The Wisconsin Idea

Examples of The Wisconsin Idea in the following topics:

• Democracy

  • House of Representatives, was the governor of Wisconsin, and was a U.S.
  • He created an atmosphere of close cooperation between the state government and the University of Wisconsin in the development of Progressive policy, which became known as the "Wisconsin Idea."
  • The Wisconsin Idea promoted the idea of grounding legislation in thorough research and expert involvement.
  • This made Wisconsin a, "laboratory for democracy" and, "the most important state for the development of Progressive legislation."
  • House of Representatives, was the governor of Wisconsin, and was a U.S. senator from Wisconsin from 1906 to 1925.

• Civilizing the City

  • The system whereby a city was governed by a powerful mayor and council was replaced by the council-manager or the commission system.
  • Under the council-manager system, the council would pass laws while the manager would ensure their execution.
  • The result was the rapid growth of the educated middle class, who typically were the grass roots supporters of progressive measures.
  • At the state and national levels new food and drug laws strengthened local efforts to guarantee the safety of the food system.
  • In Wisconsin, the stronghold of Robert Lafolette, the Wisconsin Idea used the state university as a major source of ideas and expertise.

• Introduction

  • At the conclusion of this chapter, you should be able to:
  • Chances are competition for your firm's product is already well established.Other firms can be in direct competition with you when they offer a similar product and target the same customers.They can be indirectly competing with you by offering a similar product or service, but targeting a different demographic.Competition can come from overseas.Competition can come from another firm in the same city.Competitors are all around you whether you choose to be aware of it or not.Recognizing and dealing with competition is necessary to your business success.
  • What every firm is competing for are buyers or customers.Customers are the final evaluator of your product.If they prefer your product above those of competitors, you will receive their business and the sales which will keep you in business.Even a great business idea will fail unless it attracts buyers.

• References

  • Coase, Ronald, "The Nature of the Firm," Economica, November 1937, Reprinted in The Firm, The Market and the Law, University of Chicago Press, 1988.
  • Coase, Ronald, "The Problem of Social Cost," The Journal of Law and Economics, 3, October 1960, Reprinted in The Firm, The Market and the Law, University of Chicago Press, 1988
  • Legal Foundations of Capitalism, university of Wisconsin Press, 1924, reprinted 1957.
  • The Future of Ideas: The Fate of The Commons in a Connected World, Vintage Books/Random House Inc., 2002.
  • The Rhetoric of Economics, University of Wisconsin Press: Madison, Wisconsin, 1985.

• The Widening War at Home

  • The Vietnam War met with rising opposition among Americans during the second half of the 1960s.
  • The idea quickly spread, and on May 15, the first national “teach-in” was held at 122 colleges and universities across the nation.
  • The fall of 1967 saw further escalation of the anti-war actions of the New Left.
  • The school year started with a large demonstration against Dow recruiters at the University of Wisconsin in Madison on October 17.
  • Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison protested the war in Vietnam in 1965.

• The Social Problem

  • Following Darwin's idea of natural selection, English philosopher Herbert Spencer proposed the idea of social Darwinism.
  • Wisconsin-born author Thorstein Veblen argued in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class that the "conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure" of the wealthy had become the basis of social status in America.
  • The works of authors such as George and Bellamy became popular, and soon clubs were created across America to discuss their ideas, although these organizations rarely made any real social change.
  • Followers of the new Awakening promoted the idea of the Social Gospel ,which gave rise to organizations such as the YMCA, the American branch of the Salvation Army, and settlement houses such as Hull House, founded by Jane Addams in Chicago in 1889.
  • Analyze the responses to the poverty and social inequality that emerged during the Gilded Age

• Public Sphere and Civil Society

  • Civil society is the arena outside of the family, the state, and the market where people associate to advance common interests.
  • Finally, other scholars have argued that, since the concept of civil society is closely related to democracy and representation, it should in turn be linked with ideas of nationality and nationalism.
  • The public sphere mediates between the private sphere and the Sphere of Public Authority, "The private sphere comprised civil society in the narrower sense, that is to say, the realm of commodity exchange and of social labor. " Whereas the Sphere of Public Authority dealt with the state, or realm of the police and the ruling class, the public sphere crossed over both these realms and "through the vehicle of public opinion it put the state in touch with the needs of society. " "This area is conceptually distinct from the state: it [is] a site for the production and circulation of discourses that can in principle be critical of the state. " The public sphere "is also distinct from the official economy; it is not an arena of market relations but rather one of discursive relations, a theater for debating and deliberating rather than for buying and selling. " These distinctions between "state apparatuses, economic markets, and democratic associations...are essential to democratic theory. " The people themselves came to see the public sphere as a regulatory institution against the authority of the state.
  • The study of the public sphere centers on the idea of participatory democracy, and how public opinion becomes political action.
  • "Democratic governance rests on the capacity of and opportunity for citizens to engage in enlightened debate. " Much of the debate over the public sphere involves what is the basic theoretical structure of the public sphere, how information is deliberated in the public sphere, and what influence the public sphere has over society.

• Climate and Weather

  • In contrast, weather refers to the conditions of the atmosphere during a short period of time.
  • To better understand the difference between climate and weather, imagine that you are planning an outdoor event in northern Wisconsin.
  • You would be thinking about climate when you plan the event in the summer rather than the winter because you have long-term knowledge that any given Saturday in the months of May to August would be a better choice for an outdoor event in Wisconsin than any given Saturday in January.
  • However, you cannot determine the specific day that the event should be held because it is difficult to accurately predict the weather on a specific day.
  • This map illustrates the various climate conditions around the world.

• The Nativist Response to Immigration

  • Nativist movements included the Know-Nothing or American Party of the 1850s, the Immigration Restriction League of the 1890s, and the anti-Asian movements in the West, the latter of which resulted in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
  • The Bennett Law caused a political uproar in Wisconsin in 1890, as the state government passed a law that threatened to close down hundreds of German-language elementary schools.
  • The parents, the pastors and the church have entered into a conspiracy to darken the understanding of the children, who are denied by cupidity and bigotry the privilege of even the free schools of the state."
  • Furthermore, the idea that the state could intervene in family life and tell children how to speak was intolerable.
  • The law was repealed in 1891, but Democrats used the memories to carry Wisconsin and Illinois in the 1892 U.S. presidential election.

• Incorporating Louisiana

  • Louisiana was incorporated into the Union in a fashion similar to the Old Southwest (Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama), and to a lesser extent, the Old Northwest (Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota).
  • All slave societies enacted codes to regulate the behavior of enslaved peoples, and with the transfer of power from the French to the Americans, the old French Code Noir, or Black Law, was replaced by the more restrictive Slave Laws of the Deep South.
  • The question of slavery in the Louisiana Territory was left ambiguous in the north.
  • Jefferson disliked the idea of purchasing Louisiana from France, as that could imply that France had a right to be in Louisiana.
  • The Louisiana Territory was vast, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to Rupert's Land in the north, and from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west.