Globalization

Economic crash of 1928/29: people stopped consuming things

o Time to start saving vs. spending moneyall consumers in world
who had reached middle-class status suddenly stopped
consuming more money in bank, inclination to save money
Keynesian era
o The Keynesian interpretation of economic mechanisms: importance
of the consumer
Government intervention:
Welfare----------- Consumer confidence (Welfare, great
projects)
Great projects---- New sources of income (new jobs,
new infrastructures)
* John XXX Keynes suggested that governments divvy
out money for welfare programs to ease the struggles
of the hoards of newly homeless and jobless families
o Create a program which would create a stipend
those who are ill will receive insurance
o Insurance for the elderly: when old, receive a
pensionno need to put money aside
o Government should care for handicapped
individuals
o Ensure that all schools are free and open;
universities should be free
*Universal health care, free education,
insurance for elderly never really
concretized in States
o Then, people will start consuming: they wont
have to panic about the situation
If you lose your job, the government will
provide welfare, will still pay your salary
until you find a new job
No need to worry about college funds
(universities are free; US: government
subsidies promise that universities will be
cheaper than others)
o *When people stop worrying, they start
consuming
Car that initially seemed unreasonable is
now a possibility
Buying and therefore rebooting the
economy: stores can stay afloat
THIS IS CALLED consumer confidence

This consumer confidence is also boosted by great

government projectsnew paved roads, modern
highways
o Hire people to build indispensible things
o Franklin Delano Roosevelt the first to implement this model
US became model for this: economy growing, jobs more
readily available, things getting better and better
New Deal
government projects: reduction of the social costs of
crisis
Tennessee Valley Authority: building of dams and bridges
Build infrastructures for transportation
More museums to keep people happy and entertained for free
Subsidized performing arts/radiopublic theaters in US
created in 1930s, musical concert halls
Italy: trains, stadiums/sports facilities
Pictures: housing/slums around the world before these public
works projects vs. after
o **Consumption rises demand rises prices rise investments
rise:
Salaries rise
New hiring
New inventory; more production (sell what they have, fill
inventory with new products)
o **EXAM ESSAY QUESTION, KNOW KEYNESIAN INTERPRETATION
MODEL BY HEART
Keynesian model becomes a worldwide model
o 1st during the United States New Deal
o John Galbraith: great financial advisor under JFK
Governments applying this model
Still, critics who doubted the effectiveness of this model
o Ludwig von Mises: you will pay a very stiff price for this
Quick fix which will make everyone happy temporarily
Predicted lots of money, but an impeding major political
disaster
The 30 Glorious Years: 1945-1975
o Mussolini: all trains arrive on time in Italy
o Hitler: grand infrastructure in Germany
*But then build tanks and military
o Fine if its situated within a democracy, but becomes a problem
when dictators try to buy their popularity
Even in democracy: once all hospitals, etc. are built, everyone
will demand some freebie from the government

i.e. military demanding supplies like those Hitler is

providing to German military= ARMS RACE
o Keynes never said governments should invest in war supplies
Wanted welfare, not warfare
Liberals: Kant, Cobden
Do not like governments to breathe down your neck
Thus, for many reasons, other liberals did not like
Keynes
But Keynes nonetheless remained liberal in his visions
of free trade: keep borders open (peace= prosperity,
and prosperity= peace)
Keynes lecture at Bretton Woods:
GAP: General Agreement of and Tariffs
Bretton Woods conference (1944)
o Dollar becomes international currencyAmerica still had enormous
gold reserves after WWI
Can be sure the dollar will represent certain amounts of gold
Ronald Reagan: We are all Keynesians now
The dominance of neo-liberalism
o I. The limitations of Keynesianism
A. Exploitations of Third World
Exploited for their cotton, oil, tea, coil etc.
Oil cost nothing: huge American cars in 1950s and 60s
because oil was almost free
Electricity and heating cost nothingallowed many to
remain wealthy
o Oil and coal plundered from 3rd world countries at
a low price
B. Dependency of the economy on inflation
C. Dependency of governments on taxation
To maintain dams/roads/jobs, you must tax
Must keep public infrastructures modern, functioning
Repairs are often more complicated and more
expensive than building the things in the first place
George H. Bush: cut welfare and force them to build the
roads (workfare vs. welfare)
Where does the government get its money to fuel the
Keynesian machine? Must get more and more and more
taxes
Income of middle classes continued to increase at steady rate
BUT: the percentage of taxation increased even higher
Prices, with inflation and taxes (esp. real estate) went
higher and higher and higher
D. The frailty of the system

