Coworld

• Economic globalization


  The widespread international movement of goods, capital, services, technology and information
• Economic globalization


  • Increasing economic integration and interdependence of national, regional, and local economies across the world through an intensification of cross-border movement of goods, services, technologies and capital
• Components of economic globalization


  • Production
  • Finance
  • Markets
  • Technology
  • Organizational regimes
  • Institutions
  • Corporations
  • Labor
• Protectionism


  A policy of systematic government intervention in foreign trade with the objective of encouraging domestic production
• Trade protectionism


  Comes in the form of quotas and tariffs. Tariffs are required fees on imports and exports
• Trade liberalization/ Free Trade


  Goods and services move around the world more easily. Removal or reduction of restrictions or barriers on the free exchange of goods between nations
• Fair trade


  Concern for the social, economic, and environmental well-being of marginalized producers. Aims for a more moral and equitable global economic system
• Globalization creates new opportunities for cooperation, but it also creates tensions and problems
• Free trade can generate economic growth, but it also increases pollution and unsustainable consumption of natural resources
• Sustainable development


  Development of our world today using the earth's resources and the preservation of such resources for the future
• Common challenges in sustainability

  • Environmental degradation
  • Food security
• Efficiency


  Finding the quickest possible way of producing large amounts of a particular product
• Increased demand yields higher efficiency, which harms the planet in a number of ways
• Neoliberals see the efforts of the environmentalists as serious impediments to trade
• Global food security means delivering sufficient food to the entire world population
• Challenges to global food security

  • Destruction of natural habitats, particularly deforestation
  • Industrial fishing
  • Declining usable farmland
  • Availability of fresh water
  • Destruction of water ecosystems
  • Pollution through toxic chemicals
  • Greenhouse gases
  • Melting of glacial ice
  • Flooding
  • Reduction of alkalinity of the oceans
  • Other destructions of existing ecosystems
• Global warming poses a threat to the global supply of food as well as to human health
• Population growth contributes to increased consumption that intensify ecological problems
• Globalization increases poverty rate for some and reduces poverty for others
• Wealth inequality


  Distribution of assets
• Income inequality


  Differences in income using Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
• Economic globalization and international trade are the forces responsible for global inequality
• Access to technology also contributed to worldwide income inequality
• Distinctions between Global North and Global South

  • Global North: United States, Canada, Western Europe, developed parts of Asia (Singapore, South Korea)
  • Global South: Caribbean, Latin America, South America, Africa, parts of Asia
• Global city


  A city which is a primary node in the global economic network
• Globalization has deeply altered North-South relations in agriculture
• Although cities are major beneficiaries of globalization, they are also most severely affected by global problems
• Theories of global stratification

  • Modernization theory
  • Dependency theory
  • Modern world-system
• There are inequalities between cities and within each city
• The city faces peculiar political problems, wherein it is often fruitlessly seeking to deal locally with global problems and "local politics has become hopelessly overloaded"
• Modernization theory


  • Frames global stratification as a function of technological and cultural differences between nations
  • Rests on the idea that affluence could be attained by anyone
  • Argues that if you invest capital in better technologies, they will eventually raise production enough that there will be more wealth to go around and overall well-being will go up
  • Rich countries can help other countries that are still growing by exporting their technologies
• Stages of modernization process in the West

  • Traditional stage
  • Take-off stage
  • Technological maturity
  • High mass consumption
• Dependency theory


  • A product of colonial experiences
  • Argues that liberal trade causes greater impoverishment to less developed countries
  • Focuses on how poor countries have been wronged by richer nations because global stratification starts with colonialism
  • Even after decolonization, there are still important ties between the developed and less developed countries, which mainly consist in the exploitation of peripheral natural resources and workforce by the center
• Modern world system


  • High-income nations are the "core" of the world economy, which is the manufacturing base where resources funnel in
  • Low-income countries are the "periphery", whose natural resources and labor support the wealthier countries
  • The periphery remains economically dependent on the core in a number of ways, which tend to reinforce each other
• Hegemony


  The dominance of one group over another, often supported by legitimating norms and ideas
• Cultural hegemony is an example of hegemony
• Social innovation is the process of developing and deploying effective solutions to challenging and often systemic social and environmental issues in support of social progress
• Sectors of the economy


  • Primary sector
  • Secondary sector
  • Tertiary sector
• Bretton Woods system


  • Established to ensure global financial stability after WW I and WW II
  • Has 5 elements: expression of currency in terms of gold, official monetary authority agreeing to exchange currencies, establishment of an overseer (IMF), eliminating restrictions on currencies, and the US dollar becoming the global currency
• GATT


  A forum for the meeting of representatives from 23 member countries, focused on trade goods through multinational trade agreements