Transcript ANT 2410 Fall 2015 The Global Economy

Exchange & Economic Systems
• Economic systems
– Industrial vs.
nonindustrial modes
of production
• Distribution systems
– How are resources
shared in human
societies?
• Class, status and
stratification
“Occupy Wall Street”
protest movement, 2011
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Economic systems
Fruit vendor in Gaziantep, Turkey
• Economy - a system of
production, distribution
and consumption of
resources
• Economic anthropology studies human production
systems in a comparative
perspective
• Mode of production - a
way of organizing
production (land, labor,
technology)
• Societies with same
adaptive strategy tend to
have similar mode of
production.
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Exchange principles in economic systems
1. Reciprocity
– Exchange of goods between
social equals normally related by
kinship, marriage or other ties
– Dominant in more egalitarian
societies (foragers, cultivators,
pastoralists)
2. Redistribution
– Goods/services move from local
level to an administrative center
and are redistributed in opposite
direction back to local level
– Ex: tributes, taxes, social
security
3. Market
– Dominates in capitalist
economies
– Items bought and sold with
money
– Goal: maximize profit
– Value determined by supply &
demand
Graphics: Peoples, J. and G. Bailey. Humanity. Prentice Hall 2007
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Types of reciprocity
• Generalized – no expectation of return; occurs
between people with high degree of emotional
attachment (e.g., parents and children)
• Balanced – Donors expect a return of equal value
(e.g., wedding gifts)
• Negative – motivated by desire to obtain products
and gain max. amount of material goods; greatest
degree of social distance (e.g., barter)
• What is the function of gift giving in U.S. culture? At
what occasions are gifts expected and what do they
signify?
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$ Money $
• Objects that serve as media of exchange in the
transaction of goods; must be durable,
divisible, portable and controllable (in terms of
supply and inflation).
• Standard of value that determines how much
things are worth in society
• Store of value – portable form of wealth used
to purchase goods/services
• Symbolic significance
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Principles of market economies
• All goods and services
have a monetary price and
can be bought and sold.
• Most people make a living
by selling something on
the market (objects or
labor).
• Market allocates factors of
production efficiently to
maximize benefits.
• Supply and demand sets
prices and regulates
markets.
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Industrialism and globalized markets
•
•
•
Market globalization =
process by which capital,
technology, products and
services cross national
boundaries at prices largely
determined by global supply
and demand
What are the advantages and
disadvantages of the
globalization of labor for
developed and developing
countries?
When people attempt to “buy
American”, what factors
complicate this goal?
Maquiladora workers in Mexico
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What Role has Colonialism Played
in Forming the Modern World
Economic System?
 The Modern World
Economic System

Conflicting Theories
 Modernization
Theory
 Dependency Theory
 World Systems
Theory
Copyright © 2014, W.W. Norton & Company
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The world system
• Rise of capitalist world economy
since 15th c. led to the creation
of the modern world system
• Production of goods for sale or
exchange (goal: maximize profit
and increase capital)
• Economic and political
interdependence of nations
– core
– semi-periphery
– periphery
Christopher Columbus
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Core Nations
• Most powerful
• Monopolize world finance
• Advanced technologies and
mechanized production
• Manufacturing of products
exported to other core
nations (eg, steel, cars, IT)
• Ex: USA, EU countries,
Australia, Japan
Japanese McDonald’s franchise
and car factory
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Semi-periphery nations
• Industrialized nations that export industrial goods
and commodities
• Lack power and economic dominance of core nations
• Ex: Brazil, Russia, India
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Periphery nations
• Economies are less
mechanized and
predominantly agricultural
• Produce raw materials,
agricultural commodities and
human labor for export
• Ex: many countries in Central
America, Africa, parts of Asia
and South America
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Emergence of the world system
• European exploration in 15th century
– Linked Old and New Worlds
– Major exchange of people, resources, ideas, and diseases
• 16th and 17th centuries - development of colonialism and plantation
economies based on monoculture production to satisfy demands for
sugar, cotton, and tobacco in Europe
• Transatlantic slave trade provided labor for plantations
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What Role has Colonialism Played
in Forming the Modern World
Economic System?