1.) Exponential cost of maintenance of great

government projects/infrastructures
2.) Growing government deficits
3.) Not meant to be applied in the long term
1971: USA abandons the gold standard
1973: the oil crisis begins
o Inflation plagues the world economies for a
decade
o II. The Neo-Liberals
Hayek
Milton Friedman: country will become bankrupt should
Vietnam continue
Stagflation: the more you tax people to fuel Keynesian
system, the less people will have to buy things
Get rid of taxes, get rid of welfare
Jeffrey Sachs: professor at U Chicagos department of
economies
* All analyzed Keynesian system

April 10, 2012

Who coined the phrase global village?
o Marshall McLuhan
The Control Revolution

McLuhan: first history of globalization created by communications scholar

the creator of the communications discipline himself
1858: first telegraphic sea cable
o Ability to send transatlantic messages for the first time
o International Postal Conference founded in GenevaHenry Dunnant
organizing Red Cross at same time in same city
Conference produces first IGO: International telegraphic union
(often cooperates with postal union)
1865-mid 1970s: electric communications systems (and
progressively all or most transportation systems) are
controlled by state or private monopolies under strong state
domestic and international regulation
Introduction of radio wavesaccelerates
communication via radio
Today, satellites and land-based fiber-optic technologies

o Allow you to use internet, as very high

bandwidths
Neo-liberal economists: governments deregulated the
monopolies that states had on organizations
1869: Union Pacific Railroad joins Central Pacific Railroad
o Unprecedented ability to travel around the globe
o Can physically go around the world in 80 daysno need for
visas/passports
1867: the first ticker tape machine
1920: first commercial radio broadcast in USA (KDKAWestinghouse)
1925: Invention of television
o Fordism and Taylorism allows only upper class bourgeoisie to
possess television sets
o 1936: First television broadcast (Olympics)
Leni Riefenstahl (first great television director) and first
guest: Hitler
1977: Steve jobs and Steve Wozniak manufacture first PC (Apple 1)
1993: US government allows access o its online networks: birth of www.
o Government military system (Intra-net)now expanded into the
public
Early 80s: French government attempts to start-up Minitel system
o Large flopextremely slow, and thus unable to compete with www.

PART II: What can you do with this technology: the politics of
globalization

Control flow of informationin the news, on the internetis largely still

controlled and filtered (filtered by a very few communication companies
who gather the information and then sell it to information providers such
as yahoo and google)
o Associated Press (America)1846
o Reuters (Germany)1865
o UPI1907
*These three companies control 90% of all the news broadcast on CNN, Al
Jezeera, etc.
o IFP (France)
o Novostie (Russia)
William Randolph Hearst: first major media syndicate
Robert Hersant
*Rupert Murdoch (most powerful today)
Control flow of information
o The Hollywood studio system
o The press empires (Hearst, Edison, Hersant, etc)
o Regulation (censorship)

o **Information largely filtered through these major influential bodies;

can censor any information they dislike
o PRIVATE censorship; de facto censorship at the hands of the
corporations
Resistance against control:
o Anti-trust laws
o United Artists
o Printing happenings
The second communications revolution:
o A. how our world became fully connected
1.) Information is strategic and can be controlled
2.) Some of the first IGOs emerge out of the need to domesticate
communications and coordinate them on a global level
4.) Media= a tool for propaganda
o The taming of space
Troops/police can move faster, can communicate strategic
positions of dissidents rapidly and efficiently
Criminals or dissident groups reduced dramatically
Trains, stramboats, motor vehicles: greater protection from
the outside + comfort
The landscape is less threatening
Travel no longer a tribulation (see Dickens), but a
pleasure
Birth of the tourist industry
Marshall McLuhan
o Established the entire problematique of communications
o He predicted the advent of internet and globalization
o Technology: lines between people across the globe disappearnew
separation, new ghettos
*McLuhan NOT optimistic like a liberal (didnt believe in
liberal vision of the world)
BUT neither a pessimist preparing for the world to end
REALIST: others who followed him called themselves
techno-realists

