Description
This assignment will be submitted to Turnitin
Notes: Do not use big words. Keep it simple to understand. Excellent papers are based on originality and genuine discussion of the idea. I also have attached the few example the ideal paper.
Write an Idea Paper in 1000 words, single spaced, centered on a concept or philosophical concern raised in the readings or class discussions on the economics, history, or philosophy of work.
Content:
The idea should be your original perspective that poses a question or issue for the reader to consider and explores it in depth connecting your prior knowledge in this class and other classes.
It also can draw from your experiences in which you analyze in-depth some matter related to the history, economics, and philosophy of work. However, this is not a general reflection in which you write conversationally and informally. Continue to draw from your formal knowledge and understanding.
1000 words is short, so it’s good to lead with your main idea early in your paper (deductive reasoning) rather than building up to it in a conclusion (inductive reasoning).
Make specific connections or references to outside aspects of the idea you’re exploring.
Excellent papers are based on originality and genuine discussion of the idea.
Self-Review:
On a separate page, give yourself a percentage grade out of 100%.
Then, write a few bullets of what you did well and what you could have done better (compliment and critique).
Tip: Read your work after your finish it to revise it for clarity and precision.
Guidelines:
No headings at the top left.
Add a creative title, and your name, on two lines, bold and centered at the top of page one.
Use regular font, size, and margins – clean and professional looking.
Only Ideal paper has to be 1000 words, but self review can be short with legit response.
Unformatted Attachment Preview
Is Anyone Self-Made?
Alison Krolopp
What constitutes a self-made person? There are many features that characterize a self-made
person’s story, like a humble beginning, determination, big dreams, gained wealth, and significant
influence. Some self-made people’s lifetimes have possessed all of these features, and some only have a
few. “Self-made” is a commonly used descriptor for those who are successful; there is no shortage of
varying definitions, and plenty of individuals are said to be self-made, deemed this either by themselves
or others. Many Americans share a hope that anyone can “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” to
create whatever life they dream of, and stories of these individuals serve as inspiration. However, there is
a spectrum of backgrounds of those who are thought to be self-made, and “self-made” is an ambiguous
term used to fit a variety of stories.
By simple definition, “self-made” is “having achieved success or prominence by one’s own
efforts,” according to the Mirriam-Webster dictionary (“Self-made”). The common narrative of the selfmade man is of a person with humble beginnings who, “through sheer hard work and determination,
[ammasses] great wealth and success” in theory (Williams). It enforces the idea that the United States is a
meritocracy where anyone has the ability to create the life they desire, an idea that is exemplified by 77%
of Americans believing that rich people are rich due to their work ethic (Williams). However, when
delving into stories of commonly known “self-made” magnates, there is a quieter story about the people
and resources that allowed them to achieve their success. We rarely “hear about the significant
investments and contributions by some if not all of the following people: family, friends,
associates….advisors, teachers, authors, mentors,” and other inspirational, supportive influences in their
lives (Williams). Furthermore, as Daniel Markovits alludes to in his presentation The Meritocracy Trap,
there are plenty of capable people from lower-income backgrounds that never become as influential as
some of the “self-made” people who started off rich, though they also are hard-working and determined
(Markovitz). There isn’t a formula, rule book, or definition to follow that creates a self-made person.
Self-made people have dynamic stories that aren’t necessarily just about rags-to-riches. Donald
Trump, a billionaire businessman and former President is know by many to be self-made, and even
perpetuates the label through his own words. He has said that “rich men are less likely to like me, but the
working man likes me because he knows I worked hard and didn’t inherit what I’ve built” in an interview
with Playboy. He has encouraged others to think as he says he does, and to escape poverty by their own
bootstraps by saying “if I had been the son of a coal miner, I would have left the damn mines” (the irony
is that a person cannot physically pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but that would take a whole
other thought paper to get into) (Mosbergen). His story of building a multi-billion dollar real estate and
business empire with his own two hands would be inspiring if it were true. However, he started his
empire with help from his father, a wealthy real estate investor who gave him “small loan of a million
dollars” (which was actually multiple millions of dollars) (Breuninger). In Trump’s case, the self-made
man story is a lie. Another self-made man, Mark Zuckerberg, didn’t have particularly well-connected or
highly wealthy family members like Trump, but he did have an upper-middle-class upbringing and
prestigious education (Grossman). He and his roommates started Facebook as a project in college, and
Facebook eventually scored a half-million-dollar investment from Peter Thiel that helped launch the site
and business on a national scale (Elkins). Another example, Oprah Winfrey, is one of the most wellknown self-made women, as she grew up in poverty and in unstable circumstances and now is an
influential billionaire. She earned a scholarship to attend university, and from there she worked her way
up as a reporter (“Oprah goes national”). Then she scored her own morning news show in Chicago which
eventually received nationwide syndication due to her magnetic personality, skilled storytelling, and
groundbreaking content (“Oprah goes national”). She acknowledges herself as self-made (Mejia).
