Unit 8: Modern Political Economies II

Chapter 1 Summary    Chapter One: Capitalism and the Making of the Consumer        The consumer revolution is a strange chapter in the ethnographic history of the species. For what may have been the first time in its history, a human community willingly harbored a nonreligious agent of social change, and permitted it to transform on a continual and systematic basis virtually every feature of social life.          -Grant McCracken,Culture and Consumption        The . . . metamessage of our time is that the commodity form is natural and inescapable. Our lives can only be well lived (or lived at all) through the purchase of particular commodities. Thus our major existential interest consists of maneuvering for eligibility to buy such commodities in the market. Further, we have been taught that it is right and just-ordained by history, human nature, and God-that the means of life in all its forms be available only as commodities. . . . Americans live in an overcommodified world, with needs that are generated in the interests of the market and that can be met only through the market.        -Stephen Fjellman, Vinyl Leaves:Walt Disney World and America    On or about December 1910, wrote novelist Virginia Woolf, human character changed.  On his repeated visits to the United States, Frenchman Andre Giegfried noted much the same thing: "A new society has come to life in America," he said. "It was not clear in 1901 or 1904; it was noticeable in 1914, and patent in 1919 and 1925" (cited Leach 1993:266). Samuel Strauss, a journalist and philosopher writing in the 1920s, suggested the term consumptionism to characterize this new way of life that, he said, created a person with      a philosophy of life that committed human beings to the production of more and more things-"more this year than last year, more next year than this"-and that emphasized the "standard of living" above all other values.    "From a moral point of view," Strauss continued,      it is obvious that Americans have come to consider their standard of living as a somewhat sacred acquisition, which they will defend at any price. This means that they would be ready to make many an intellectual or even moral concession in order to maintain that standard. (cited Leach 1993:266)    There is no question that in America at least the half-century from 1880 to 1930 marked a major transition in the rate and level of commodity consumption-the purchase, use, and waste of what comedian George Carlin called "stuff." Food production grew by almost 40 percent from 1899 to 1905; the production of men's and women's ready-made clothing, along with the production of costume jewelry, doubled between 1890 and 1900; glassware and lamp production went from 84,000 tons in 1890 to 250,563 tons in 1914. In 1890, 32,000 pianos were sold in the United States; by 1904, the number sold increased to 374,000 (Leach 1993:16).    During this period the perfume industry became the country's tenth largest; at one department store, sale of toiletries rose from $84,000 to $522,000 between 1914 and 1926. The manufacture of clocks and watches went from 34 million to 82 million in ten years. By the late 1920s, one of every six Americans owned an automobile. All of this consumption occurred in a society in which 2 percent of the people owned 60 percent of the wealth, while the bottom 50 percent owned only 5 percent.    Of course these figures are dwarfed by what Americans and others around the world consume today. There are as many cars in the United States as there are persons with drivers' licenses, for example. However, although consumption rates were not nearly as high as they are today, the early twentieth century is notable because it marked the early phase of what Ernest Gellner (1983:24) called the society of perpetual growth, and the creation of a new type of culture, consumer capitalism (see Bodley 1985:67), along with the construction of a new type of person, the consumer.    The emergence of the society of perpetual growth and the culture of capitalism marked a new stage in an ongoing global historical process that began (to the extent that it can be said to have a beginning) anytime from the fifteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. The creation of the human type that characterizes this stage, the consumer, followed soon after the emergence of two other historically unique categories of human beings: the capitalist and the laborer. Merchants had existed, of course, for thousands of years, and people had always labored to produce goods and, in a fashion, consumed what they'd produced. But never before in history has there existed a society founded on categories of people: the capitalist, whose sole purpose is to invest money and accumulate profit; the laborer, whose sole means of support comes from the sale of his or her labor; and the consumer, whose sole purpose is to purchase and consume increasing quantities of goods and services.    By the end of the nineteenth-century, the capitalist and laborer-operating within a set of rules mediated by a new type of political entity, the nation–state-had created a revolutionary system for the production of goods that potentially contained the seeds of its own destruction. By the late 1890s, so many goods were being produced that businesspeople and government officials feared overproduction, panic, and the severe economic depression that marked that decade. Out of these fears came what William Leach called "a steady stream of enticements" designed to encourage people to consume and to awaken Americans, as Emily Fogg Mead, the mother of anthropologist Margaret Mead, said, to "the ability to want and choose" (see Leach 1993:16). The consumer was necessary to save industrial capitalism from its own efficiency.    