1
exam review of course kit articles
Exam Review of Course Kit articles
Foster, J.B. & Magdoff, F (2010), “The Great Financial Crisis—Three Years On”
Thesis: Capitalist development involves a dual process:
Industrial maturation
Monopolistic accumulation
What is ‘Financialization’: the shift from production to finance for making profit
Result: Financialization lifts the economic system but the system becomes fragile and
the real economy gets trapped in stagnation , e.g. capital gains without real production of goods
creates debt.
Causes of Fin. crisis: The secular decline in economic growth rates and the long-run increase of
financial fragility and instability within the capitalist structure.
Onaran, O (2010). “The Crisis of Capitalism in Europe, West and East”
1. Capitalism is facing a major realization crisis—an inability to sell the output produced,
i.e., to realize, in the form of profits, the surplus value extracted from workers’ labor.
2. Recovery efforts have been centered on maintaining growth and employment through
high consumption.
3. To sustain our environment, long-term economic growth must be zero or low—equal to
the growth rate of “environmental productivity
4. Financial sector profits in many ways displaced profits from actual production
5. From “retain and reinvest” to “downsize and distribute” occurred.
6. Unregulated financial markets and the pressure of financial market investors created a
bias in favor of asset purchases
Wilkinson, J ( 2009). “Globalization of Agribusiness and Developing World Food Systems”
1. Increasing global concentration of agribusiness
2. Poor countries have been a target of corporate investments from the outset of the
industrial food system
3. Metropolitan corporate capital is still subjugating the agriculture and domestic food
markets of many developing countries
4. Developing countries & “nutritional transition”
(shift to a diet of high animal protein, fresh fruit and vegetables)
5.
Domestic agribusinesses emerge in the LDCs due to Global
Agrifood Economy: large domestic food companies, e.g., in Brazil, Argentina, Thailand
as major suppliers of animal feed and meat: esp. white meats sector (poultry and pigs) – rise of
large domestic agribusiness firms—Sadia and Perdigão in Brazil; the Charoen Pokphand Group
in Thailand.
Wilkinson, J ( 2009). “Globalization of Agribusiness and Developing World Food Systems”
(cont’d)
4. Developing countries & “nutritional transition”
(shift to a diet of high animal protein, fresh fruit and vegetables)
2
5.
Domestic agribusinesses emerge in the LDCs due to Global
Agrifood Economy: large domestic food companies, e.g., in Brazil, Argentina, Thailand
as major suppliers of animal feed and meat: esp. white meats sector (poultry and pigs) – rise of
large domestic agribusiness firms—Sadia and Perdigão in Brazil; the Charoen Pokphand Group
in Thailand.
Wallerstein, I (2011), “Structural Crisis in the World-System. Where Do We Go from Here?
Arguments:
1. The cyclical rhythms are sets of systemic fluctuations (upturns and downturns), in which
the system regularly returns to equilibrium.
2. Structural crisis of the system chaos or new equilibrium stability is sought as the system
is unable to continue its normal, regular, slow upward push.
3. Capital accumulation requires the appropriation of surplus value though quasi-monopoly
of world-economy-wide production.
4. Like quasi-monopolies of leading industries, quasi-monopolies of geopolitical power are
self-liquidating. Other states improve their economic, and then their political and cultural,
positions and become less willing to accept the “leadership” of the erstwhile hegemonic
power.
5. Hegemony has lasted, on average, only twenty-five years. A hegemonic power achieves
a quasi-monopoly of geopolitical power
6. The hegemonic state imposes its rules, its order, on the system as a whole.
7. It favours maximal capital accumulation for the enterprises located within its borders.
8. Achieved three times in the five-hundred-year history of the modern world-system —
• 17th C the Dutch Republic
• 19th C the United Kingdom
• 20th C the United States
Lea Caragata in “Neoconservative Realities”
1. Changes to labour markets as a result of globalization -profoundly gendered and
racialized.
2. Marginalization of poor families from the economic marketplace to render an underclass
not seen in the developed world since the 1930s.
3. Massive labour force changes
4. Current neoconservative economic and social context
5. Women are also more likely than men to hold multiple jobs – a consequence of part-time
work. Women accounted for about 70 percent of all multiple job holders
Quintero-Ramirez, “The North American Free Trade Agreement and Women”
Thesis:
The effects of NAFTA on women workers in Canada and Mexico :
1. Mexican maquiladoras - the gap between the economic importance of maquiladoras in
Mexican manufacturing and labour conditions of the workers, especially women.
3
2. Global capital’s mobility that has led to de-industrialization in developed countries and a
precarious industrialization, with lower labour standards, in developing countries.
Aggressive government economic policies have inserted Mexico into the international economic
order. The most prominent among such policies is the support for export industries, e.g.,
maquiladoras, where workers’ wages are controlled.
Ronald L Mize (2008), “Interrogating Race, Class, Gender And Capitalism Along The U.S.Mexico Border: Neoliberal Nativism And Maquila Modes Of Production.” Thesis:
1. “Neoliberal nativism defines state-society relations under late capitalism and neoliberal
development projects .
2. The processes of disposable Mexican bodies subject to border militarization, border
crossings and citizenship, maquiladora production, and the non-actualized transformative
potential of cross-border labor coalitions define the terrain as gendered, raced, and
classed.
