoid of contributions from scholars working in the pragmatist tradition. This is a particularly conspicuous omission, given pragmatism’s commitment to the melioristic view that philosophy both can, and should, be about the business of concretely bettering the human estate. Two exceptions to this oversight come from Brian Walsh and Maya Goldenberg. (...) Unfortunately, in both cases, the misapplication of pragmatist thinking leads to the mistaken view that EBM is committed to some form of pernicious objectivism. This article aims to revise these pragmatist critiques in order to bring them more consistently in line with pragmatist values and commitments. Doing so shows that EBM is defensible on pragmatist grounds against objectivist attacks. (shrink)

The central thesis of Susan Okin's Justice, Gender, and the Family—that the ideology of the traditional family is the linchpin of contemporary gender inequality in the US—remains significant more than a quarter-century after the book's publication. On a political register, Okin's insistence on structural analysis of gender inequality is an important corrective to recent mainstream feminist emphasis on individual women's choices. On an academic register, her work reveals the incoherence of scholarly classifications of feminist theories as “liberal feminist” or “radical (...) feminist” by confounding such distinctions. I argue that her thesis is best understood in relation to the early radical feminism of Juliet Mitchell's Woman's Estate, a book Okin praised. Placing Okin's work in the context of its radical roots clarifies her “linchpin thesis,” but also reveals the limitations of her argument: in her emphasis on what Iris Young has termed the “distributive paradigm of justice,” Okin unnecessarily adopts a much narrower definition of the family than did Mitchell, and overestimates the influence of economic vulnerability after divorce on women's capacity to exit marriage. I suggest modifications to her theory, and conclude by showing the continuing relevance of her argument for analyzing recent legal, policy, and demographic shifts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beyond the Ethics of Wealth and a World of Economic InequalityMark D. WoodAnalyzing the ethics of wealth and the relationship between the dominant ethics of wealth and economic inequality is vital to creating a humane mode of global life. We are living during a period in which the unequal concentration of wealth—which is to say, the unequal concentration of the resources that make human existence, development, and fulfillment possible—has (...) never been greater.1 The World Bank reports that almost “1.3 billion people remain below the extreme poverty line with an income of US $1.25 or less a day. Close to 2.5 billion—more than one-third of the world’s population—live on less than US $2 a day, another common measurement of deep deprivation,”2 and a staggering 80 percent of the world’s population struggles to survive on less than US $10 dollars a day.3 Credit Suisse’s 2012 Global Wealth Report indicates “the bottom half of the global population [or more than 3.5 billion persons] possess barely 1 percent of total wealth... In sharp contrast, the richest 10 percent own 86 percent of the world’s wealth, with the top 1 percent alone accounting for 46 percent of global assets.”4 Given the history of international colonial and neocolonial relations, it comes as no surprise that wealth is highly concentrated in Western Europe and North America, while the overwhelming majority of individuals living in poverty are concentrated in Africa, India, Asia, and Central and South America.5The wealth gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom 90 percent is, however, also reaching record levels in developed nations. While in 2012, the United States had the seventh highest average wealth holdings per adult in the world, “among nations with at least a quarter-million adults, only Russia, Ukraine, and Lebanon are more unequal” than the United States.6 A Reuters investigative report published in 2012 reveals that “inequality has risen not just in plutocratic hubs such as Wall Street and Silicon Valley, but also in virtually every corner of the world’s richest nation: Inequality has increased in 49 of 50 states since 1989,” with Mississippi being the only exception, even as it still “ranks worst in the nation on both counts.”7 In 2010, “the top 1 percent of households (the upper class) owned 35.4 percent of all privately held wealth, and the next 19 percent (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 53.5 percent, which means that just 20 percent of the people owned a remarkable 89 percent, leaving only 11 percent of the wealth for the bottom 80 percent [End Page 125] (wage and salary workers).”8 In The Price of Inequality (2012), Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz indicates that the “six heirs to the Walmart empire command wealth of $69.7 billion dollars, which is equivalent to the entire wealth of the bottom 30 percent of U.S. society.”9 In short, six individuals possess more wealth than do ninety-six million individuals—though this figure is misleading inasmuch as most of the ninety-six million own almost nothing but mounting debt. Most significantly, the top 10 percent own between 81 percent and 94 percent of all stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and almost 80 percent of non-home real estate.10 G. William Domhoff makes the vital point that inasmuch as “financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets,” that is, control of the means of producing wealth, “we can say that just 10 percent of the people own the United States of America.”11 Meanwhile, according to the latest census, fifty million Americans qualify as poor and another 100 million qualify as low income.12The concentration of the lion’s share of wealth in the hands of a tiny fraction of humanity is devastating for the majority of people living on the planet and ultimately for everyone. On the ground, capitalism’s champagne glass–shaped distribution of wealth means that hundreds of millions of persons have barely enough of the basics necessary to exist. Between 24,000... (shrink)