April 24, 2012

Chapter 5: The Control Revolution

4.) The taming of space

o Fast roads, excellent transportation systems and telephone
technologies to communicate= natural disasters can be handled
more efficiently than before, mass reduction of crime

o Police/troops can move faster, can communicate strategic positions

of dissidents rapidly and efficiently
o Criminals, or dissident groups reduced dramatically
o Wars havent declined, but crimes have declined dramatically
Propaganda
o Not the end of the world because you can switch it off (FOX news,
CNN)
o Can search out for your own sources of information
**Andrew Shapiro:
o Freedom of expression like never before: may be noticed, or may
never be noticed
o Defends himself as a techno-realist
o Central Book: The Control Revolution
o Introduced scholarly analysis of:
o Data Smog
Go on trip without technologycome back to an inundation
of emails
Flood of information you cannot handle= data smog
o Technorealism

An attempt to expand the middle ground between Technoutopianism and Neo-Luddism by assessing the social and
political implications of technologies so that people might all have
more control over the shape of their future
The technorealist approach involves a continuous critical
examination of how technologies might help or hinder people in
the struggle to improve the quality of their lives, their
communities, and their economic, social, and political structures

o Technoluddite
People who refuse to be part of Facebookbelieve it to be a
plot by CIA/government to get everyones information
Bill Gates/Steve Jobs invented computers as a means for
espionage
A worldview opposing any modern technology
~Orwells 1984
Technorealist novel compelling people to beware of the
dangers of technology
Paranoidbelieve we are already living in 1984
Solution: get rid of computers, internet, telephonesget rid
of technologies
o Shapiro a (techno)realist: lets not be paranoid, but lets not also be
optimistic/unguarded
**Douglas Rushkoff

o Technorealist: reiterated many ideas of Shapiro

Politics of the Environment: Their Importance in International
Relations

Awareness
o People aware of ill-side effects of Industrial Revolution on the
environment
Pollution levels in early-mid 19th century were catastrophic
(esp. in London)
o Why society reacted, why not a partisan issue, why everybody
concerned with this:
Capitalists: need to protect laborershealthy workers means
greater production
Want to protect the flora and the fauna of nature
John James Audubon (founder of Audubon society):
tours U.S. cities in 1840s-50s
Lectured in every great American city about the need
to protect animal species
o National Park system around the States
John Muir
Also founded the Sierra Club (1892)
o Concern grows because Industrial Revolution and side effects
continue, and worsen
Disasters grow in numbers and intensityTV and mass media
enhance their impact
Cuyahoga river (1953): cigarette blows up polluted river
Compels White House to take action; compels national
attention and action
LIFE Magazine article: Mercury spill in Japan
Fish contaminatedincrease in cancer and birth defects
th
Mid-20 century: activists
o Using books, movies, etc to raise awareness of public
o Rachel Carson: The Silent Spring, The Sea Around Us
Predicted disappearance of bald Eagle
Facilitated ban on DBT
o Aldo Leopoldo
o *Only used the media: cinema, books, etc.
The Second generation of activists: the age of communications
o Aggravation of political tensions:
Chico Mendez
Created a political and professional social organization
of workers (trade union, seringhuierosthose who deal
with syringes; take latex out of trees)

o Exploits the nature of the forest, gets rid of

unemployment
Big ranchers come in and destroy the forests, let cows
destroy vegetation , sell trees to loggers
o Exploit for five years, and then forced to move
forward
Assassinated by poachers
o Joy Adamson
o Diane Fossey
o George Adamson
New actors (1968)
o New pressure groups (i.e. Club of Rometalk to government
officials, ministers of Science)
o Environmentalism as an outlet for left-wing activism?
Pacifism to anti-nuclear activism environmentalism

