Unit 9: Globalization (1900-present)

9.1: How Technology Made Globalization Possible

Globalization: the phenomenon where trade & tech have created an economically, politically, & socially interconnected world

• Progressed much faster in last 2 centuries b/c of various tech—what are they & how did they change the world?

  • Increased lifespans, made energy more accessible or further connected world econ

  • Not evenly distributed; spread from wealthy countries to developing countries

Communication technologies: Solved the problem of geographical distance (continuity)

• Radio: allowed people to hear the voices of people delivering messages, removing intermediary filter & bias b/t speaker & listener

  • Ex. FDR broadcast his voice to comfort Americans during GD

• Television: replaced radio as main form of communication & entertainment

• connected people to events happening across the world (Vietnam, Cuban Missile Crisis)

• Cellular technology: intro. 1980s; allowed connectivity through the air

  • Cell phones allowed people to talk to each other across the world

• Internet: first developed for military & scientific purposes 1960s

  • Commercialized 1990s; rise of personal computers & creation of World Wide Web

  • Primarily responsible for connecting the world by turn of millenium

Transportation technology: made the world grow smaller

• Automobiles: changed urban landscapes by creating suburbs

• Air travel: replaced railroads by mid 1900s

  • Massive post-war econ growth = more people who could afford plane travel

• Shipping containers: standardized metal boxes that ship consumer goods & raw materials

  • Allowed businesses to move factories to developing countries, where wages are lower

Energy tech: increased availability of energy

• Petroleum: fuel for cars & planes as well as used to generate electricity

  • Replaced coal as main power source in industrial manufacturing

• Nuclear power: channeled to create energy for civilian use

  • “Cleaner” alternative to petroleum, but disasters in US & USSR have eroded public trust

Medical tech: extended/improved lifespans

• Antibiotics: first dev. 1928, penicillin

  • Helped soldiers survive infections

• Vaccines: not new, but spread rapidly during 1900s

  • Used to against various diseases: polio, influenza, pneumonia, measles

• Birth control: caused fertility rates to decline

  • Japan & EU pops are declining (but developing countries are still growing)

Agricultural tech: dramatic increase in global food supply

• Commercial farming: selling agr. products on the market to maximize profit

  • Mainly in wealthier countries b/c it requires expensive machinery (tractors, combines)

• Green revolutions (1950s-60s): genetically modified food & dev. new strains of high-yield grain

  • Introduced to developing countries to feed huge populations

  • Concerns for environmental harm: encouraged double cropping, causing exhaustion of soil & erosion; fertilizer/chemical runoff pollutes water sources

9.2: The Spread of Disease in a Globalized World

Diseases are associated with poverty—despite new medical technologies, access has not been equal. Wealthy nations have far greater access to medicine; curable diseases persist in many developing countries.

• Malaria: spread by infected mosquitoes; occurs in large numbers throughout warm/tropical regions (esp. sub-Saharan Africa)

  • Flu-like symptoms & sometimes death

  • Despite medical preventions & mosquito nests, hundreds of thousands still die per year

• Tuberculosis: airborne disease that affects the lungs & can be fatal

  • Cure developed late 1900s, but lack of access remains mostly in wealthy countries

Epidemics & pandemics: The spread of disease caused social disruption & new tech/medical advances

• 1918 Influenza pandemic (AKA Spanish flu): deadliest pandemic of 1900s; occurred after WWI

  • Spread rapidly along global trade routes (continuity - Black Plague)

  • Disproportionately affected working-age people

  • Failure to dev significant interventions in time caused millions of deaths

• HIV/AIDS: 1980s, caused millions of deaths worldwide

  • HIV causes AIDS, which weakens the immune system & makes ppl vulnerable to other deathly diseases

  • Initially assoc. w/ LGBT ppl & drug addicts, so prejudice delayed research

  • New tech/med 1990s has made the disease more of a chronic illness, but still deadly in third world

• COVID-19: air-borne respiratory disease; spread globally b/c of interconnection

  • Closed schools & businesses and affected global econ

  • Vaccine was  rapidly developed to combat the virus

Diseases associated with old age:

• Alzheimer’s: form of dementia that affects mostly elderly people

  • Causes memory loss & undermines basic bodily functions; can lead to death

• Heart disease: can be genetic but also increases in risk w/ age and dietary habits

9.3: Effects of Globalization on the Environment

In the context of this course, the environment means both the physical world (nature) and the way humans interact with it.