The vast variation in understandings and uses of the term “self-made” pose the question, is
anyone self-made? The term “self-made” doesn’t have one usage or situation, and it’s an ambiguous term.
With some, such as Donald Trump, “self-made” might seem ingenuine and ill-fitting. With others, such as
Oprah, it is easier to say that a person is self-made due to a humble upbringing and lack of wealth early
on. Even going deeper, Oprah was aided in her success early on by attending a magnet high school that
taught mainly honors classes (“Oprah Winfrey”). In the early days of her career, she was mentored by and
networked with acclaimed professionals like Roger Ebert (“A Date With Destiny”). How few resources
and little support does a person need to have early on in order to qualify them as self-made? If a person
grew up in an affluent area, like Zuckerberg, are they self-made? If their parents helped pay for college,
are they self-made? If a person is strongly mentored by an industry professional, are they still self-made?
After all, they did not create these opportunities all by themself.
I don’t have an answer about what self-made truly is, and I had hoped to land on a solid
conclusion while preparing for and writing this essay. More questions about the nature of “self-made”
arise than answers when reflecting on more stories. The term “self-made” is, in practical usage, a
shapeshifter. It’s a compelling attention grabber that has no exact meaning, which leads to confusion and
disillusionment. However, a logical conclusion when examining various stories of the self-made person is
that no one “makes” themself completely on their own.
Understanding the spectrum of self-made individuals sheds perspective onto the conversation
about meritocracy, hard work, and success. Individuals described to be self-made come from varying
backgrounds and have taken many different paths to success, and true rags-to-riches stories are incredibly
uncommon. Some began with some wealth and grew it, others innovated and branched into a new
industry. Also, the fact that many well-known self-made people started with wealth is very important to
recognize in order to allow for a realistic worldview. People should not feel like failures because they
aren’t the next wildly rich businessperson or inventor like Jobs or Bezos; enormous amounts of wealth
and recognition are not the only measures of success. As with many stories of upward mobility, a
person’s success comes down to two things: money and luck. Furthermore, examining the nuance of
being self-made is also a testament to the importance of asking for and accepting help from others when
the opportunity arises. A person does not have to be entirely independent in order to bring about personal
success, and aid from others does not diminish the value of a person’s efforts.
Works Cited
Breuninger, Kevin. “Trump Claimed He Turned a ‘Small’ $1 Million Loan from His Father into an
Empire. The New York Times Says It Was More like $60.7 Million in Loans.” CNBC, CNBC, 2
Oct. 2018, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/trumps-small-loan-from-his-father-was-more-like60point7-million-nyt.html.
Elkins, Kathleen. “Mark Zuckerberg Shares the Best Piece of Advice Peter Thiel Ever Gave Him.”
CNBC, CNBC, 28 Aug. 2016, https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/25/mark-zuckerberg-shares-the-bestpiece-of-advice-peter-thiel-ever-gave-him.html.
Grossman, Lev. “Person of the Year 2010 – TIME.” TIME.com, TIME, 15 Dec. 2010,
https://web.archive.org/web/20130817081156/http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/
0,28804,2036683_2037183_2037185,00.html.
Markovitz, Daniel, director. Daniel Markovits: National Book Festival 2020. The Library of Congress,
Congress.gov, 26 Sept. 2020, https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-9419/. Accessed 12 Oct. 2021.
Mejia, Zameena. “Oprah Winfrey Googled Herself for the First Time and Learned 2 New Things.”
CNBC, CNBC, 8 July 2018, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/06/oprah-googled-herself-and-learned2-new-things.html.
Mosbergen, Dominique. “8 Times Trump Claimed He Was a Self-Made Man.” HuffPost, HuffPost
Politics, 3 Oct. 2018, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-self-made-manmyth_n_5bb46528e4b028e1fe38ebaf.
“Oprah Goes National.” Edited by History.com Editors, History.com, A&E Television Networks, 13 Nov.
2009, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/oprah-goes-national.
“Oprah Winfrey Biography.” Oprah Winfrey – Biography on Bio.,
https://web.archive.org/web/20121105073013/http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biographies/
oprah-winfrey.html.
Person. “A Date with Destiny.” Oprah.com, Oprah.com, 23 Nov. 2005,
https://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/a-date-withdestiny_1/all#:~:text=A%20Date%20With%20Destiny,until%20today!&text=Roger%20says%20si
nce%20that%20show,dates%20back%20in%20the%20’80s.