3. The neoliberalism in the Mexican political economy racialises the border relations – the
less developed and more developed articulations of production on the border sharpens
the inequalities of race, class and gender.
4. In the post-NAFTA era, the border region is being reshaped by female labour in the
circuit of commodities through Mexican assembly and distribution in the US.
Pantaleo, K (2010). “Gendered Violence: An Analysis of the Maquiladora Murders.”
Thesis:
1. Three different groups, the news media, human rights organizations, and academic
researchers differ in their social construction of the murders Did the narratives suggest
NAFTA, globalization and Maquiladoras, as major factors in the construction of the
maquiladora murders as a social problem?
2. In both the human rights and the newspaper narratives, the most common cause was
indicated as corruption of the criminal justice system. The academic journals claimed
NAFTA as a
cause in all but one narrative.
3. Gender issues are intertwined with the trade agreement that has aided in the disruption of
the social fabric of Mexican society.
Stewart, M. et al (2010). “Supporting Homeless Youth: Perspectives and Preferences.”
Thesis:
• Key challenges faced by the homeless youth:
1. Social isolation, alienation, low self-worth, lack of resources, and substance abuse
2. They reported that the existing services did not fully meet their needs as they were rigid
or unrealistic.
3. Their access to resources was difficult or invasive
4. The youth wanted interventions that would focus on emotional and affirmational support.
5. They recommended face-to-face support that was accessible, flexible, participatory, longterm, and offered choices.
4
Abboushi, S (2010). “A trade dispute between the USA and Canada.”
• since 1981, conflict over softwood lumber exports to the US
• In 1983, the DOC found that Canada’s stumpage system was a “reasonable method of
establishing stumpage prices” which does not vary widely from US prices.
• In 1986, the US lumber producers petitioned for CVDs on Canadian softwood lumber.
The DOC lumped all forest product industries such as wood products, pulp, and paper
industries as one “vertically integrated” industry, even though Canadian lumber
producers were not involved in paper-derivative industries.
• Since 1986, Canada voluntarily imposed 15 percent export duties on Canadian softwood
Abboushi, S (2010). “A trade dispute between the USA and Canada.”
US lumber producers argue:
1. stumpage fee is non-market based, decided by provincial governments, and is below
market prices.
2. Even a small per unit cost differential advantage enjoyed by Canadian producers results
in substantial cost advantage over US producers. Timberland in the USA, is auctioned in
a market-based system of bidding. In Canada, such auctioning is limited.
3. Canada does not allow non-Canadian companies to acquire Canadian logs harvested in
Canadian public timberlands and, consequently, does not allow non-Canadian companies
to export Canadian logs.
Abboushi, S (2010). “A trade dispute between the USA and Canada.”
Finding of the article:
1. Canada’s public ownership of timberland is not a trade issue.
2. Canada’s Constitution assigns exclusive authority to provincial governments over natural
resources like timberland.
3. Stumpage fee is not lower than “market price”
Wise, Carol (2009),” The North American Free Trade Agreement.”
Arguments:
1. 99 per cent of all tariffs on those goods and services covered by NAFTA have basically
been eliminated
2. NAFTA’s key innovations were the protection of IPRs, the liberalisation of investment
and trade in services, and the creation of mechanisms to resolve investment disputes
based on binding international arbitration
3. along with the side agreements on labour standards and environmental protection, the
NAFTA accord promoted the free flow of goods, investment and services within the
North American bloc over a 15-year timeline
4. NAFTA still fell short of its mandate to liberalize all trade between the three partners
5. Persistence of administered protection in the setting percentages for local content under
NAFTA’s rules of origin in autos, high-tech products and textiles and apparel.
5
6. Little progress has been made toward the elimination of antidumping policies and
countervailing duties.
Wise, T.A. (2011). “Mexico: the cost of U.S. dumping.”
Thesis:
1. Result of U.S. dumping on Mexico after NAFTA:
2. Mexican farmers lost more than S1 billion per year (1997-2005)
3. Half the losses suffered by the country's embattled corn farmers.
4. Use of subsidies, U.S. government's preferred means of supporting agriculture
5. Deregulation of U.S. agriculture -larger surpluses of corn and other commodities
6. NAFTA opened the floodgates to unrestricted dumping into Mexico.
7. Dumping margin: In a case of dumping, the margin by which export prices were below
costs of production. This margin is used as the basis for setting anti-dumping duties.
8. Until 2008. Mexican govt could have counteracted against dumping.
Smith, H.A. (2008). “Political parties and Canadian climate change policy.”
Arguments:
1. Ability or willingness to engage in genuine emissions reductions- parties do not differ
nor do they help us understand continuity in terms of Canadian diplomatic behaviour,
which has been markedly self-interested over the years.
2. Canada’s climate policy has been marginalized by continental coexistence with the US
3. Eclipsed by energy policy
4. Harper’s conservatives’ position is:
York, et al (2009),“ A tale of contrasting trends ….”
Arguments:
1. What is Jevons's paradox?
• declining ratio of EF to economic activity & lower costs per unit of production
• Increasing efficiency of coal use in production & coal consumption
2. Nature’s capital and services are being threatened by global endless consumption.
3. Economic efficiency makes ecological concerns an externality that can be ignored
The End