Effects on land:

• Deforestation: large-scale clearing of trees in a geographical area

  • Suburbs & urban sprawl: cities & towns need land on which to be built

  • Farmland, esp. for commercial farming

    • Largely impacts rainforests & biodiversity

  • Increased pollution; treeless land is likely to erode, and pesticides run off into water

• Desertification: transformation of fertile land into infertile land

  • Happens when farmland isn’t well managed/suited for agriculture in the first place

  • Ground is emptied of nutrients & becomes desert-like

Air & Water problems:

• Decline in air quality: caused by global spread of industry & dependence on fossil fuels

  • Great Smog in London (1952); Mexico City (2002)

• Increased competition over fresh water supply

  • Only 3% is usable; rising pop = rising demand

  • Most fresh water is used on industrial-scale crops

  • Developing nations have problems finding access to clean water

Climate change: warming of the planet due to increase in greenhouse gases

• Debate on causes:

  • Climate change is caused by humans

    • If true, the solution requires societies to slow industrial & econ growth

  • Climate change is a natural cycle of the earth

• If the global community restricts greenhouse emissions by slowing industrial growth, dev nations won’t have access to the tools for industrialization & econ growth

9.4: Economics in a Global Age

Globalization has created an increasingly interconnected econ that has both changes & continuities from past global trade

Neoliberalism: econ emph on free market policies, ex. Lowering tariffs, deregulating industry, & transfering public sectors to private sectors of industry (withdrawal of government in economics)

Economic liberalization:

• Ronald Reagan: antagonist of New Deal policies & gov spending on public services

  • Cut spending on social welfare, cut taxes on the wealthy, reduced gov reg on businesses, & increased military spending (bc of Cold War)

• Margaret Thatcher: like Reagan, emph dereg business, cut taxes, & privatization of state assets

• Both helpd reduce inflation & increased econ growth, but also undermined labor unions & inc wealth gaps

• Augusto Pinochet: led Chile’s econ from state control to free market

  • Chicago boys: addressed rampant inflation & privatized state businesses

  • Reforms were unpopular b/c the were enforced w/ authoritarian brutality

  • Still, laid groundwork for a fairly balanced econ

Especially after the Cold War, the geographical distribution of work changed dramatically.

• For centruries, industrialized states held the most power; factories & laborers were within them

• 1970s, cost of domestic manufacturing increased, causing a new global distribution of work

  • Wealthy, developed states were characterized by knowledge workers (teachers, lawyers)

    • Finland, 1990s: invested in communication tech & education; shift from mainly agrarian society

    • Japan: early 1900s, focused on manufacturing; eventually diversified and became a world leader in the knowledge economy (finance, info tech) by late 1900s

  • Manufacturing was increasingly located to third world where businesses could pay lower wages

    • Asia (Vietnam, Bangladesh); Latin America (Mexico, Honduras)

Global economic institutions: both caused by & further fostered globalization

• World trade organization: promotes globalization by helping negotiate trade deals & creating initiatives to help third-world countries develop

Regional trade agreements:

• European Union: conglomerate of many EU countries with more pol & econ power than any of them could be alone

• ASEAN: keeps trade barriers low, facilitating trade among Southeast Asian countries

Multinational corporation: an entity incorporated in one country but manufactures & sells goods in other countries

• Employ knowledge workers in their own countries & manufacture goods in other countries (usually third world), then sell them on the global market (cont: joint stock companies - 4.5)

• Nestle: HQ in Switzerland; chocolate manufactured in West Africa; product on world market

• Mahindra and Mahindra: Auto company based in Mumbai; operations in every other continent

9.5: Globalization & Calls for Reform

Globalization has bought many different cultures into more contact, causing various reform movements sharing a common theme of liberation

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN, 1948): stated basic fundamental human rights

• Sought to protect the historically oppressed (ex. women, children, refugees)

  • UNICEF - devoted resources to feeding hungry children

• Women’s rights: 1975, UN first world conference on women, where they planned steps for advancing women within the next decade

• 1979, proposed int’l bill of rights for women

• Negritude movement: (1930s-40s) rights-based movement for black eqaulity among French-speaking Caribbean & African artists

  • Literary & ideological movement

  • Promoted black culture

  • Emph. dignity over colonialism & racism

  • Provided language & discourse for future anticolonial & civil rights movements

• Liberation theology: Latin American religious movement that re-envisioned Christian theology of the Catholic Church

• Emph christ’s concern for the poor & called for transformation of oppressive structures

• Big effect on Catholic Church, which reformed itself again (cont: protestant reformation)

As the global human rights discourse progressed through the 1900s-2000s, educational & political reforms were created to be more inclusive of gender, race, class, & religion.

