World slavery and Caribbean capitalism

Conclusion The perspective presented here constructs the distinct way in which land, labor, and technology in nineteenth-century Cuba were constituted within specific historical processes of the evolving capitalist world economy. Technological development had dynamic consequences for Cuba. There the availability of land, essential to the extensive pattern of exploitation of the Cuban sugar industry, was blocked by the difficulties of transport. Nevertheless, this limit - instead of becoming simply destructive and leading to a regression - led to the surpassing of the previous order: it resulted in a new social-economic form on which an accelerated rhythm was imposed with the introduction of the railroad, the integration of the island's economy into the world-scale circuits of capital, and the expansion and intensification of slave labor.To the degree that Moreno ignores the world historical character of Cuban slavery, he obscures what is distinctive about its local history. The apparent continuity of the history of slavery and slave emancipation and its seemingly singular relationship to capitalist development conceal the complex, multiple, and qualitatively different relations and processes constituting slavery within the world processes of capital accumulation and division of labor. Despite apparent similarities, the sugar plantation and slave labor in Cuba are not the same as in Barbados, Saint Domingue, or Jamaica. The latter represent a cycle of slave production that precedes industrial capital and the integration of world markets characteristics of the nineteenth century, whereas the organization of land, labor and technology in Cuba presupposes integrated world markets and capital circuits increasingly centered in industrialized production. The nexus of market and productive processes in these two socioeconomic situations result in sharply contrasting temporal differences. In Cuba, a structural change in historical time itself took place. (One might speak of the denaturalization of historical time, which can be grasped from the perspective of technology and industry.) The development of the sugar industry was characterized by movement, acceleration, and openess to new social-economic arrangements within and new spaces without. In this context, specific rhythms, sequences, and periods appear within a plurality of temporal strata of variable extension and duration that interact in the same historical dimension of modernity, and which can only be understood in relation to one another.Thus, instead of undertaking to apply abstract and general categories to the interpretation of specific processes, in this article I emphasize the need to adopt theoretical perspectives and methodological procedures that take as their premise the historical unity and specificity of the development of the capitalist world economy. Only in this way does it becomes possible to comprehend the complexity of slave relations - the ways in which they are both continually formed and reformed within the processes of world economy and contain within themselves conditions of modern economy and polity. Similarly, such an approach permits the world economy itself to be understood as the unity of diverse relations and processes, the modernity of which is defined not by the ever-increasing dominion of a homogeneous and one-dimensional rationality, but by its inherent complexity and historical unevenness.

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发展大学生领导力教育的瓶颈及对策

世界各国的经验表明，高校开展大学生领导力教育有利于大学生更好地适应未来不断变化发展的现代社会。近些年，我国也开始关注大学生领导力教育问题，但在发展大学生领导力教育过程中存在定位有失偏颇、理解不够全面、教育资源的开发与利用不足等三大瓶颈。为此，对大学生领导力教育进行恰当定位，从大学生成长成才的角度出发开展领导力教育。探索大学生领导力教育长效机制显得十分紧迫和必要。     

Capitalist development and educational reform

Conclusion The early formulations of reproduction theory fail to grasp uneven educational development because of a reliance on a mechanical, base/ superstructure model of social organization. Unlike neo-Weberian models which attempt to sever the necessary connection between the existence of public education and commodity production, reproduction theory emphasizes the correspondence of public education and the capitalist economy. But this correspondence does not adequately conceptualize the unity of form and content in capitalist relations of production. As a causal model it implies that economic relations develop in the absence of their institutional counterparts. The weight of economic needs then calls institutional reform into play. Such a model reduces historical development to the movement of pure forms.The early formulations of reproduction theory confuse abstract and historical levels of analysis. They also fail to adequately grasp social units. Capitalism is a world economy in which production extends well beyond national boundaries, yet in which labor power is reproduced on the whole by national states. Without an analysis of relations among nations, uneven educational development is unintelligible.The patterns of educational development seen in Ireland and Upper Canada resulted from the colonial status of these countries which made educational reform appear a potential solution to imperialist struggles. Educational reforms blocked in England because of class struggles and sectarian divisions could be invoked in the colonial situation by virtue of the relative independence of the colonial state. These reforms, however, embodied structural features peculiar to capitalist relations of production. Precocious educational development in these cases results from the heightened development of the colonial state in relation to the colonial political economy.Public education does not, one would think obviously, eliminate class relations. Rather, public educational reform is a mode of reformulating class relations by the state. This reformulation changes the appearance of class relations but not their basis. Public education is not compensation for the loss of liberty political subjects endure by consenting to be ruled by the state; it is more usefully seen as one way in which the state administers class relations. As such, it reproduces class struggles in displaced forms. Such displaced struggles are seen by neo-Weberian writers as constellations of interests, but one should not lose sight of the structural origins of such interests.While reproduction theory has presented serious critiques of liberal theory and has stressed the historically specific character of public education, it has embodied functionalist assumptions which limit its ability to come to grips with concrete historical development. To escape these assumptions it is necessary to reject a base/ superstructure model and to seek rather to understand the expanded reproduction of the essential social forms of capitalist society.     