“Self-Made.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/selfmade.
Williams, Ray. “The American Myths of the ‘Self-Made Man,” The American Dream and Meritocracy.”
Ray Williams, Ray Williams, 15 July 2020, https://raywilliams.ca/the-american-myths-of-the-selfmade-man-the-american-dream-and-meritocracy/.
“Wealth” is our happiness.
Vangjush Pappa
Nowadays, how much “wealth” we have determines feeling accomplished and happy. The
contradiction is that we still need to learn how much wealth is enough, and we still need to
build a ceiling as a limit. The desire for infinitive wealth comes with its consequences. While we
chase to claim material goods, we forget to define our values. Values generate happiness.
Wealth does not define an individual’s personality; values do. Unless we agree that “wealth”
does not represent our values, we are far from reaching happiness.
The nature of society drives individuals to increase their leisure instead of finding a balance
between values and good and needs. Instead of appreciating the accumulation of “wealth,” we
must appreciate the process. Life is a “process” with ups and downs, whose primary purpose is
to teach us, but if we don’t reflect within us, this “process” outcome is a material good with no
values. Becoming wealthy, it’s a process, too, a process that requires knowledge, skills, and
effort. Acquisition of knowledge it’s an infinitive process; we never will stop learning because
that’s the nature of life. Education is the primary source of “raw materials” in this process.
However, nowadays, the idea that education is just an expensive piece of paper is rapidly
spreading. “School is a scam” is a quote that many so-called influencers use to get attention and
drive the young generation in the wrong direction. However, we are the ones who decide what
is valuable to us, and we should take control of that. Adams cites in his epilogue, “Unless we
settle on the values of life, we are likely to attack in a wrong direction and burn the barn to find
out a penny in the hay.” We should stop defining wealth as a personality trait because we will
have to burn the barn to find our penny in the hay. We are so focused on wealth, and our
values are becoming worth a penny.
We live in a bubble where we want things handed to us by putting in the minimum number of
skills and effort. We argue that education should be free, corporates should pay for education,
health care should be free, or work only 15 hours a week. Considering we received all these
goods, are we satisfied? The answer will be a simple “nope.” The more we get, the more we
want. The idea of getting or having as much as we can takes over us. The greed to have “a lot”
in our life is a consequence of comparison. We keep comparing ourselves with others about
what they have while we should compare the process that took them there. For example, we
argue that we should work 15 hours and get paid the same amount of money as 40 hours, but
Elion Musk is a billionaire and does not work 15 hours a week. If anyone can give a logical
explanation to this, society will get the answer to many questions raised. Instead of comparing
what we and others have, we should compare what we had and what we have, who we were,
and who we are. If we can think this way, we will be halfway to reaching happiness. The next
step is who we want to be and what we want to do.
If we were to stop comparing ourselves with others, we would facilitate the process of what we
want to do and who we will become. The American dream provides opportunities, and there is
an opportunity for us to “draw” our dreams into reality. “Our dreams” not other’s dreams. If we
look up at others, we drive ourselves towards a labyrinth where the “get-away” path comes
with several consequences. Most of us get lost in this labyrinth, we feel tired, dissatisfied, and
disappointed with ourselves, and we start blaming the circumstances, which is wrong. We
decided to take that path, and we should take responsibility. Unfortunately, taking
responsibility is becoming rare because we always try to find the easy way out, such as the
desire to become wealthy with fewer skills and effort or quit from the process.
However, it happens to be in a labyrinth not because of us, but of factors we cannot control.
Life is not fair sometimes, but if we focused on our “dream” and “process” that would make us
wealthy, we would be more robust regardless of the circumstances. Assuming life puts us on
that labyrinth, the get-away path wouldn’t make us feel tired or disappointed; it would make us
feel accomplished and satisfied. Not all events in a lifetime indeed depend on us, but the way
out does. Everyone has an opportunity to find his/her way. Knowledge, skills, and efforts
combined provide a solution for our problems. If we were to focus more on these elements the
wealth gets accumulated in the process.
Focusing in becoming great at one set of skills at a time, it’s our “wealth”. An individual
generates his/her wealth due to their knowledge, skills and efforts, nothing it handed in this
life. Someone may assume that wealth can be inherited which is true. Would a person with no
certain skills or knowledge be able to manage it probably, most likely no. The idea of wealth its
deeper than the material goods we see. Wealth it’s a whole set of skills, values and knowledge
that build a personality. It is personality that takes us far away, gives us status, better life, and
more wealth. Wealth it’s not about the quantity, it’s about quality. Digging for diamonds its
exhausting, takes time, energy, and wisdom. However, one diamond worth million, and it’s a
tiny object that we would need a full bag of cash to purchase. If we were put the efforts into
digging this “diamond” within ourselves, we would be wealthy and happy.