Virtually all Americans, at some point in their lives, play the roles of consumer, laborer, or capitalist; as consumers they buy things; as laborers, they work for wages; and as capitalists they invest money in banks, insurance policies, pension plans, stocks, education, or other enterprises from which they expect to profit. What ties together these roles, and indeed the entire culture, is money. Every culture has its distinct style or elements, rituals or ritual objects, that define for its members what is most important in life. The Dogon of West Africa define their existence through art; the Balinese of Indonesia, through drama and music. The Trobriand Islanders engaged in the accumulation of yams and the ritual exchange of shell necklaces and bracelets; the ancient Aztecs of Mexico in human sacrifice. For the indigenous peoples of the American Plains, the key element of cultural life was the buffalo. For members of the culture of capitalism the key element is money. As Jack Weatherford (1997:11) noted:      Money constitutes the focal point of modern world culture. Money defines relationships among people, not just between customer and merchant in the marketplace or employer and laborer in the workplace. Increasingly in modern society, money defines relationships between parent and child, among friends, between politicians and constituents, among neighbors, and between clergy and parishioners. Money forms the central institutions of the modern market and economy, and around it are grouped the ancillary institutions of kinship, religion, and politics. Money is the very language of commerce for the modern world.    Consumers want to spend as much money as they can, laborers want to earn as much as possible, and capitalists want to invest it so that it can return more. There is the potential for much conflict in these arrangements. Each person, as consumer, wants to pay as little as possible for commodities; while the same person, as laborer, wants to earn as much as possible, thus driving up prices. The capitalist wants to pay each person, as laborer, as little as possible, but wants the person, as consumer, to earn enough to purchase the commodities from which profits accrue. Yet each role also reinforces the other: The capitalist is dependent on the laborer to perform services and produce products and on the consumer to buy them; the laborer is dependent on the capitalist for employment and wages. Furthermore, each role disciplines and drives the other: the consumer in each person, desiring to acquire commodities and the status they may convey, accumulates debt; to pay off the debts accumulated to purchase status-bearing commodities, the consumer must labor to acquire money or must, in the role of capitalist, make investments hoping for greater returns.    We can perhaps best conceptualize the working of the culture of capitalism as sets of relations between capitalists, laborers, and consumers, each depending on the other, yet each placing demands on, and often conflicting with, the others. In this cultural scheme, the nation–state serves as, among its other functions, a mediator, controlling the creation and flow of money and setting and enforcing the rules of interaction. (Figure 1.1 is a highly simplified model, but it serves to underline the key features and unique style of the culture of capitalism.)  (Figure 1.1 is attached as a seperate file to the bottom of this post)    Where did the culture of capitalism come from? One of the assumptions of this book is that the emergence of capitalism has been misrepresented by many historians, sociologists, and anthropologists; rather than recognizing it as the emergence of a historically unique culture, they have generally portrayed it as an inevitable historical or evolutionary development. Capitalist culture was equated with "civilization," implying that anything different was "uncivilized." Later it was considered part of a process of "modernization," implying that anything else was "primitive" or "traditional." The emergence of the culture of capitalism, particularly in the so-called third world, was called "economic development," once again implying that anything less was "undeveloped" or "underdeveloped." However, if we look at capitalism as one cultural adaptation out of many, we will better able to understand and judge the effects it has had on the world's peoples and see its spread not as inevitable development, growth, or modernization, but as the displacement, for better or worse, of one way of life by another. Put another way, there is not much to choosing (as we must if capitalism is equated with progress, modernity, and development) between being modern or primitive, developed or undeveloped, civilized or uncivilized; it is, however, a very different matter in choosing whether to be a member of the culture of capitalism or a Zuni, Guaran', Mohawk, Chuckchee, Nuer, or Murngin.    The emergence of the culture of capitalism has left little in our lives untouched-it has affected our material, spiritual, and intellectual life; it has reshaped our values; and, as we shall see, it has largely dictated the direction that every institution in our society would take. It has produced wave after wave of consumer goods, revolutionized food production, and prompted previously unimagined developments in technology, communications, and medicine. Most dramatically, at least from the anthropological point of view, "feeding" the consumer has required a level of global integration unmatched in human history. The clothes we wear more often than not are produced in whole or in part by people in Malaysia, Hong Kong, or El Salvador; workers in Brazil probably cut the sugarcane that became the sugar that sweetens our soft drinks; our morning coffee began as coffee beans in the highlands of Colombia; the oranges we eat may have been grown in Spain, packed in cardboard boxes made of Canadian pulpwood, wrapped in plastic produced in New Jersey, and transported on trucks made in France with Italian, Japanese, and American parts. Our radios, televisions, and VCRs are most likely assembled by workers in Mexico, Haiti, or Indonesia; and our automobiles, of course, may have been produced at least in part in Japan, Taiwan, or Korea.    Furthermore, the culture of capitalism is being exported to all parts of the globe. Yet few people are aware of how the culture works and how it affects our lives and those of people all over the world-how American consumption, labor, and investment patterns relate to wages paid to women in Indonesia, the destruction of the rainforests in Paraguay, or the use of water on the American Plains. This is not necessarily the fault of the individual, for as we shall see, the culture of capitalism purposefully masks from its members the problems that result from its maintenance and spread.     