Chapter 23 – Capitalism
Culture
A New Phase of Global Interaction since 1945
Barbie and Ken
 What do Barbie and Ken
represent?
 Do you think different cultures
view from differently than
Americans?
 How so?
Sara and Dara
What are the similarities or
differences between the two
pictures?
How could Sara and Dara
illustrate resistance?
How does Barbie represent
global commerce?
Globalization
 Globalization – the process of accelerating engagement among distant
people
 EASTERN HEMISPHERE (examples):
 The Arab, Mongol, Russian, Chinese and Ottoman Empire
 Silk Road, Indian Ocean and trans-Saharan trade routes
 The spread of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam
 Brought new rulers, religions, products, diseases and technologies to many of its
people
Globalization
 WESTERN HEMISPHERE (examples):
 European maritime voyages and colonizing efforts launched the Colombian
Exchange
 Industrial Revolution – new round of empire building
Global Interaction Quickened After
WWII
 1) transformation of the world economy
 2) the emergence of global feminism
 3) the confrontation of the world religions with modernity
 4) Growing awareness of humankind’s enormous impact on the
environment
The Transformation of the World
Economy
 Time period between WWI & WWII saw a sharp decline in global interaction
as WWI and the Great Depression wreaked havoc on the world economy
 After WWII the capitalist victors led by the US wanted to avoid returning to
Depression-like era
 At a conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire (1944), they forged a set
of agreements and institutions that laid the foundation for post war
globalization
 World Bank & International Monetary Fund (IMF)
 Promoted free trade
Technology
 Contributed to economic globalization
 EXAMPLES:
 Container shipping, oil tankers, air express = lower transport costs
 Fiber-optic cables and Internet allows for communication
 Population growth in growing economies as new nations enter the world
economy
Neoliberalism (1970s)
 Major capitalism countries (US & GB) abandoned many earlier political
controls on economic activity as their leaders & business people viewed the
world as a single market
 Reduced tariffs, created a temp workforce, privatization of state-run
enterprises and curtailing of government efforts to regulate the economy
and both tax and spending cuts
Reglobalization
 After WWII, world trade exploded from $57 billion in 1947 to $16 trillion in
2009
 Department stores and supermarkets around the world stocked their shelves with
goods from around the globe
 EXAMPLES:
 Twinings of London marketed 120 blends of tea in over 100 countries
 Australian-based Kiwi shoe polish was sold in 180 countries
 In 2006 Toyota replaced GM as the world’s largest automaker
Money in Motion
 1) “Foreign Direct Investment” – a rich country opens a factory in a
developing nation for cheap labor, tax breaks and looser environmental
regulations
 2) Short-term movement in capital – investors annually spend trillions
purchasing foreign currencies or stocks which will increase in value and
then sell them quickly
 3) Personal Funds of Individuals – International credit cards allow for easy
transfer of money across national borders
 Mastercard is accepted at 33 million businesses in 220 countries
Transnational Corps (TNC)
 TNC produce goods or deliver services simultaneously in
many countries
 i.e. Mattel Corporation  American Doll with factories in
Indonesia, Malaysia and China
 Molds from US
 Plastic & hair from Taiwan & Japan
 Cotton cloth from China
 Factories can move from place to place in search of the lowest
labor costs or least restrictive environment regulations
 Nike closed 20 factories and opened 35 others
Human Migration
 Driven by war, revolution, poverty and the end of an
empire
 Movement of people from a developing nations to
industrialized world – “labor migrants”
 Most move, often illegally and with few skills, to escape poverty
in their own lands, and drawn to western prosperity and a better
future
 DISCRIMINATION
Growth, Instability & Inequality
 GROWTH  total world output went from $7 trillion in 1950
to $73 trillion in ‘09
 This represents an immense, rapid and unprecedented
creation of wealth and an impact on human life
 Life expectancy increased, infant mortality rate declined and
literacy increased
Growth, Instability & Inequality
INSTABILITY, for example,
soaring oil prices contributed to a severe stock
market crash in 1973-74 and great hardship for many
developing nations
Many countries couldn’t repay debts and therefore
can’t develop
Many countries experienced severe economic
turnovers including the US (2008), Iceland, Sierra
Leone, China, etc.
Growth, Instability & Inequality
 INEQUALITY – gap between rich and poor keep getting
wider
 Gap is evident in great disparities in incomes, medical
care, availability of clean drinking water, educational
and employment ops, access to the Internet and dozens
of other ways
 Economic globalization may have brought people
together as never before, but it also divided them
sharply
Globalization & an American Empire –
‘informal empire’
How is the US viewed?
Frequent use of force around the world?
Is it a “soft power”? Do people follow American way
of life voluntarily?
