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Lecture 2

Braudel

  • Venice + Italy: developing of market economy

  • Trend in history and social sciences in the past

    • Event-based history: discrete political events, wars

      • Should not focus on events → mass of individual facts

      • Doesn’t tell you much about history

      • Lack of specificity

      • How to stitch them together? What is truly important?

  • Must zoom out and look at long-term trends/patterns!

    • Most particularly in sociology

  • We must talk about time in the social sciences

Periods of social time

  • Short-term

    • Ex: GDP calculations

  • Medium-term: economic

  • Long-term/longue durée: relatively stable social structures

    • 500-600 years

    • Advantage: longer scope → more info → more accurate predictions

    • Looking at the broader context

    • Combine short-term + long-term

  • Longest durée: 5 000/10 000 years

  • Economic equilibrium: prices will stabilize over time

  • Short-term event-based history

    • Synchronic matter: nature of a system event

      • Ex: structure of gendered labour now

      • 2008 crash housing patterns

    • Diachronic matter: over a long time frame - Braudel

      • Ex: structure of gendered labour from 1800 - now

      • Why did the 2008 crash happen?

      • How do patterns develop?

  • Papers:

    • Methodology sentence in papers: Here is the theory I am using, how it relates to what we are studying, here is why it is useful for my point of view

    • Specify the time period

What is globalization?

  • 600 years long process - apply longue durée

    • Discrete enough to study it

  • Single trend

  • Profits, colonial system, states classification, specialization + division of labour between states, pattern of continuous connection

  • Start: Western Europe accumulates capital and never lets it go

    • Get a massive advantage

Importance of economic analysis

  • According to the prof, units of time should be based on the economic system

  • Patterns of colonialism, extraction: start at a particular point in time → 1450

    • Economy of Europe and the world = started changing at this time

Globalization

  • The economy must:

    • Make it possible for globalization to happen

    • Provide the motivation to undertake globalization

  • Globalization: sense of interconnection

  • Economy: should take into account reproductive labour

    • Reproductive labour: need workers, habits (keep workers alive until working age), structure (ex: schools)

  • Structures:

    • Material: bridges, ports, railways, industrial capacity → infrastructure

    • Social: patterns of behaviour, practices

How did the modern world form through globalization?

  • Profit and profit motive

  • Capital has to expand, it cannot sit still if you want to grow → capitalism

    • Due to competitors

  • Transition to a market economy

    • Different classes created (some are political leaders, some produce goods)

  • Constant accumulation of capital (infrastructure) by core states at the expense of peripheral states

  • Money

    • Gold + silver brought to Europe → more money → more infrastructure accumulated

About other world economies…

  • Other world systems (ex: Asia)

    • We shouldn’t focus on them because they didn’t expand to the whole world (like Europe)

  • Other world systems: had many problems, so they didn’t expand

Motivation for globalization

  • Need for constant profits

  • Search for trade routes

  • Accumulation of resources

Why globalization fits the longue durée?

  • Evolution of capitalism: don’t look at it as a series of ruptures

  • Omnipresent inertia: uniform, inertia! Continuation of the same process: accumulation of capital + requirement of profits - Braudel

  • Problem: people are trying to make profits, and this can only happen through expansion

    • They thus decide to fund overseas expeditions → people sent there bring back gold → profits

  • All institutions (state companies) are competing over resources → increased profits → expansion

  • What theory fits this idea and the longue durée? World Systems Theory

    • Emergence of the capitalist world

      • Wallerstein: this is not only defined by the wage-labour relations → colonialism, enslavement…

      • Everything in the Americas was motivated by profit

        • This is why it makes sense to study this based on the economic system

Lecture 2

Braudel

  • Venice + Italy: developing of market economy

  • Trend in history and social sciences in the past

    • Event-based history: discrete political events, wars

      • Should not focus on events → mass of individual facts

      • Doesn’t tell you much about history

      • Lack of specificity

      • How to stitch them together? What is truly important?

  • Must zoom out and look at long-term trends/patterns!

    • Most particularly in sociology

  • We must talk about time in the social sciences

Periods of social time

  • Short-term

    • Ex: GDP calculations

  • Medium-term: economic

  • Long-term/longue durée: relatively stable social structures

    • 500-600 years

    • Advantage: longer scope → more info → more accurate predictions

    • Looking at the broader context

    • Combine short-term + long-term

  • Longest durée: 5 000/10 000 years

  • Economic equilibrium: prices will stabilize over time

  • Short-term event-based history

    • Synchronic matter: nature of a system event

      • Ex: structure of gendered labour now

      • 2008 crash housing patterns

    • Diachronic matter: over a long time frame - Braudel

      • Ex: structure of gendered labour from 1800 - now

      • Why did the 2008 crash happen?

      • How do patterns develop?

  • Papers:

    • Methodology sentence in papers: Here is the theory I am using, how it relates to what we are studying, here is why it is useful for my point of view

    • Specify the time period

What is globalization?

  • 600 years long process - apply longue durée

    • Discrete enough to study it

  • Single trend

  • Profits, colonial system, states classification, specialization + division of labour between states, pattern of continuous connection

  • Start: Western Europe accumulates capital and never lets it go

    • Get a massive advantage

Importance of economic analysis

  • According to the prof, units of time should be based on the economic system

  • Patterns of colonialism, extraction: start at a particular point in time → 1450

    • Economy of Europe and the world = started changing at this time

Globalization

  • The economy must:

    • Make it possible for globalization to happen

    • Provide the motivation to undertake globalization

  • Globalization: sense of interconnection

  • Economy: should take into account reproductive labour

    • Reproductive labour: need workers, habits (keep workers alive until working age), structure (ex: schools)

  • Structures:

    • Material: bridges, ports, railways, industrial capacity → infrastructure

    • Social: patterns of behaviour, practices

How did the modern world form through globalization?

  • Profit and profit motive

  • Capital has to expand, it cannot sit still if you want to grow → capitalism

    • Due to competitors

  • Transition to a market economy

    • Different classes created (some are political leaders, some produce goods)

  • Constant accumulation of capital (infrastructure) by core states at the expense of peripheral states

  • Money

    • Gold + silver brought to Europe → more money → more infrastructure accumulated

About other world economies…

  • Other world systems (ex: Asia)

    • We shouldn’t focus on them because they didn’t expand to the whole world (like Europe)

  • Other world systems: had many problems, so they didn’t expand

Motivation for globalization

  • Need for constant profits

  • Search for trade routes

  • Accumulation of resources

Why globalization fits the longue durée?

  • Evolution of capitalism: don’t look at it as a series of ruptures

  • Omnipresent inertia: uniform, inertia! Continuation of the same process: accumulation of capital + requirement of profits - Braudel

  • Problem: people are trying to make profits, and this can only happen through expansion

    • They thus decide to fund overseas expeditions → people sent there bring back gold → profits

  • All institutions (state companies) are competing over resources → increased profits → expansion

  • What theory fits this idea and the longue durée? World Systems Theory

    • Emergence of the capitalist world

      • Wallerstein: this is not only defined by the wage-labour relations → colonialism, enslavement…

      • Everything in the Americas was motivated by profit

        • This is why it makes sense to study this based on the economic system

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