Chapter Two: The Laborer in the Culture of Capitalism          By many poor men that work early and late; If it were not for them that do our labor full hard          We might go and hang ourselves without regard. . . .          By these people's labor we fill our purse.          If trading grows dead, we will presently show it,          But if it grows good, they shall never know it (seventeenth-century labor song).          -Fernand Braudel, The Wheels of Commerce          The capitalist system makes it very much easier for people not to realize          what they are doing, not to know about the danger and hardship, the          despair and humiliation, that their way of life implies for others.          -Edmund Wilson, The Shores of Light      The consumer may drive the culture of capitalism, but without the laborer there would be no commodities to consume. Yet the emergence of the laborer-the person who survives by selling labor-is a recent historical phenomenon. In past centuries most people had access to land on which to grow their own food, selling whatever surplus they produced. Or they owned tools-implements for weaving, metalworking, or producing other objects for sale or trade. Thus to understand capitalism it is necessary to examine why people choose or are forced to sell their labor. Before beginning this examination it is necessary to have a fundamental understanding of the workings of the capitalist economy.      Capitalism is not an easy term to define. Pierre Proudhon, who first used it in 1861, called it "an economic and social regime in which capital, the source of income, does not generally belong to those who make it work through their labor" (cited Braudel 1982:237). The term capitalism does not appear in the writings of Karl Marx and did not gain currency until 1902, when the German economist Werner Sombart used it to denote the opposite of socialism. But definitions alone won't help us to understand fully the dynamics of something as complex as a capitalist economy. We need to understand the major characteristics of capitalism to appreciate how as an economic and a cultural system it has permeated our lives      Few people will deny that the genius of capitalism lies in its ability to produce goods-commodities for people to buy and consume. Let's start our excursion into capitalism with a product, beginning with something nearly all of us buy at one point or another-sneakers-and examine, briefly, the largest manufacturer of sneakers, Nike, Inc. Today most of the sneakers-and clothes-we wear are assembled overseas because large corporations, such as Nike, have increasingly relocated assembly factories from their home countries to countries on the periphery. Consequently the clothes we wear; the TVs, stereos, and compact disks (CDs) we listen to; and the computers we use are at least partly produced by a person in another part of the world. This situation creates a clash of cultures that can be illuminating for what they tell us about other cultures and what they may tell us about ourselves. The effects that these factories have on other countries highlight the distinctive features of the capitalist economy and perhaps approximate the impact of early capitalism on our own society. But first let us digress briefly to an understanding of the economic logic of capitalism and particularly the role of labor within this economic system. Chapter Three: The Rise of the Merchant, Industrialist, and Capital Controller      From the fifteenth century on, European soldiers and sailors carried the      flags of their rulers to the four corners of the globe, and European merchants established their storehouses from Vera Cruz to Nagasaki. Dominatingthe sea-lanes of the world, these merchants invaded existing networks of exchange and linked one to the other. In the service of "God and profit" they located sources of products desired in Europe and developed coercive systems for their delivery. In response, European craft shops, either singly or aggregated into manufactories, began to produce goods to provision the wide-ranging military and naval efforts and to furnish commodities to overseas suppliers in exchange for goods to be sold as commodities at home. The outcome was the creation of a commercial network of global scale.          -Eric Wolf, People Without History      When I think of Indonesia-a country on the Equator with      180 million people, a median age of 18, and a Moslem ban on      alcohol-I feel I know what heaven looks like.        -Donald R. Keough, President of Coca Cola    At no other time in human history has the world been a better place for capitalists. We live in a world full of investment opportunities-companies, banks, funds, bonds, securities, and even countries-into which we can put money and from which we can get more back. These money-making machines, such as the Nike Corporation, have a ready supply of cheap labor, capital, raw materials, and advanced technology to assist in making products that people all over the world clamor to buy. Moreover, governments compete for their presence, passing laws and making treaties to open markets, while maintaining infrastructures (roads, airports, power utilities, monetary systems, communication networks, etc.) that enable them to manufacture products or provide services cheaply and charge prices that remain competitive with other investments. Nation–states maintain armies to protect investments and see that markets remain open. Educational institutions devote themselves to producing knowledgeable, skilled, and disciplined workers, while researchers at colleges and universities develop new technologies to make even better and cheaper products. Our governments, educational institutions and mass media encourage people to consume more and more commodities. Citizens order their economic and social lives to accommodate work in the investment machines and to gain access to the commodities they produce. In return the investment machines churn out profits that are reinvested to manufacture more of their particular products or that can be invested in other enterprises, producing yet more goods and services.    