土耳其与伊朗关系演变的内外因素分析

作为中东地区两个主要大国,土耳其和伊朗的关系长期以来因为伊斯兰世界领导权、地缘政治影响、少数民族动乱、政治模式差异等一系列因素,处于一种结构性矛盾之中。近年来,随着中东地区政治环境的变化,再加上其自身内部政治变革、经济困境和政治伊斯兰思潮等因素的作用,两国关系出现了明显改善。土伊关系的改善对于平衡美国势力对中东地区的干预和维护地区和平稳定具有重要的积极作用。但由于结构性矛盾难以克服,两国关系的未来发展依然取决于该地区内外环境的变化。     

Patriarchalism in imperial China and Western Europe

Conclusion My analysis suggests that Weber's typology of domination - the cluster of patriarchalism, charisma, and law - does not fit Chinese history as it does European history. The typology has particular relevance in Europe because Weber purposefully developed types of domination that reflected and synthesized essential elements of Western historical experience: the struggles between kings and nobles, between popes and priests, between leaders and followers of all types. Deeply aware of the patterns of Western history, Weber understood that his concepts of analysis constituted historical summaries, not simply ideas and abstract beliefs but distillations of patterns of actions and of the justifications supporting and channeling those patterns. Although Weber fashioned these ideal types from his knowledge of Western history, he wanted to make them genuinely trans-epochal and transcultural so that he could test, through comparative mental experiment and imaginative extrapolation, causal explanations about the course of Western history. That the generations of students of Western society continue to learn from and struggle with Weber's concepts and historical theories demonstrates that Weber was hugely successful in his work.But are Weber's typologies as useful in the analysis of non-Western societies as they are in that of Europe? I have only dealt with Chinese society, but for this society my analysis suggests that the answer to this question is no. As Weber defined them, patriarchalism, charisma, and law do not apply to China in the way that they apply to Europe. They do not represent summaries of Chinese history; they do not distill the debates and struggles of two millenia; they do not tap those shared understandings that informed Chinese patterns of action. And because they do not gain an equivalent grasp of Chinese as they do of Western history, they are less useful and often very misleading when one uses them to analyze and explain the course of Chinese history. If those concepts do not get at the same reality in China, what is the logical status of the conclusions drawn from using them to analyze China? As I have attempted to show in this paper, they can be used to indicate through comparison what configurations are absent from China. But they are less useful in developing a genuine understanding of Chinese history. Therefore, to understand China, and perhaps most non-Western societies, Weber's typology of domination and particularly his analysis of traditional domination, should not be used directly as a summary of an underlying reality. Weber's warning about the perniciousness of Marxian concepts and theories when they are thought of as empirically valid or real effective forces should be applied with particular vigor to Weber's own concepts and theories when applied to non-Western societies. But, by equal measure, if one assumes that Weber's typology of domination misrepresents non-Western societies in some regard, it still provides an example of the sort of conceptual framework needed to analyze the historical development of state structures in any society. Weber championed comparative research, because he believed without comparisons it was impossible to examine rigorously the course of history and to develop theories of historical change. Weber rightly believed that comparisons were only possible with generalized historical concepts. But to Weber, historical research does not lead to better or more general sociological theories. Instead, sociology, as Weber put it to a noted historian, can perform ... very modest preparatory work to an adequate historical analysis. Concepts must lead the way to historical explanations and not the reverse. Similarly, Weber's analysis of the West provides the preparatory work for a better understanding of non-Western society. In this sense Weber's concepts are indispensable for the analysis of non-Western society, not because they are the last word, but because, along with other products of Western sociology, they are the first word, words that are used only to have their meanings altered by subsequent research.