Why Measuring Human Capital is Implausible
Max Schertler
Upon reading Theodore Schultz’ Investment in Human Capital (1961), I found myself
intrigued with the idea of being able to put a value on the intrinsic happenings of any given
person’s life. Shultz holds the belief that many purchases are done so with both the ideas of
consumption and investment in human capital in mind. The fact that some nonrandom portion of
any arbitrary decision is likely influenced by both ideologies is just so hard to measure, though.
Schultz also claims in the paper that the yield of these expenditures would ultimately determine
their worth, but I would have to disagree with this notion. While I do subscribe to the thought
that purchases often have multiple purposes in mind (ex: utility, function, fashion, etc.) in just
about every context, this alone makes measuring the value of strictly the human investment
portion of said purchase near impossible (if not simply impossible).
A perfect example of explaining my reasoning for why the yield, specifically, of an
investment cannot accurately determine the value of human capital amassed in any given
investment would be the purchasing of a house by a family. For the sake of this example, this
family (say, 2 adults and 1 child) is moving because one of the adults received a new job. If the
yield of the purchase were to be the primary determinant of the human capital invested in oneself
(and thus, the economy), then would it be argued that the sum of the net income achieved at said
job would be the return on investment? In my opinion, it certainly wouldn’t be fair to label this as
“correct”. If the dollar were to ever be used to attempt and make such a measurement, the
amount of human capital generated per dollar spent would be far lower than it actually should be,
or at the very least, the magnitude of each dollar would be inaccurately represented. Again, this
is due to part of this house purchase by the family being for strictly consumption.
Yet, the ratio of consumption to human capital in any investment would likely differ from
person to person. What may be considered a necessity to one person would be considered largely
expendable to another. If the family in the aforementioned example purchased a swimming pool
along with their house, one could argue that it is more of an investment in human capital than
consumption if the relaxation or exercise-related benefits of owning a swimming pool are
utilized efficiently. Another analyst could argue that it is a purchase consisting of mainly
consumer-based motives, where it isn’t ‘necessary’ for the family. The only way for this yield
method to even generate a conceivable estimate would be to standardize the percentages related
to human capital and percentages related ‘pure consumption’ for any given purchase. This feat
alone, is once again, nearly impossible. Every thing (whether tangible or intangible) bought with
even the slightest perceived notion of being utilized to better oneself would need to be given
these percentage values! Doesn’t that seem absurd? This line of work (valuing human capital
“things”) would also align itself with that of real estate and home appraisals too, which analyze
minute and nuanced differences in properties, from square footage and number of bathrooms to
distance from XYZ location and demographics of an area.
Not to mention that the child in this example problem will also have their educational
journey changed by the need to switch schools. Would this change be measured in a month-overmonth analysis of GPA average per dollar spent on school? If this whole idea sounds far-fetched,
I suppose that’s the point. Trying to calculate the worth in human capital of a decision seems like
a rather butterfly effect-esque situation. As depicted in the article, Schultz talks about how
companies commit to human capital investment when training new hires. In changing the hires
Finally, the last point that I thought was interesting was how “extra food in some poor
countries has the attribute of a ‘producer good’. This attribute of food, however, diminishes as
the consumption of food rises, and there comes a point at which any further increase in food
becomes pure consumption. Clothing, housing, and perhaps medical services may be similar.”
Essentially, Shultz describes how the theory of diminishing returns would play into the
predicament of allocating the aforementioned “percentages” of consumption vs. investment to a
purchase. This is actually a rather introspective comment that I would agree with in this scenario.
Food is certainly more productive in countries that have less of it. This brings the specification of
geography into the conversation if one were to standardize what is considered human capital.
Unfortunately, although Schultz makes this awesome point, it further proves that investment in
human capital, aside from ‘less descriptive’ and qualitative measures (such as money spent on
training, skills learned, money towards education) is just too hard to measure to make an
accurate, quantitative measurement recording it.
In conclusion, while measuring how much of each dollar goes into a purchase is no
challenge at all, but finding out how much of that purchase is considered human capital vs pure
consumption is extremely difficult. Perhaps it is acceptable to say that it is possible to determine
the amount of human capital that is invested for a niche category of a single purchase, but scaling
and standardizing methodology to consistently measure any and all forms of combined
consumption/human capital purchases would take an obscene amount of time and is nearly
impossible. The true scope of any single decision also effects far more than just the person
making the decision, and may indirectly make either a positive or a negative investment into
another person(s) as well, as seen in the family example mentioned earlier. This measurement
simply cannot happen!
Purchase answer to see full
attachment