 The Triangle Trade
Copyright © 2014, W.W. Norton & Company
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Colonialism
• Percent of world regions colonized (1906):
Region
Africa
Polynesia
Asia
Australia
Americas
% Colonized
90.4%
98.9%
56.5%
100.0%
27.2%
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British colonialism
• Led by a drive for commercial profit
• At its peak (1914), British empire
covered 1/5 of world’s land area and
1/4 total population
• Areas: India, Canada, East and
Southern Africa, Australia, Middle East
• Justification: “the white man’s burden”
– Paternalistic, racist doctrine
– Mission to civilize and Christianize native
peoples
• Collapsed after World War II
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) led nonviolent struggle against British
colonialism in India that ended in 1945
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French colonialism
• Driven by the state, church and armed forces more
than private business interests
• Areas: Canada, Louisiana territory, Caribbean,
parts of India, North and West Africa, Indochina
(Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia)
• Justification: “la mission civilisatrice”
– A civilizing mission to spread French culture,
language and Christian religion
• Disintegrated after WWII
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Decolonization
movements
• U.S. independence (1776) ended
first wave of British colonialism
• Haiti - gained independence in
1804 from France through a slave
revolt, making it the 1st nation
ruled by former slaves.
• Most decolonization occurred in
late 1950s through 1960s through
violent and non-violent means
• Ongoing decolonization: East
Timor (2002), Western SaharaMorocco conflict, Israel-Palestine
conflict
Toussaint L’Ouverture,
Liberator of Haiti
Simon Bolivar led South American
independence from Spain in 1800s
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The world system today
• Exploitative relationship between
core and periphery
• Trade relations disproportionately
benefit capitalists in the core
• Immigrants from periphery nations
provide cheap labor for agriculture
in core nations (e.g. Mexicans in
US)
• Companies in core nations
outsource jobs to benefit from
cheap labor in periphery
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The Rise of the Corporation, the
Decline of the Nation-State
 From Fordism to
Flexible Accumulation
 Outsourcing of Jobs
Copyright © 2014, W.W. Norton & Company
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Division of the “worlds”
• Ethnocentric notion coined in the 1950s
• First World - democratic West (USA, Canada, Western
Europe, Australia/NZ, Japan)
• Second World - former Soviet/socialist nations (Russia,
Eastern Europe)
• Third World - “developing” countries with a lower UN
Human Development Index (based on per cap. income,
nat’l literacy rate and life expectancy)
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Another system of “worlds”
• GDP: Gross domestic
product
– A common indicator of
living standards (not
income)
– Measure of total market
value of all goods and
services produced
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Why has the “third world” not developed
more?
• Economies based on the colonial cash-crop
system: produce a few commodities for export…
this discouraged the development of internal
economic infrastructures and creates vulnerable
states in the global market
• Lack of industrialization means huge expenses in
importing equipment and manufactured goods
(3/4 of African imports)
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Why has the “third world” not developed
more?
• Demographic transition: death rates drop as fertility
rates remain high
• Creates huge economic and environmental
pressures
– Environmental: desertification, deforestation, pollution
– Economic:
• Government cannot keep up with population growth to
provide programs and jobs or update their infrastructures
• A self- perpetuating system, since lots of labor available means
low wages
• Political instability from large numbers of unemployed youth,
competition over scarce arable land, etc.
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Development assistance: early
postcolonial era
• Post WWII reconstruction of
Europe required massive
investment
• Bretton Woods Conference in
1944 created world financial
institutions to fund
reconstruction:
– World Bank
– International Monetary Fund
– General Agreement on Trades and
Tariffs (GATT)
• U.S. - dominant economic
position after the war &
leadership in new global
institutions
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