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The road to a world health organization global strategy for reducing the harmful use of alcohol

Harmful alcohol use and the related health effects are a global problem and therefore need to be addressed not only by individual nations but also on an international level. For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) noted that harmful alcohol use is the third leading risk factor for premature deaths and disabilities in the world, accounting for approximately 2.5 million deaths worldwide (corresponding to 3.8 percent of all deaths) in 2004 (WHO 2010). Moreover, harmful alcohol use was considered responsible for 4.5 percent of the global burden of disease as measured in disability-adjusted life-years lost in the same year. Given this scope of the impact, the WHO initiated a series of efforts that culminated in the development of a global strategy for reducing the harmful use of alcohol. This article reviews the alcohol-related activities of the WHO over the years and summarizes the central issues addressed by the global strategy.     

The Russian Military Spending: Modernization Not Rearmament

The Russian Federation has come back on the international scene, in the past years, thanks to its economic expansion and its political stability. The defence sector, a pillar of the Soviet regime, takes advantage of this situation and is receiving increasing funds, although the fraction of the GDP remains constant. Some experts fear a renewed arms race and a new threat for the world security. The analysis of the overall figures leads to a more moderate view. The situation of the Armed Forces suffers from many problems and it is far from being dangerous for the world stability. The core of the Army, the personnel, is in a terrible situation with a huge gap compared with other developed nations. In addition, Russia endures a demographic collapse and it will be always more difficult to find capable arms that use the new generation armaments of the proclaimed modernization plans.

走向"扁平化"的知识型城市

中国即将成为先进的知识经济大国的趋势,也为其他国家带来了发展机遇,、本文所研究的核心问题是,如果以知识经济发展为指导的管理政策作为工具,一个人口大国的发达与欠发达地区之间的不均衡是否能够以及如何能够“扁平化”。我们特别要关注的是正在发展中的知识社会是否能够缩窄知识鸿沟以及由此缩短整体的发展差距,“扁平化世界”的概念就是大家都在同一水平的起跑线上。我们选择以中国为例,是因为她悠久的历史和地缘政治的复杂性对其他发展中国家具有借鉴意义。不少学者们认为,是邓小平的改革开放政策改变了中国的落后面貌,但笔者却持相反观点,认为中国的兴衰成败,并不单纯地取决于国界的开放与否,而是取决于整个社会是否存在积极的学习态度以及可供借鉴学习的参照体．     

China's experience in population control: the elusive model

A critique of a report prepared for the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives titled "China's experience in population control: the elusive model is presented. The title is criticized, pointing out that the Chinese have done nothing "elusive," but, instead, have used methods familiar to family planning experts the world over. They have brought services close to home, used a variety of paramedical and lay people drawn from the community, have made services free, have offered a choice of services, and have used people from within the community for family planning education. Neither have the Chinese been secretive about it, as the report implies. It is the American refusal to admit that the People's Republic of China was the accepted government of the region which made Americans ignorant of developments. The report's author also seems unwilling to admit that the reason for the success of the program is that it has been integrated into a total plan for the improvement of socioeconomic conditions for the average person. Since 1949 some 200 million people have been added to the population of China, nearly the population of the U.S. Despite this large population growth, conditions have improved and the starvation which used to be common has been eliminated. Population growth has not been a bar to development. Any country which tries to reduce family size without putting it in a total context of development will find it difficult to succeed. Other developing nations cannot borr ow China's experience in toto as circumstances vary from country to country, but the essence is that no viable solution to population problems can be brought be fertility reduction invest as such. Meaningful socioeconomic change is also essential.     

