reminder you are expected to have the chapter read before lecture and before recitation. tas will be...
TRANSCRIPT
REMINDER
You are expected to have the chapter read BEFORE lecture and BEFORE recitation.
TAs will be grading your participation. If you haven’t read the chapter and can’t participate, you will lose points and your grade will be affected!
There WILL be questions on the exam from the reading that aren’t covered in lecture or recitation!
Today’s Question: What is the World System?
How has it shaped relationships among regions historically?
How does it make some places more powerful than others?
How does it shape globalization today?
Lecture Outline
I. Prehistories of globalization: minisystems and hearth areas.
II. Early empires: metropoles and hinterlands
III. Colonialism: core, periphery and semiperiphery
IV. Neocolonialism and US hegemony
V. The end of US empire?
I. Prehistories of Globalization
Human communities started as minisystems.
Minisystems have a single cultural base and a reciprocal social economy.
They are limited in scale, and usually isolated from other social systems.
I. Prehistories of Globalization
Hearth Areas Eventually, some practices
of one culture spread to others.
The place where a practice comes into being and from which it spreads is called a Hearth Area.
What is the hearth area of Christianity? Of gunpowder? Of noodles? Of the number zero?
Sedentary Agriculture
Growing food, rather than hunting or gathering it, allowed minisystems to grow and expand into hearth areas.
Sedentary agriculture allowed for larger populations, more complex social organization, and increased trade over long distances.
II. Early Empires
Over centuries, some hearth areas became politically dominant over other areas.
An empire is a group of minisystems absorbed into a common political system, while maintaining fundamental cultural differences.
Examples: Ottoman Empire. Others?
Regional empires
became a world
system
A world system is an interdependent set of
places linked by political and economic competition
or collaboration
Uneven development: Metropoles and Hinterlands
Metropoles
Urban centers of empire.
Which world cities have historically been metropoles?
Which world cities are metropoles today?
Hinterlands
The area where a metropole collects taxes and products to be exported, and where it imports goods for sale.
What places in the world have historically been hinterlands?
What places are hinterlands today? Can you match them with their metropoles?
Merchant Capitalism
Merchant Capitalism
Merchant Capitalism is the engine of the huge growth in European empire in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Motivated by large populations and not enough food, European countries sought to expand into new territories.
The Santa Maria—Columbus in search of new territories for merchant capitalist trade
Plantations
Plantation System
Colonial systems acquired new land and forced labor to produce a single good for export.
This system was called the plantation system.
What crops were produced on plantations?
Core Countries
CORE countries Dominate trade Control advanced
technology Have high
productivity Have diversified
economies
What were the core countries in 1800? Today? Steam engine invented by James Watt
In 1763
Peripheral Countries
Are economically and politically unsuccessful
Are dependent on the core
Have disadvantageous trade relationships
Have primitive or obsolete technology
Have specialized economies with low productivity
Copper mines in Zambia made the countryEconomically dependent on Britain.
Semi-Peripheral Countries
Are in-between core and periphery
They exploit the periphery, but are exploited by the core.
Semi-peripheral countries can rise into the core.
Core countries can sink into the semi-periphery
Can you name countries that have moved from semi-periphery to core?
Hegemony
Is the domination over the world economy by one country
It is created via economic, military, financial and cultural domination
Is this a durable situation? What countries have been hegemons that aren’t now?
It is usually based on control of advanced technology
Which technologies have supported hegemons? Rome Steam engine Internal combustion
engine microchips
Control over advanced technology shifts the balance of power between
regions
Be sure and read your textbook about the industrial revolution!
Neocolonialism
Powerful states exercise indirect power over other areas of the world
Not direct rule, as in colonialism
Rather, financial transactions, commercial relations, and covert intelligence establish dominance US domination of Latin America was often
carried out in the interests of companies like The United Fruit Company.
Transnational Corporations
TNCs are actors in neoimperialist
relations They have alliances with hegemonic states advance the political agendas of states.
In exchange, nation-states often protect the TNCs’ economic interests through political and military means
TNCs in peripheral countries
United Fruit Newmont mining Nestle Trump Can you name more?
How are they involved in neocolonial relations over peripheral countries?
Commodity Chains
The path a commodity takes from raw materials to consumption.
Are important paths through which TNCs link core countries to peripheral ones
Involve relationships of dominance and power Coltan miners in the Congo
produce minerals essential to cellphones
The End of US hegemony?
2008 financial crisis: Can we control global markets?
Iraq and Afghanistan: Can we control peripheral areas through military means?
2011 political crisis: Can our system of government control an increasingly complex world system?
New Competitors in the World System: BRIC
BrazilRussiaIndiaChina
Have rapidly developing economies
Have significant investments in the United States and Europe
Have strong labor bases for expansion
Are flexing muscles in foreign countries