In Plato’sRepubliche paints a very poor picture of human nature–a nature unable to resist corrupting influences. He depicts this in his story of Gyges, an ordinary sheep herder who stumbles upon a sunken ship within a pond and within the ship a body and a golden ring. The ring, similar to the ring in Tolkien’sLord of the Ringshas magical powers, but those powers lead the finder, a character named Gollum, to evil ways. In the same way, the sheepherder uses the invisible powers of the ring to kill the ruler of his country and become king himself. Plato has two questions for us concerning this. He asks first if we had such a ring, could we stay good, or would we succumb to doing things we shouldn’t?

The second question Plato entertains is more subtle. What if someone uses evil means to become rich and powerful and once he has everything he wants, he pretends to be good, so that others admire him and look up to him for all that he has become. He enhances that image in his later years, when he becomes generous in helping others, but only for show, not because he truly cares about anyone but himself. On the other hand, what if a person is a good person throughout life, and yet to do this he or she never is able to save much money or gain any power. So then in hard times, this person is unable to help others because he or she does not have the means to do so. Plato asks, what is the better scenario, to do help others after wrongdoing, or to not to help because one is too poor to do so? What is better for us to be?

Use the Module Lecture and the Reading this week to explain Plato’s view of how self-interest can corrupt our natures such that we might follow in the footsteps of Gyges. Given Plato’s negative view of human nature, explain too whether wealth naturally corrupts or whether you believe we can overcome the tendency to hold onto too much wealth to the detriment of others.

Submission:

• Must be a minimum of 1 1/2 pageswith standard 1-inch margins in Times New Roman or Garamond font.
• Must be double-spaced.
• Must address the topic of the paper with critical thought.
• Must include in-text citations and references in MLA style.
• Name, course, and assignment top left.
• Include a Title.

Q1. Few markets in the real world have the characteristics of a perfectly competitive market. Does that mean that the predictions of the model of perfect competition are not very useful in predicting how markets in the real world work? Discuss. (5 Marks)

Q2. ‘Profit is the maximum value a company can distribute during the year and still expect to be worth as much at the end of the year as it was at the beginning.’ Discuss this statement, and comment on its value in measuring profit for decision-making. (5 Marks)

Q3. As a manager, would you prefer your business to be in a monopoly position or a perfectly competitive market? Why? Support your views with examples. (5 Marks)

Q4.Why is it that, in the short-run, after a certain number of workers has been hired, output increases by less and less with each additional worker hired? Illustrate your answer with an example. Would there be any circumstances under which this phenomenon would not occur? (5 Marks)

Regulations:

– Write all formulas required for explanation

– Support your submission with course material concepts, principles, and theories from the textbook, along with at least two scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles.

– This assignment is an individual assignment to be submitted in a word file.

– Students are encouraged to use their own words.

– Students must follow Saudi Electronic University academic writing standards and APA style guidelines.

– A mark of zero is awarded for any submission that includes copying from other resources without proper referencing it.

– Write at least 7 pages, excluding the title page and required reference page, which is never a part of the minimum content requirements.

– Plagiarism check less than 10%.

– It is strongly encouraged that the student submits his/her assignment into the Safe Assignment Originality Check before sending it to your instructor for grading.

– Note: For all your answers support your views/opinions with at least two to three scholarly references, and a word count of 400-500 words for each answer.

– Learning Resource: Chapter 5 &6 of the Text Book O’Sullivan, A., Sheffrin, S. M., & Perez, S.J. (2014).Survey of Economics: Principles, Applications, and Tools. (6th).Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Print version: ISBN-10: 0-13-294885-0 or ISBN-13: 978-0-13-294885-2.Digital version: ISBN-13:978-0-13-13-9370-7.