Slavery in capitalism

Conclusion I have attempted here to reconceptualize the dynamic of the cotton culture by situating it within its world-historical context. This does not, however, mean a simple extension of view. Rather, it is a methodological matter in the sense that slavery itself needs to be reconceptualized as a component of the global circuits of the wage-labor regime. Nineteenth-century capitalism, under British hegemony, transcended segmented colonial system markets and forged a global unity of commodity circuits reproducing industrial capital. Under this regime, commodity producers worldwide were now subject to the law of value. This is the context within which nineteenth-century slavery needs to be analyzed.The resurgence of slavery during this period appears paradoxical - defying the logic of the industrial regime shaping the world market. Not so if we reconceptualize slavery as now internal to that regime, and one of the several forms of labor that expanded with the general development of the regime. But why then did slavery subsequently collapse? Again, being internal to the regime, it was now subject to that regime's superior economic competition, in addition to being a social and moral anachronism in the ideology of that regime. In either case, the relation between slavery and capitalism was not governed by some essential linear economic movement in which slavery was a historical anachronism.The key methodological point is to distinguish the phenomenal form of slavery from its historical content. The same applies to our conception of wage labor. While empirically it may have concentrated in metropolitan regions, theoretically it had universal implications insofar as it was premised on the development of global commodity circuits. Not only was metropolitan wage labor globally sourced, but also non-metropolitan commodity producers were redefined (but not necessarily extinguished) as they absorbed capitalist circuits and submitted to value relations. But we cannot understand the dynamics if it is assumed that non-wage forms of labor are prior to wage labor. As Marx wrote: It would ... be unfeasible and wrong to let the economic categories follow one another in the same sequence as that in which they were historically decisive. Their sequence is determined, rather, by their relation to one another in modern bourgeois society, which is precisely the opposite of that which seems to be their natural order or which corresponds to historical development. The precondition of this historical method is what unifies the body of literature earlier identified as locating the formation of modern regional identities and local labor systems within determinant world-historical processes. The goal is to understand their distinctiveness as outcomes of a connective historical process, rather than as unique and bounded cultures in their own right.In this essay the connective historical process is the rise of wage labor, and the generalization of its conditions of reproduction. The process has various dimensions, unifying either extant or newly created commodity producers. An illustration of the former process is the restructuring of relations between the Ottoman state and its peasants in the context of late-nineteenth-century European imperialism. New taxes on peasants were geared to expanding grain exports to finance the national debt resulting from public loans from Europe to build railways. Peasant commodity production became linked to the provision of wage foods for the European proletariat - as Luxemburg put it: and so the peasant grain of Asia, converted into money, also serves to turn into cash the surplus value that has been extorted from the German workers. Illustrating the latter process, of newly created commodity producers, is Friedmann's work on New World family farming. But more often than not it is a combination, where extant producers are redefined and reproduced on an expanding scale. This is the case with Roseberry's Venezuelan peasants - both precipitates of global processes of proletarianization, and exemplars of an unresolved historical movement of smallholder survival strategies (cash-crop coffee growing in this instance). In conclusion, the rise of wage labor and the generalization of its conditions of reproduction are more than a process of uneven and combined development on a global scale. It is also a process of reformulation of the content of non-wage forms of labor within a contradictory unity governed by value relations. It is here that the concept of a global wage relation becomes useful. As an abstract concept, it expresses (a) those value relations common to the different phenomenal forms of commodity-producing labor, and (b) the historical fact of wage-labor's determinant position within this unity. The global wage relation is not coterminous with the phenomenon of wage labor alone, rather it expresses the world-historical conditions that constitute wage labor and its contradictory movement. Nineteenth-century slavery was one such condition. Its resurgence and demise precisely expressed the fluidity of the global wage relation, as a world-historical relation.

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Historical legacies, nationalist mobilization, and political outcomes in Russia and Serbia: A Weberian view

Conclusion In the preceding analysis, I attempt to demonstrate the usefulness of some of Weber's key theoretical ideas on nations, nationalism, and imperialism by way of a comparative examination of contemporary Russian and Serbian nationalism. More specifically, I try to show how long-term historical and institutional legacies, shared memories, and defining political experiences, played themselves out in the contemporary period, influencing the different availability of mass constituencies in Russia and Serbia for nationalist mobilization under the auspices of new empire-saving coalitions.But political outcomes are never wholly pre-determined as historical legacies are subject to different cultural interpretations and political contest. To put it simply, nationalism is made and remade by politicians and ideologists; and there is no need to gloss over the frequently bloody and unpredictable consequences of their struggles with unduly abstract sociological generalizations. Instead, we should theorize our narratives, while giving contingency its place.I suggest that the presence of a highly symbolic issue (such as the World War Two experiences of Serbs in Croatia, the mythology of Kosovo, Sevastopol or the mythology of the Russian fleet), which touches on the core historical mythology of one nation, but is contested by another on different grounds (demographic, ethnic, or for reasons of historical justice, for example) increases the likelihood of national conflicts. Once highly symbolic issues are involved, national conflicts quickly assume the form of struggles over ultimate values not subject to compromise and conflict-regulation. However, as the Russian case demonstrates, other symbolic legacies (the experience of Stalinism) might be powerful enough to override nationalism.I also suggest in this article a few simple ways in which we can interpret, and possibly, test the likelihood of the emergency of national conflicts: the significance of prestige considerations, the absence of compensatory mechanisms such as economic prosperity, the egalitarian character of nationalist appeals, the dynamic of status-reversal, and the theory of the superimposition of conflicts. To understand the exclusivist overtones of much of contemporary nationalism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, however, it would also be necessary to pay more attention to the political-cultural and social-structural legacy of Communist rule. The prevalence of uncompromising stances among political leaders, the absence of mechanisms of conflict-regulation, the hostility to proceduralism and legal mechanisms as a means of resolving the emerging national questions, and the appeal of the new nationalism to state-dependent and traditionalist strata are among the most important elements of this legacy.     

