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Modern society is in an unsustainable state. There is a crisis in our political systems, economies, finances and, what is worse, in our morals and value standards. On one side, American capitalism is burdened with the struggle for profit and social justice, and on the other, Europe is burdened with a grand unifying project as a way of building stability and security. Where is the Christian church in all of this? What does Christianity offer? Is there a Christian socialism? Regardless of how the system is named – be it capitalism, socialism or something else - only a system without the basic objective of profit maximization, one that does not consume resources to the point of their exhaustion, beyond its borders, one which is not based on greed, only considering its own well-being, and that does not blame others for its mistakes, but the one that is aware of its neighbor, only that one has a future.
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The article presents the idea that the maximisation of profit seems not to be the most important goal for contemporary enterprises. The author – basing on literature and empirical research – tries to indicate those activities undertaken by enterprises in the interest of the local community that have an impact not only on building managers' mental well-being and quality of life. They are also different kinds of CSR activities, but they could also be considered as proof of changing the economic model. The article ends with conclusions in which the author tries to answer the following question: what kind of profit could bring about the realisation of that new model.
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It is a great developmental challenge to create the global economic order. Economic and ethical values must be taken into account to manage this task, otherwise the prosperity of the global economy is in danger.
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Although all the Western Balkan countries have been offered the prospect of European Union (EU) membership, the accession process still constitutes a complicated and multi-aspect challenge. EU support and engagement in the region have resulted in a few successes, nonetheless, describing them as major breakthroughs is far from the reality. Since the establishment of the Dayton Agreement in 1995, ending the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, most of the Balkan states have not managed to accomplish their political, ideological and civic transformations yet. However, the difficult situation and frequent negotiation stalemates are not only the outcomes of the unsatisfactory progress made by the Peninsular countries. Ambiguous and unethical (in some cases) behaviour can also be noticed from the EU decision-makers’ side. The following article aims to present concrete examples of EU external policy actions in Bosnia and Herzegovina which can be described as controversial. However, the author attempts to prove the thesis that unethical external policy is not always a zero-sum game, and in particular circumstances it can be paradoxically perceived as the best solution. Taking into consideration the comprehensiveness of the problem and editorial limitations, the analysis focuses on activities of the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, who used to be (during four out of seven tenures) the EU Special Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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This article presents both the legal regulations concerning lobbying in Poland and an evaluation of lobbying practices. It makes reference to the results of sociological research conducted among Polish members of Parliament, professional lobbyists and journalists who cover parliamentary issues. The research was conducted in cooperation with the S. Batory Foundation’s Anti-Corruption Program from May to July 2008.
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The aim of the article is a review of the wide spectrum of lobbying formulations and definitions to answer questions regarding the areas of lobbying activity. The author argues that lobbying is a wide scope of activities that lobbyists undertake according to their expectations and preferences. Ethical reflections on lobbying activity should then take into consideration the conditions in which the main players on the democratic political scene interact with each other.
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Taxes are closely related to the functioning of the state. From the moral and social point of view, it should always be directed towards the common good. Implementing this principle, the state supports the improvement of citizens’ welfare. Provides them with collected taxes their services, such as internal and external security, education, culture, infrastructure, social services and others. The formation of fair tax system and the mechanism of budgetary resources also has great importance because of the importance of the whole economy. In addition, the state’s fiscal system applies to every citizen as a taxpayer. Therefore, this issue also has important ethical dimension of individuality. The article focuses on these issues, emphasizing an ethical perspective the following three issues: (1) The social context of contemporary reflections on the obligations to the state, (2) the state and its goals, and (3) the moral aspects of the duty to pay taxes.
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Taxes are closely related to the functioning of the state. From the moral and social point of view, it should always be directed towards the common good. Implementing this principle, the state supports the improvement of citizens’ welfare. Provides them with collected taxes their services, such as internal and external security, education, culture, infrastructure, social services and others. The formation of fair tax system and the mechanism of budgetary resources also has great importance because of the importance of the whole economy. In addition, the state’s fiscal system applies to every citizen as a taxpayer. Therefore, this issue also has important ethical dimension of individuality. The article focuses on these issues, emphasizing an ethical perspective the following three issues: (1) The social context of contemporary reflections on the obligations to the state, (2) the state and its goals, and (3) the moral aspects of the duty to pay taxes.
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The problem of charging interest has been discussed since the time of Aristotle. It was condemned in the Christian religion in the Middle Ages. Only when the interest was specified as a payment for productive capital was it considered that the borrower, enriched by the money lent, should let the lender benefit in accordance with the principle of fairness. The borrower should share the profit with the lender, and from this moment the percentage is no longer something shameful and neglected. Religious beliefs and accepted moral values have changed over time, adapting to the circumstances, so has the approach to collecting interest from the capital lent. However, there is still a great deal of criticism of excessive interest rates. The purpose of this paper is to present a discussion related to the charging of interest presented in the tradition of economics and also to show some aspects of the problem in relation to the present times, such as excessive debt and responsible lending.
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Charity, the core of the Gospel ethos, became one of the founding ideas of European civilization and distinguished it from others. In Polish territories, as in other Western European countries, charity work was conducted primarily by the Church, which together with its sense of Gospel duty, defended the weak by concerning itself with economic development. For this purpose, charitable credit institutions, so-called mounts of piety (montes pietatis), were established. They were continued by reformers, in a somewhat changed form, until the decline of the Polish Commonwealth (Republic). The most original institution of this kind was Rev. Stanisław Staszic’s foundation: the Hrubieszów Agricultural Society, which survived until the days of the Polish People’s Republic.
