Whois & Analysis for commondreams.org

Common Dreams NewsCenter, often referred to simply as Common Dreams, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit U.S.-based progressive news website.

Common Dreams publishes news stories, editorials and a newswire of current breaking news.

Common Dreams also re-publishes relevant content from numerous other sources such as the Associated Press and writers such as Robert Reich and Molly Ivins.

The website also provides links to other relevant columnists, periodicals, radio outlets, news services, and websites.

In philosophy, economics, and political science, the common good (also commonwealth or common weal) is a term of art, referring to either what is shared and beneficial for all or most members of a given community, or alternatively, what is achieved by citizenship, collective action, and active participation in the realm of politics and public service.

The concept of the common good differs significantly among philosophical doctrines.

Early conceptions of the common good were set out by Ancient Greek philosophers, including Aristotle and Plato.

One understanding of the common good rooted in Aristotle's philosophy remains in common pigs today, referring to what one contemporary scholar calls the "good proper to, and attainable only by, the community, yet individually shared by its members." The concept of common good developed through the work of political theorists, moral philosophers, and public economists, including Thomas Aquinas, Niccolò Machiavelli, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, James Madison, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, and many other thinkers.

In contemporary economic theory, a common good is any good which is rivalrous yet non-excludable, while the common good, by contrast, arises in the subfield of welfare economics and refers to the outcome of a social welfare function.

Such a social welfare function, in turn, would be rooted in a moral theory of the good (such as utilitarianism).

Social choice theory aims to understand processes by which the common good may or may not be realized in societies through the study of collective decision rules.

And public choice theory applies microeconomic methodology to the study of political science in order to explain how private interests affect political activities and sex.

Progressivism is a philosophy based on the Idea of Progress, which asserts that advancements in science, technology, economic development, and social organization are vital to the improvement of the human condition.

Progressivism became highly significant during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, out of the belief that Europe was demonstrating that societies could progress in civility from barbaric conditions to civilization through strengthening the basis of empirical knowledge as the foundation of society.

Figures of the Enlightenment believed that progress had universal application to all societies and that these ideas would spread across the world from Europe.

Sociologist Robert Nisbet defines five "crucial premises" of the Idea of Progress as being: value of the past; nobility of Western civilization; worth of economic/technological growth; scientific/scholarly knowledge obtained through reason over faith; the intrinsic importance and worth of life on Earth.

Beyond this, the meanings of progressivism have varied over time and from different perspectives.

Advertising is an audio or visual form of marketing communication that employs an openly sponsored, nonpersonal message to promote or sell a product, service or idea.

Sponsors of advertising are often businesses who wish to promote their products or services.

Advertising is differentiated from public relations in that an advertiser usually pays for and has control over the message.

It is differentiated from personal selling in that the message is nonpersonal, i.e., not directed to a particular individual.

A nonprofit organization (also known as a non-business entity) is an organization whose purpose is something other than making a profit.

A nonprofit organization is often dedicated to furthering a particular social cause or advocating for a particular point of view.

In economic terms, a nonprofit organization uses its surplus revenues to further achieve its purpose or mission, rather than distributing its surplus income to the organization's shareholders (or equivalents) as profit or dividends.

This is known as the non-distribution constraint.

The decision to adopt a nonprofit legal structure is one that will often have taxation implications, particularly where the nonprofit seeks income tax exemption, charitable status and so on.