But there are economic, environmental, and social consequences of doing business and making money. We live in a world in which the gap between the rich and poor is growing, a world that contains many wealthy and comfortable people but also contains almost one billion hungry people, one-fifth of its population. Then there are the environmental consequences of doing business: Production uses up the earth's energy resources and produces damaged environments in return. There are health consequences as well, not only from damaged environments but also because those too poor to afford health care often do without it. Finally there are the political consequences of governments' using their armed force to maintain conditions that they believe are favorable for business and investors.    In the long view of human history these conditions are very recent ones. For most of human history human beings have lived in small, relatively isolated settlements that rarely exceeded three or four hundred individuals. And until some ten thousand years ago virtually all of these people lived by gathering and hunting. Then in some areas of the world, instead of depending on the natural growth of plant foods and the natural growth and movements of animals, people began to plant and harvest crops and raise animals themselves. This was not necessarily an advance in human societies-in fact, in terms of labor, it required human beings to do the work that had been done largely by nature. The sole advantage of working harder was that the additional labor supported denser populations. Settlements grew in size until thousands rather than hundreds lived together in towns and cities. Occupational specialization developed, necessitating trade and communication between villages, towns, cities, and regions. Political complexity increased; chiefs became kings, and kings became emperors ruling over vast regions.    Then, approximately four or five hundred years ago, patterns of travel and communication contributed to the globalization of trade dominated by "a small peninsula off the landmass of Asia," as Eric Wolf called Europe. The domination by one region over others was not new in the world. There had existed prior to this time civilizations whose influence had spread to influence those around them-the Mayan civilization in Central America, Greek civilization of the fourth millennium b.c., Rome of the first and second centuries a.d., and Islamic civilization of the eighth and ninth centuries. But there was an important difference. The building of these empires was largely a political process of conquest and military domination, whereas the expansion of Europe, while certainly involving its share of militarism, was largely accomplished by economic means, by the expansion and control of trade.    Now let's shift our focus to the development of the capitalist-the merchant, industrialist, and financier-the person who controls the capital, employs the laborers, and profits from the consumption of commodities. This will be a long-term, historical look at this development, particularly because if we are to understand the global distribution of power and money that exists today and the origins of the culture of capitalism, knowledge of its history is crucial.    Assume for a time the role of a businessperson, a global merchant, or merchant adventurer, as they used to be called, passing through the world of the last six hundred years. We'll begin searching the globe for ways to make money in the year 1400 and end our search in the year 2000, taking stock of the changes in the organization and distribution of capital that have occurred in that time. Because we are looking at the world through the eyes of a merchant, there is much that we will miss-many political developments, religious wars, revolutions, natural catastrophes, and the like. Because we overlook these events does not mean they did not affect how business was conducted-in many cases they had profound effects. But our prime concern is with the events that most directly influenced the way in which business was conducted on a day to day basis and how the pursuit of profit by merchant adventurers influenced the lives of people all over the world.    Our historical tour will concentrate on three areas:    1. An understanding of how capital came to be concentrated in so few hands and how the world came to be divided into rich and poor. There were certainly rich people and poor people in 1400, but today's vast global disparity between core and periphery did not exist then. How did the distribution of wealth change, and how did one area of the world come to dominate the others economically?    2. An understanding of the changes in business organizations and the organization of capital, that is, who controlled the money? In 1400, most business enterprises were small, generally family-organized institutions. Capital was controlled by these groups and state organizations. Today we live in an era of multinational corporations, many whose wealth exceeds that of most countries. We need to trace the evolution of the power of capital over our lives and the transformation of the merchant of 1400 into the industrialist of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries then into the investor and capital controller of the late twentieth century. How and why did these transformations in the organization of capital come about?    3. The increase in the level of global economic integration. From your perspective as a merchant adventurer, you obviously want the fewest restraints possible on your ability to trade from one area of the world to another; the fewer restrictions, the greater the opportunity for profit. Such things as a global currency, agreement among nations on import and export regulations, ease of passage of money and goods from area to area, freedom to employ who you want and to pay the lowest possible wage are all to your advantage; furthermore, you want few or no government restrictions regarding the consequences of your business activities. How did the level of global economic integration increase, and what were the consequences for the merchant adventurer, as well as others?    