WHICH ONE?
HOW SO?
Should we be involved?
After Cold War
 The US found itself in another global struggle, an effort to contain or
eliminate Islamic “terrorists”
 9/11 – attack on US soil by Islamic militants
 2001 – US attacked Afghanistan which sheltered Al-Qaeda
 2003 – US attacked Iraq, where Saddam Hussein “developed” WMD
 Forces defeated quickly, but establishing a lasting peace and rebuilding
badly damaged Muslim countries have been proven difficult tasks
Liberation and Feminism
 1960s protest movements in the US
 Civil rights, women, workers, Hispanic Americans, Doves & Vietnam
 Counterculture = sex, drugs and rock and roll
 Communist World was rocked by protest too
 1968, a new communist party leadership in Czechoslovakia, led by Alexander Dubcek
initiated new reforms as censorship ended and victims of repression were rehabbed
 “Third-World” – Che Guevara; Argentine-born revolutionary who had embraced the
Cuban Revolution
Feminism in the West
 Simone de Beauvior (‘49) published The Second Sex, a book arguing that
women had been historically defined as “other”
 Betty Friedan’s (‘63) The Feminine Mystique disclosed the identity crisis of
educated women, unfulfilled by marriage and motherhood
 Many women wanted to take direct action instead of political lobbying
 i.e. Miss America
 White v. Black
Feminism in the Global South (Asia,
Africa, Latin America)
 Many resented western feminism
 Women’s movement took shape in a wide range of issues, not all were
solely gender based
 Morocco and the Family Law Code
 Chile under Pinochet regime
International Feminism – “women’s
rights are human rights”
 UN Sponsored a series of world conferences on Women
 By 2006, 183 nations (not the US) had ratified a UN
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against women
 Promotes women’s legal equality, to end discrimination to
actively encourage women’s development and to protect
women’s human rights
 Not all nations seek equality – which groups do you think? Why?
Religion and Global Modernity
 Everyone thought that religion would be on the decline,
however it plays a powerful role in today’s society
 Buddhism, Christianity and Islam are transregional
religions
Fundamentalism on a Global Scale
 Fundamentalism is the scientific and secular focus of global
modernity that challenges the core beliefs of religion with its focus
on an unseen realm of reality
 The social upheavals connected with capitalism, industrialization
and globalization thoroughly upset customary class, family and
gender relationships that have been sanctified by religious tradition
 Calls for the return of “fundamentals” of the faith
 Literal truths of the scriptures
 The virgin birth
 Physical resurrection of Jesus
 Belief in miracles
 At first wanted separate schools and churches, then decided on setting
people on the right “godly” path
 i.e. India
Creating Islamic Societies
 Islamic renewal movements arose after so many
disappointments that accumulated in the Muslim World
 1) 1967- Israel inflicted a devastating defeat on Arab
forces in a Six-Day War & seized various Arab territories,
including Jerusalem
 2) Western Culture – secular schools, alcohol, Barbies,
movies and scantily clad women
 Islamic alternative deemed necessary based on the Quran &
sharia (law)
 Do you think modernity was embraced in the Islamic culture?
Why or why not?
Islamic Revolutionaries take aim at hostile
foreign powers
 Targeted Israel with uprisings, suicide bombings and
rocket attacks b/c of Israeli occupation of Arab lands
 USSR invasion of Afghanistan in ‘79 prompted
widespread opposition aimed at liberating Afghanistan
from communism
 Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi Arab, who created Al-Qaeda
to funnel fighters and funds to the Afghan resistance
 Originally on the same side as the US (Both against USSR)
 Upset when Saudi Arabia let the US station “infidel” troops in Islam’s
Hoy Land in 1991
 Found safe-haven in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan
Age of Man
Anthropocene – the lasting impact of human
activity on the planet
The Global Environment Transformed
 BASED ON
 1)population boom – 1.6 billion in 1900 to over 7 billion in
2012
 Medical & sanitation advanced lowered death rates
 Green Revolution technologies increased food supplies
 2) Fossil Fuels – coal & oil
 New sources found/developed: hydro, natural gas, nuclear
power, etc
 3) economic growth – increase in the production of
goods and services
Transformation
 Croplands doubled, reduced forests and grasslands,
high rate of erosion
 Diminished habitats – forced many species to move or
become extinct
 Human remaking of the ecosystem has increased the
presence of plants and animals
 Modern industry has caused massive pollution
Global Warming
 Increased burning of fossil fuels, which emit heattrapping green house gases such as CO2 and the loss of
trees that would remove it
 INCREASES TEMPS
Green and Global
US National Parks
Environmental Organizations
Pollution, wilderness issues, opposed logging, road
building, etc
In the East, more locally based with the help of poor
people