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The problem of fires in Poland is an important element of public safety. One of the reasons of the fires are different types of arson of buildings, crops or forests. This paper presents a quantitative scale of the phenomenon of arson in Poland. Basing on data from the General Headquarters of the Police and Fire Headquarters it analyzes the scale of fire danger. It also presents the role of specialists in the detection of causes of fires. The article points the role of insurance in the compensation of fire damage.
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The aim of this article is to point out the basic areas of judgment made by employees considering the ethical or unethical behaviour of employers in the workplace. The authors analyse this subject from three perspectives: The first one is labour legislation in Poland; the second is the perspective of employers, especially codes of ethical standards created by contemporary organizations, and the third perspective is the point of view of employees. The conclusions in this area have been made on the basis of research in two Polish insurance companies. The authors attempted to create a ranking of ethical elements significant for employees. Such knowledge could be very useful for creating proper personnel policy in any organisation.
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The aim of the article is to present the economic thought of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi with respect to ethical aspects. There are lots of statements and remarks about the relations of ethics and economics in Gandhi’s writings. In his opinion, both areas should be treated as integrated. That is why it is worth analysing Gandhi’s views on various economic matters. Only a selected presentation was possible because it was difficult to find cohesion in his socio-economic system. One of the hypothesis underlined is that it is even risky to write about Gandhi’s united system. Generally his economic thought was not a part of economics as a discipline. Nevertheless it is not a reason to relinquish studies of it. Because of the fact that many remarks linked with micro- and macroeconomics are of considerable value, they can be used to research economic changes in India in 20th century or to study the attitude of Indian society towards those changes. The main source of the paper was the autobiography ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’ published in 1925. More of Gandhi’s economic thought can also be found in the work ‘Hind Swaraj’ from 1909 and in the lecture ‘Does Economic Progress Clash with Real Progress?’ from 1916.
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The article presents the view that the introduction of the personalistic paradigm into entrepreneurship will enable integral economic growth and remove the causes of today’s crisis, that is economism and instrumental rationality. Personalism, which recognizes man as a conscious person experiencing self and others, has special qualities for application. This is the most useful approach to philosophical and ethical analysis of the modern enterprise. In this article the focus is on a company managed according to personalistic ethics. Entrepreneurship in the personalistic approach is the art of management, which increases the area of common good.
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The research is based on the creation of a unique historical and toponymic dictionary of Ingermanland, which aims to represent the historical and toponymic landscape of the Ingrian area. The focus lies solely on settlement names. The methods used are reconstructive, historical and etymological.
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The aim of this article is to discuss the functioning of the comparison clitic -džyk in forming the verbal augmentative or intensifying grade and its relation to the inherent properties of the event it modifies in literary Komi. The analysis of an assessment questionnaire proved telicity to be the most prominent factor in determining the gradability of an event. Two semantic types of gradation appeared — degree gradation and extent gradation. In the case of degree gradation (’faster’, ’better’, ’stronger’), telicity determines the openness of the event’s scale. In the case of extent gradation (’more’ or temporal duration), atelic events appear with either a cardinality reading or a temporal duration reading, while telic events appear with a cardinality reading only.
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This paper is the fourth part in a series of studies that present additions to the corpus of etymological comparisons between the Uralic languages, drawing data from all the major branches of the language family. It includes both previously unnoticed cognates that can be added to already established Uralic cognate sets, as well as a few completely new reconstructions of Uralic word roots. In this fourth part new Uralic etymologies for 18 Ob-Ugric (Khanty and Mansi) words are discussed. The etymologized words are Proto-Mansi (PMs) *äɣt ’channel, head of a river’ (< PU *wiksi/*wiski), Proto-Khanty (PKh) *čǖɣ ’mist’ (< PU *čäki), PKh *či̮ji̮, PMs *šāĺ ’true, truth’ (< PU *čoďi), PKh *čɔɔp, PMs *šup ’piece, block of wood’ (< PU *či̮ppa- ’cut, notch (wood)’), PKh *jiɣ, PMs *jäɣ ’father’ (< PU *ekä), PKh *jil- ’go, visit’, PMs *jäl- ’go, walk’ (< PU *elä- ’live, visit’), PKh *jēm ’taboo’ (< PU *jemä), PKh *jipǝḷ ’shadow’ (< PU *eji ’night’ + *pälä ’side’), PKh *küć- ’track, follow’ (< PU *küji-), PKh *kājǝm, PMs *kūĺmǝ ’ashes’ (< PU *kaďa- ’leave’), PMs *kär- ’cut, be sharp’ (< PU *kirä-), PKh *lǟnt ’corn, grain’ (< PU *sewi- ’eat’), PMs *lūp-luw ’shoulder-blade’ (< PU *lapa ’shoulder’ + *luwi ’bone’), PKh *mūɣǝt ’anabranch, side channel of a river’ (< PU *mi̮tka), PKh *pǟɣǝl- ’forge’ (< PU *peksä-), PMs *tim- ’turn soft’, PKh *tintǝl-, PMs *tintǝl- ’soften (skins)’ (< PU *tejmi-), PKh *tam ’trapping pit’, PMs *tam ’hunting fence’ (< PU *tuma), and PKh *wi̮i̮č ’border’ (< PU *woča ’fence’). The principles of reconstruction and the citation of lexical material are explained in the first paper of the series (Luobbal Sámmol Sámmol Ánte (Aikio) 2013).
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The article reports the first-ever attempt to analyse Udmurt fishing vocabulary from both synchronic and diachronic aspects. The classification of the lexical units, based on their material and conceptual content, aims to find out their micro- and macrostructural elements. The borrowed lexical material is analysed according to its source languages.
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