With these questions in mind, let's go back to the world of 1400 and start trading. Chapter Four: The Nation–State in the Culture of Capitalism      The mutual relationship of modern culture and state is something quite new, and springs, inevitably, from the requirements of a modern economy.      -Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism      Among the primary goals of the modern, post-Enlightenment stateare assimilation, homogenization, and conformity within a fairly narrow ethnic and political range, as well as the creation of societal agreement about the kinds of people there are and the kinds there ought to be. The ideal state is one in which the illusion of a single nation–state is created and maintained and in which resistance is managed so that profound social upheaval, separatist activity, revolution, and coups d'état are unthinkable for most people most of the time.      -Carol Nagengast, Violence, Terror,and The Crisis of the State  Imagine an alien from another planet who lands on Earth after a nuclear holocaust has destroyed all life but has left undamaged terrestrial libraries and archives. After consulting the archives, suggested Eric Hobsbawm, our observer would undoubtedly conclude that the last two centuries of human history are incomprehensible without an understanding of the term nation and the phenomenon of nationalism.  The nation–state, along with the consumer, laborer, and capitalist, comprise, we suggest, the essential elements of the culture of capitalism. It is the nation–state, as Eric Wolf (1982:100) suggested, that guarantees the ownership of private property and the means of production and provides support for disciplining the work force. The state also has to provide and maintain the economic infrastructure-transportation, communication, judicial systems, education, and so on-required by capitalist production. The nation–state must regulate conflicts between competing capitalists at home and abroad, by diplomacy if possible, by war if necessary. The state plays an essential role in creating conditions that inhibit or promote consumption, controls legislation that may force people off the land to seek wage labor, legislates to regulate or deregulate corporations, controls the money supply, initiates economic, political, and social policies to attract capital, and controls the legitimate use of force. Without the nation–state to regulate commerce and trade within its own borders, there could be no effective global economic integration. But how did the nation–state come to exist, and how does it succeed in binding together often disparate and conflicting groups?  Virtually all people in the world consider themselves members of a nation–state. The notion of a person without a nation, said Ernest Gellner (1983:6), strains the imagination; a person must have a nationality as he or she must have a nose and two ears. We are Americans, Mexicans, Bolivians, Italians, Indonesians, Kenyans, or members of any of close to two hundred states that currently exist. We generally consider our country, whichever it is, as imbued with tradition, a history that glorifies its founding and makes heroes of those thought to have been instrumental in its creation. Symbols of the nation-flags, buildings, monuments-take on the aura of sacred relics.  The attainment of "nationhood" had become by the middle of the twentieth century a sign of progress and modernity. To be less than a nation-a tribe, an ethnic group, a regional bloc-was a sign of backwardness. Yet fewer than one-third of the states in the world are more than thirty years old; only a few go back to the nineteenth century; and virtually none go back in their present form beyond that. Before that time people identified themselves as members of kinship groups, villages, cities, or, perhaps, regions, but almost never as members of nations. For the most part, the agents of the state were resented, feared, or hated because of their demands for tribute, taxes, or army conscripts.  States existed, of course, and have existed for five to seven thousand years. But the idea of the nation–state, of a people sharing some bounded territory, united by a common culture or tradition, common language, or common race, is a product of nineteenth century Europe. Most historians see the French Revolution of 1789 as marking the beginning of the era of the nation–state. Yet in spite of the historical newness of the idea, for many people nationality forms a critical part of their personal identity. Some of the questions we need to explore are: How did the nation–state come to have such importance in the world? Why did it develop as it did, and how do people come to identify themselves as members of such vague abstractions? Finally, why does the nation–state kill as often as it does?  The question of killing is important, because today most killing and violence is either sanctioned by or carried out by the state. This should not surprise us: most definitions of the state, following Max Weber's (1947:124–135), revolve around its claim to a monopoly on the instruments of death and violence. "Stateness," as Elman Service (1975) put it, can be identified simply by locating "the power of force in addition to the power of authority." Killing by other than the state, as Morton Fried (1967) noted, will draw the punitive action of organized state force.  The use of force, however, is not the only characteristic anthropologists emphasize in identifying the state; social stratification-the division of societies into groups with differing access to wealth and other resources-is also paramount. Yet even here the state is seen as serving as an instrument of control to maintain the privileges of the ruling group, and this, too, generally requires a monopoly on the use of force (see Cohen and Service 1978; Lewellen 1983).  Thus to complete our description of the key features of the culture of capitalism we need to examine the origin and history of the state and its successor, the nation–state.   