Hume describes his own “open, social, and cheerful humour” as “a turn of mind which it is more happy to possess, than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year.” Why does he value a cheerful character so highly? I argue that, for Hume, cheerfulness has two aspects—one manifests as mirth in social situations, and the other as steadfastness against life’s misfortunes. This second aspect is of special interest to Hume in that it safeguards the other (...) virtues. And its connection with the first aspect helps explain how it differs from Stoic tranquility. For Hume, I argue, philosophy has a modest role in promoting human happiness by preserving cheerfulness. (shrink)

Japan’s economy has stagnated since the bursting of the twin real estate and stock bubbles in 1990. Construction employment rose after the bubbles burst despite a real estate glut.Systemic corruption is delaying recovery. The key is thedango—Japan’s system of bid rigging, which is pervasive in public construction. The firms rotate who will win the “competitive” bid. The bureaucrats leak the highest price bid that will be accepted in return for favors from the industry and lucrative sinecures when they (...) retire. The ruling politicians get kickbacks and ensure the adoption of enormous public construction programs.The result is that Japanese public and private capital flows are corruptly routed to uses that are not simply inefficient, but outright harmful to society. Pervasive corruption is the primary obstacle to Japanese economic health and political reform. (shrink)

Suppose you own a garden-variety object such as a hat or a shirt. Your property right then follows the ageold saw according to which possession is nine-tenths of the law. That is, your possession of a shirt constitutes a strong presumption in favor of your ownership of the shirt. In the case of land, however, this is not the case. Here possession is not only not a strong presumption in favor of ownership; it is not even clear what possession is. (...) Possessing a thing like a hat or a shirt is a rather straightforward affair: the person wearing the hat or shirt possesses the shirt or the hat. But what is possession in the case of land? This essay seeks to provide an answer to this question in the form of an ontology of landed property. (shrink)

Japan’s economy has stagnated since the bursting of the twin real estate and stock bubbles in 1990. Construction employment rose after the bubbles burst despite a real estate glut.Systemic corruption is delaying recovery. The key is the dango—Japan’s system of bid rigging, which is pervasive in public construction. The firms rotate who will win the “competitive” bid. The bureaucrats leak the highest price bid that will be accepted in return for favors from the industry and lucrative sinecures when (...) they retire (amakudari—“descent from heaven”). The ruling politicians (the “construction tribes”) get kickbacks and ensure the adoption of enormous public construction programs.The result is that Japanese public and private capital flows are corruptly routed to uses that are not simply inefficient, but outright harmful to society. Pervasive corruption is the primary obstacle to Japanese economic (and environmental) health and political reform. (shrink)

In an earlier paper on this topic, ‘Eupatridai, Archons, and Areopagus,'3 I was primarily concerned to recover the views of Aristotle, as expressed in the ‘Αθ. πολ., on such elements of Attic Society as Eupatridai, Gennetai, etc. I sought to establish that to him at least these two were not identical: that, more precisely, he recorded two stages of development— ‘Ion’: in whose day the whole body of Athenians was composed of Gennetai, while Eupatridai had not yet been created. ‘Theseus’: (...) who created the Eupatridai—distinguishing them, as a Third Estate, from those two Estates which had hitherto, since Ion, composed the body of Athenians. (shrink)

RESPONSABILIDADE ESTATAL NOS CRIMES COMETIDOS CONTRA OS DIREITOS HUMANOS DURANTE A VIGÊNCIA DA DITADURA MILITAR BRASILEIRA.