May 3, 2012

Chernobyl (1987): one example of those environmental accidents which

had become more cataclysmic
o Could have been the end of the world
Ralph Nader: his 6% in the 2000 US presidential election cost Al Gore the
White House

FINAL REVIEW

Will not ask questions about collective violence

o BUT: WHO WAS EMILE DURKHEIM, AND WHO IS HANNA ARENDT
what is the commonality between the two (two names important in
the study of violence as a global phenomenon)
o Just look at powerpoint for these points, dont learn everything

International economic and geopolitic

Must be able to summarize the whole history of the world economies
(1900-today)
o What has changed?
o What characterizes all the great periods of economic history from
the late 19th century to now
o Begin by focusing upon Taylor and Ford, and the crisis were in now
What has changed between then and now
o Gold standard: why is gold so important, why is it sill important
today?
Gold loses its value only when in the best times, when theres
no unemployment, no recession, everyone making money
then, not AS important (though still important)

In crises, its ultra-important

o Taylor and Ford: who are they
Taylor: theoristyou rationalize labor, organize assembly
lines, but the idea is to boost production
By boosting production, the idea is to have a scale
economy: the more you produce, the more you make,
the more benefits you receive, the more profits you
made
The more you can reduce your margin of profit to make
your product cheaper
Ford implemented, and all countries imitated
Then: stock-market crash (1929)
Solution to get out of the crash:
Government projects AND welfare (health benefits,
unemployment insurance, pensions)employment
increase in consumption AND consumer confidence
(even those who are employed are afraid that one day
they will be unemployedconsume less and save
more)productionmore employment AND more
revenue (GDP, etc.) more revenue= more taxes, more
money to the government
o If people consumemore production
o Kanes (?) created this economic model
o Almost all countries in the world have applied this
system
How and when does this become a GLOBAL system,
when do all countries adopt this?
o BRETTON WOODS: Kane imposes system on
whole world for after WWII
Conference rules that once war is over, this
will be implemented globally
o 1944-1971: Kanes reinstates gold standard
(allows fairer commercial exchanges; people stop
reducing the value of their currency)
Countries began lowering value of their
currency to be more competitiveothers
followed suit
NIXON eliminated gold standard so he could
finance the war in Vietnambeginning of
debt in US
All follow suitback in mess of WWI
(printing cheap money to pay for debt
at home)
Three organizations which ensure currency is stable, etc:
o World Bankmake sure the welfare system works well

o IMFensures no one fools around with currency

o World Trade Organizationensures a country cannot legislate
against an import (i.e. French cheese into the US)
Inflation: Increasing the currency supply; either provokes or results from
inflation
o Units of currency that you print is more than what value it normally
represents
i.e. 1 oz of gold: 37$, 1 million reserves of gold in national
bankcan print 37 million dollars of currency print 50
million instead
When government gets desperate
o When prices go up, and salaries follow: everything goes up (real
estate, prices, salaries)
o Caused by the fact that there is more demand than supply
Deflation: When prices go down
o Good for consumers, bad for businesses
o Demand is lower than supply
The Road to Serfdom: Hayek
o Critique 1: System will give great power to the government
Politicians will buy their popularity with it demagogy
How Hitler got his power
o Critique 2: government will be asking for more and more taxes.
Taxes can increase faster and faster, real estate prices can get
higher and higher, and salaries may not necessarily follow suit
May earn x amount for welfare, but will have to pay more
taxes
Stagflation: Milton Friedman, student of Hayek
Neo-liberals, Libertarians:
o Mises Hayek (taught) Friedman (taught) Sachs
o Least government possiblehas become doctrine of republican
conservatives in America
Stiglitz: wont be on it
Bretton woods:
o gold standard
o implement system
G7,8,20not on it
COMPARE THE DIFFERENT POLICIES
o Not Stiglitz, but:
Compare Hayek and Kanes
Compare Austrian and Chicago school to Kanesian model
Explain economic crisis of 1929
Explain stagflation
Technorealists:
o Shapiro, Rushkoff

What is good, what is bad about the global village, as described by

Marshall McLuhan (pros and cons)?
Explain environmental risksknow ALL accidents and how they changed
political mentalities
5-6 types of issues (awareness, politics become more intense, etc)