China's pursuits of indigenous innovations in information technology developments: hopes,follies and uncertainties

Although the Chinese state has allowed US-based transnational corporations to play an instrumental role in China's information technology (IT)-led development strategy, a dominant segment of Chinese political and technological leadership has always been wary of the negative political, economic and cultural implications of continued American domination in digital technological developments. Chinese efforts at asserting greater control over a rapidly evolving networked communication infrastructure have been multifaceted. Significantly, the past few years have seen an escalation of domestic discourses on “network sovereignty” and “indigenous innovations” or the mastery of core technologies at the industrial development strategy and technological policy levels. An elite consensus has crystallized around the mobilization of national resources to catch up with the United States in hardware and software IT developments, particularly to achieve potential leadership in next-generation network technologies. However, China's quest for technological leadership in the network age continues to be constrained by a range of domestic political economic forces on one hand, and mediated by the paradoxical dynamics of interstate cooperation and rivalry in the political economy of global communication on the other. The growing transnational nature of the capitalist accumulation process, of which China's deepened global integration through its rapidly expanding and increasingly market-driven information industry has been a critical component, has further complicated these endeavors.     

The politics of sexuality: Toward a radical-critical approach

From a radical-critical perspective, the gap between the everyday world as experienced and the sociological world as theorized is nowhere so apparent as in the area of human sexuality. Conventional research on human sexuality appears atheoretical, ahistorical, and reductionistic. The viability of a radical-critical alternative is demonstrated with examples of research and theory in three sub-areas: (1) sexuality as identity (socialization approach); (2) sexuality as ideology (comparative and historical approach); and (3) sexuality as power (political-economic approach). The paper discusses three distinguishing characteristics of the radical-critical perspective. The approach: (1) is holistic and historical; (2) urges theoretical explanation for each topic of sexuality under investigation; and (3) offers a critical evaluation of thestatus quo and calls for radical change.     

“Trees Die From the Top”: International Perspectives on NGO Leadership Development

This paper examines the role of leadership development in NGO capacity building and assesses some of the challenges of developing a new generation of NGO leaders. The paper draws on the analysis of new and existing research into the dimensions of NGO leadership highlighting the importance of both individual attributes and contextual relevance. Effective NGO leaders are able to balance a range of competing pressures from different stakeholders in ways that do not compromise their individual identity and values. Leadership development programmes therefore need to focus on both the values and identity of individual leaders while also assisting leaders understand and proactively respond to their rapidly changing external environment. We conclude that there is an urgent need to build the capacity of NGOs to develop their leadership capability. Unless systems and processes to support this work are put in place then the apocryphal warning trees die from the top will have more than a ring of truth in it.     

Revitalization of Local Community and Ethnicity: Nagasaki's Lantern Festival Among the Immigrant Chinese