The rapid turnover of senatorial families during the Principate is a well-known phenomenon, but one which awaits satisfactory explanation. Comparative evidence shows the rate of turnover to have been unusually high. For example, the old aristocratic families of early modern Europe gave way to new at a much slower rate. Patterns of Roman property-holding and of the transmission of wealth from one generation to the next must have been closely associated with this rapid turnover. When an aristocratic family produced no (...) offspring who reached adulthood, the normal pattern of passing the bulk of the estate from one generation to the next within the family was interrupted. On the other hand, if a family produced many children, it might well become impoverished in the process of providing for all of them. Consequently, to perpetuate the family line with its status intact required careful financial and family planning. It was necessary to use or to take into account the various laws and customs regarding the family, including those regulating division of the estate among heirs, adoption, dowry and so on. (shrink)

In 1824 Eduard Gans, in the course of a study of inheritance law, had occasion to deal with the class of women known in Athens as epikleroi—daughters of a deceased man who, in the absence of sons, were married to their nearest relative, with the estate of the deceased passing to the son or sons of the new union. ‘For these,’ he wrote, ‘… the basic concept throughout is not that, in the absence of descendants, they themselves appear as (...) inheritors, but rather that they are inherited along with the property by the collaterals.’. (shrink)

Japan’s economy has stagnated since the bursting of the twin real estate and stock bubbles in 1990. Construction employment rose after the bubbles burst despite a real estate glut.Systemic corruption is delaying recovery. The key is the dango—Japan’s system of bid rigging, which is pervasive in public construction. The firms rotate who will win the “competitive” bid. The bureaucrats leak the highest price bid that will be accepted in return for favors from the industry and lucrative sinecures when (...) they retire (amakudari—“descent from heaven”). The ruling politicians (the “construction tribes”) get kickbacks and ensure the adoption of enormous public construction programs.The result is that Japanese public and private capital flows are corruptly routed to uses that are not simply inefficient, but outright harmful to society. Pervasive corruption is the primary obstacle to Japanese economic (and environmental) health and political reform. (shrink)

By the end of the Republic the Bay of Naples had become a preferred setting for the pleasure villas of wealthy Romans, a centre of fashion and of cultivated ease. The villa of C. Marius at Misenum, though not the first of which we hear, is the earliest coastal Campanian estate whose appointments are explicitly described as having been luxurious. In an epistle of Seneca Marius is said to have built the villa, and on a height; of the location (...) Seneca says, vaguely, in regione Baiana, for the subject of the epistle is the depravity of Baiae, and the author took pleasure in contrasting the character of the early villas in the area with the moral decadence of the imperial resort; the elder Pliny locates the site of Marius' villa more precisely: in Misenensi. From Plutarch's somewhat fuller account come a first indication of date, a different impression of architectural character, and the names of two subsequent owners of the property. He states that after the Social War, when Sulpicius proposed Marius, others Sulla, for command in the Mithridatic War, the detractors of Marius urged him to look after his failing health and to go to the warm baths at Baiae. (shrink)

By the end of the Republic the Bay of Naples had become a preferred setting for the pleasure villas of wealthy Romans, a centre of fashion and of cultivated ease. The villa of C. Marius at Misenum, though not the first of which we hear, is the earliest coastal Campanian estate whose appointments are explicitly described as having been luxurious. In an epistle of Seneca Marius is said to have built the villa, and on a height; of the location (...) Seneca says, vaguely, in regione Baiana, for the subject of the epistle is the depravity of Baiae, and the author took pleasure in contrasting the character of the early villas in the area with the moral decadence of the imperial resort; the elder Pliny locates the site of Marius' villa more precisely: in Misenensi. From Plutarch's somewhat fuller account come a first indication of date, a different impression of architectural character, and the names of two subsequent owners of the property. He states that after the Social War, when Sulpicius proposed Marius, others Sulla, for command in the Mithridatic War, the detractors of Marius urged him to look after his failing health and to go to the warm baths at Baiae. (shrink)

The rapid turnover of senatorial families during the Principate is a well-known phenomenon, but one which awaits satisfactory explanation. Comparative evidence shows the rate of turnover to have been unusually high. For example, the old aristocratic families of early modern Europe gave way to new at a much slower rate. Patterns of Roman property-holding and of the transmission of wealth from one generation to the next must have been closely associated with this rapid turnover. When an aristocratic family produced no (...) offspring who reached adulthood, the normal pattern of passing the bulk of the estate from one generation to the next within the family was interrupted. On the other hand, if a family produced many children, it might well become impoverished in the process of providing for all of them. Consequently, to perpetuate the family line with its status intact required careful financial and family planning. It was necessary to use or to take into account the various laws and customs regarding the family, including those regulating division of the estate among heirs, adoption, dowry and so on. (shrink)