• Women’s suffrage: result of feminist movements

• Civil Rights Act 1964 (US): result of pressure from Civil Rights Movement

  • Banned discrimination based on race/color/sex/religion/nationality in federal education programs, employment & public facilities

• Caste reservation system (India)

  • Certain percentage of seats in gov/jobs/education reserved for marginalized caste groups

Reactions to globalization:

• Environmentalism: begun 1800s but restricted to individual states & regions (Romanticism, Teddy Roosevelt)

  • 1900s, protests for environmentalism begame truly global

  • Greenpeace (1971): nonviolent protest tactics to raise awareness for environmental protection (protests, blockades, interventions)

• World fair trade org: sought to reform exploitative labor practices across the world

9.6: The Effect of Globalization on Culture

In this period, new communication & transport technologies (internet, air travel) allowed people from various cultures to interact more than ever before.

Result: rise of a global culture that has strong undertones of Western culture/values

• Arts

  • Reggae from Jamaica (Bob Marley)

  • K-pop from South Korea (BTS)

• Entertainment

  • US Hollywood: films released globally, drawing int’l fans

    • Contributed to dominance of western values in global culture

    • Critics see it as cultural imperialism (ex. Captain America)

  • India Bollywood: films primarily cater to Indian audiences but still appeal worldwide

• Sports: spectater sports became truly globalized thanks to TV

  • FIFA World Cup, Olympics - int’l events that also foster nationalism thru competition

How has globalization caused a rise in consumer culture?

• Consumer culture: lifestyle devoted to spending money on mass-produced material goods

• US Role: post WWII, shifted its industrial capacity to producing consumer goods

  • Advertising industry allowed companies to transform US into a consumer culture; econ rose & fell based on how many goods the pop was willing to buy

  • Consumer culture spread globally b/c of US influence

• Global brands (McDonald’s KFC, Coca-Cola, Toyota)

• Rise of online retailers (Ali Baba, Ebay): help facilitate global flow of goods

9.7: Resistance to Globalization

Has globalization been more positive or negative?

Positive effects:

• Econ globalization caused largest econ growth in human history

  • Led to better healthcare & living standards, longer lifespans, increased education

• Increased interconnection b/t cultures has led to massive-scale movements for human rights

Globalized economic policies & institutions:

• Bretton Woods Conference (1942); aimed to construct a more economically stable postwar world; organizations created to promote free trade & maintain global currency values (based on USD)

  • World Bank: financial aid for rebuilding EU & later financial aid for developing countries

  • IMF (international monetary fund) facilitated monetary cooperation among member states

• Created conditions for economic flourishing, but it wasn’t evenly distributed globally

  • Critics: The Bretton Woods System marginalized populations in the global south for the econ benefit of the global north; ex. labor exploitation  (cont: imperialism)

• Challenges & undermines local econ decisions in the name of global economics

  • Battle fo Seattle (WTO Meeting; 1999): marked beginning of broader anti-globalization movement

Increasing influence of globalized culture:

• Social media has been a catalyst for spreading culture, and some states have resisted by creating local social media sites

  • China: shut down Facebook & Twitter

  • Gov believed Uighur riots were caused by western ideals from social media; replaced w/ censored local app Weibo

9.8: Institutions That Developed in a Globalized World

Several supranational organizations have been formed to help facilitate global cooperation.

• World bank, international monetary fund

United Nations: created after WWII; int’l body for nations to negotiate conflicts diplomatically

• Successor to League of Nations, which lacked the authority to enforce its policies

• Two purposes: to prevent war & facilitate cooperation among member states

• General assembly: includes reps from all member nations & permanent observers (Vatican, Palestine)

• Body of the UN that discusses & creates policies, often with humanitarian purposes

  • Created UNICEF (1946); social welfare services for children throughout the world (9.5)

• Security council: keeps peace in a globalized world

  • Five permanent members: Russia/USSR, UK, France, UK, China

    • Veto power over any policy; often used to protect their own interests (ex. Russia/Ukraine war; Recognition of Palestine)

  • 10 rotating members from the general assembly

  • Authorizes military peacekeepers to stabilize violent situations & imposes sanctions on states that are violating human rights

    • Some successes (Liberia ceasefire) and failures (Rwandan genocide)

The UN is both the result of globalization & continues to foster the growth of globalization.