Abstract: The Nagasaki's Lantern Festival is gaining popularity through the continued partnership between the immigrant Chinese (Kakyo) and Nagasaki city, largely owing to the ethnic Chinese revitalization movement and the distinct way of life typical in Nagasaki. Following my past research, I would like to discuss the development and modification of Nagasaki's Lantern Festival, to examine the relationship between the features specific to the Nagasaki area and the changes in the Kakyo community's sense of ethnicity amid the wave of globalization. By the Meiji period, ethnic Chinese society in Nagasaki consisted mainly of immigrants from Fu Jian province. Today the community is experiencing rapid transformation. In particular, the restoration of Sino–Japanese relations and the wave of internationalization have led to the creation of the Nagasaki Shinchi Chinatown Shopping District Promotion Association and the renewal of Chinatown for the ethnic Chinese. The Chinese Spring Festival, originally aimed toward community vitalization, not only included the Kakyo (immigrant Chinese) but the Japanese in the district and private corporations. Nagasaki was transformed not only into a strategic point for East Asia's multilateral trade, but also served as a trading center for the entire nation. But as Japanese ports opened their doors to the world after 1850, Nagasaki was reduced to only one of the local trading centers. As for overseas business, Nagasaki took advantage of its heavy industry by expanding its share in the Asian international market and has been striving in the domestic market to activate the local economy through tourism. Such strategy hinges on the rich historical and cultural resources formed and nurtured within the 400 years of relations with Asian nations. The historical merger between the Kakyo community and its cultural tradition in Nagasaki society served as one of the incentives for such development and progress. The enlargement of Nagasaki's Lantern Festival has been achieved as part of this concept of “Asian‐oriented region”, in line with the city's plan on tourism promotion.     

The Evolution of Career Guidance and Counseling in the People's Republic of China

Although China has a long history of vocational guidance, it is functionally at a beginning stage in career development and counseling because of the historical vagaries of its political leadership. Vocational guidance and career counseling services, as a professional field, are now rapidly being developed to meet the growing need of Chinese society. M. Pope's (1995, 2000) social transitions stage model is applied to the development of career counseling in China. In particular, this article addresses historic and current trends in the economy and labor market in China and their profound impact on the development of career counseling.     

中国城镇化:历史道路、制度根源与国际经验

中国城镇化发展的每一个历史阶段,都对应了中国经济社会发展中需要解决的核心问题。当前中国城镇化发展面临的瓶颈,其形成有深刻的社会历史制度根源。要从全球及中国发展大战略的角度,历史性地考察中国城镇化道路的历史演变及其逻辑,探寻中国城镇化发展瓶颈的社会历史制度根源,并借鉴国际经验,推动新型城镇化的健康发展。为此,需要在战略认知方面,突破城镇化发展传统思维的束缚,形成创新性的新型城镇化发展战略的理念;在制度建构方面,形成推动和保障城镇化发展的有针对性的战略框架;在动员多元主体力量与资源方面,要实行多元主体间的协调合作,打造城镇化发展的组织化支持系统。     

Reversals of fortune: path dependency,problem solving,and temporal cases

Historical reversals highlight a basic methodological problem: is it possible to treat two successive periods both as independent cases to compare for causal analysis and as parts of a single historical sequence? I argue that one strategy for doing so, using models of path dependency, imposes serious limits on explanation. An alternative model which treats successive periods as contrasting solutions for recurrent problems offers two advantages. First, it more effectively combines analytical comparisons of different periods with narratives of causal sequences spanning two or more periods. Second, it better integrates scholarly accounts of historical reversals with actors’ own narratives of the past.     

Using Daydreams in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Daydreams, long recognized as containers of unarticulated, unrecognized and/or unconscious material, can be subtle but powerful tools for introducing clients to the process of exploring internal experience. They offer a crucial, relatively non-threatening path to self-understanding for individuals who come into therapy without the capacity for introspection, tolerance of affect, and sense of agency that are requisite for the process of psychodynamic psychotherapy. In part because they are often available to conscious awareness, they are an amazingly useful medium through which to help many of these clients gain access to their internal world. They encourage the development of the capacity to symbolize, to play, and eventually to embrace the potential space of internal experience that makes it possible to have a rich and fulfilling life in the external world. In this article, the author introduces the use of daydreams in psychodynamic psychotherapy, focusing specifically on three specific areas: resistance, somatization, and transference.     

Doubling vs. Constant Bets as Strategies for Gambling

Some gamblers use a doubling strategy as a way of improving their chances of coming home a winner. This paper reports on the results of a computer simulation study of the doubling strategy and compares the short term and long term results of doubling to gambling with a constant sized bet. In the short term players using a doubling strategy were more likely to win, then lose, however in the long term, the losses suffered by doublers were much greater than that suffered by constant bettors. It is argued that the use of a doubling strategy is related to an incomplete conceptualization of random events sometimes known as the law of averages. A second simulation examined the fate of doubling in an ideal world in which the law of averages was actually true. In this ideal world, doublers were much better off than constant bettors. The relationship of the results to a naive conceptualization of random events is discussed.