Writing Topic
Imagine that a company has announced plans to build a large factory
in your community. Would you support this addition to your community?
☆Let’s Think
1
What are the advantages and disadvantages
of building a factory in general?
2
Are there any conditions of
your community to welcome or reject a new factory?
3
Are there any counterarguments
against the opinion that a new factory will increase employment?
4
Are there any counterarguments
against the opinion that a new factory will have a negative effect on the
environment?
Note: Let’s deal with counterarguments. When you think of a counterargument,
take it up, and deal with it by, for example, proving the counterargument does
not matter or showing that there is a solution.
☆Hints for Points
◍ Advantages and disadvantages
of building a factory in general
Advantages
1
It will stimulate the local economy.
2
The employment will improve.
3
The municipal government will
benefit from the tax revenue increase.
Disadvantages
1
air/water/noise pollution
2
Transportation will be crowded.
3
There might be conflicts
between old and new residents.
◍ Conditions of your
community
1
old residential area → The health of children and senior citizens might
be adversely affected.
2
already full of factories → more disadvantages than advantages
☆Counterarguments and
their treatment (counter-counterarguments)
◍ employment will
improve.
Counterargument: Corporations employ dispatched workers, who are
already trained to do the tasks and do not cost much, or they use robots.
Counter-counterargument: The community leaders can organize
themselves to see to it that the factory will give priority to hiring the local
residents before the construction starts.
◍ The new factory can
negatively affect the environment (pollution, CO2 emissions, habitat loss, etc.)
Counterargument: New technology will reduce the impact on the
environment.
Counter-counterargument: A corporation will do anything for profits.
It will not seriously take measures to protect the environment. Once the damage
is done, the community will never be the same, and court cases will take
decades.
☆Essay for Ideas and Expressions
I would
welcome the factory if it is run by a new type of company but strongly reject
it if it is owned by the conventional corporation. Although it would seemingly benefit
my town mainly because of job creation, a factory owned by a corporation would
eventually bring unhappiness to the community.
In the long
run, a corporate-owned factory would harm my community and the environment. By
law, a corporation is only responsible to its shareholders, neither to the
community nor to the environment. If a calculation shows that it can still make
profits even if it has to pay compensation for the damage caused by the
production or the products, the corporation just makes the product. As we have
seen, factories have polluted the air, water, and soil, causing diseases and
premature deaths among the residents, and many people have suffered or died due
to defective products.
Outsourcing
is another practice to worry about. If the factory is successful, the company will
try to expand and close the factory to build some in overseas countries where
cheap labor forces are available. If this happens, my town will suffer because
of the rise of the unemployment as well as the third-world countries whose
people will be exploited. This has happened in America over the last 20 years.
The result is a lot of ghost towns and the crushed middle class. Tight economy in
the harsh global market competition and relatively high personnel costs in my
country Japan will transform even a paternalistic Japanese company into a
ruthless, money-hungry machine. It is sensible to suspect the possibility of
future offshoring of the factory.
Moreover, the
corporation could close even a most productive factory for profits. For example,
if the product the factory turns out is abundant in the market, the company often
stops manufacturing it to prevent its price from falling down, just as extra
crops such as oranges are discarded to manipulate the market prices, when many
people are starving, as depicted in “The Grapes of Wrath” half a century ago
and is being done right at this moment somewhere on this planet.
A new type of
company that I would be pleased to invite to my town is the one of employee
ownership. I myself have no desire to own a company, but, in theory, I think this
system will make our lives better. Employee ownership allows all employees to
literally participate in policymaking. This would drive the factory to the
right direction, even though the majority is not always right. For instance,
considering most ordinary citizens are concerned about environmental issues
while many large companies are still denying the global warming theory for fear
of loss caused by policy change, a company where decisions are made by workers’
majority vote is likely to emit minimum amount of CO2 and easy on the
environment in general. Needless to say, the pay gap between the officials and
the rank-and-files would be smaller because everyone is the owner of the
company. This kind of company is established by people who have values far from money-and-power orientation, and
therefore, my town would be livelier with people respecting and supporting each
other so that everyone can have a good life.
A company as
a tool for extra-income of a few super-rich people is not welcome, while a
company of the ordinary people, by the ordinary people, for the ordinary people
is a great welcome. Increase of factories operated by this type of companies
would drastically change society.
☆Sample Essay Structures
A
【Introduction = Outline】
【Point 1】
【Point 2】
【Counterargument-treatment】*
【Conclusion = Wrap-up】
B
【Introduction = Outline】
【Good Points】
【Bad Points】
【Conditions of My Community】
【Conclusion = Wrap-up】
*Why good points are not attractive / Why bad
points do not matter
Your Sample Essay Structure
【Introduction = Outline】
【 】
【 】
【 】
【Conclusion = Wrap-up】
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