 USA and Western Europe

I.                    USA

a.       History of economic development

                                                   i.      During time of colonies:

1.      Discovery of new land = fertile and very productive farmland, very productive raw material resources such as land, river, oceans, etc.

2.      European immigrants were mainly farmers. These European proletariats came to the new land to escape rule of feudal lords. They had nothing to lose and everything to gain

3.      Natural resources were very abundant

4.      European model of development promoted industrialization, urbanization, etc.

5.      U.S. became a nation of copying the making of European goods but at a cheaper price. European goods were expensive, so U.S. exports soared

6.      U.S. eventually became a nation of investors

                                                 ii.      WWII:

1.      It was a big plus for the U.S. There were no battles taking place in the U.S., so its infrastructure and economy was left intact. The U.S. supplied its allies with the guns, food and everything needed for the war effort

2.      Political stability aided economic growth

3.      U.S. possessed superior technical skills with both its labor force and machinery

4.      There was a massive brain drain (i.e. the U.S. had a liberal policy for immigrants with science skills and extraordinary intellectual qualities to come and work in the U.S.)

b.      Strengths:

                                                   i.      Economic indicators include:

1.       Per capita GNI PP of $31,910

2.      Per capita GDP of $31,872

                                                 ii.      Social indicators include:

1.       A low fertility rate of 0.6%. You need to grow your population to grow your economy (i.e. it creates new consumers, demand increases, so the economy increases), but too much population growth is negative because it will become a struggle to fulfill basic needs within society

2.      Life expectancy = 77 years

3.      Infant mortality rate = 7.1. This is a high rate among industrialized nations. This is mainly due to the lack of universal health care

                                                iii.      Other strengths include:

1.      Huge domestic market

2.      We have been overusing/overexploiting our resources but we still have a lot of them left because we are a relatively large and young nation

3.      We have a high level of technical skills. The “brain drain” immigration policies have helped in this area

4.      Excellent management skills

5.      Strong computer industry

6.      Immigrants play a central role, both in the brain drain and area of low wage workers (e.g. in the agricultural industry)

7.      College education system is strong even though the model has been criticized. We have a large number of universities focused on research and development. They also graduate a large number of graduates trained in leading fields

c.       Problems:

                                       i.      The emergence of new players competing for the top spot (e.g. Germany, Japan,

France, India, China, etc.)

                                       ii.     The European Union was established to compete with US and Japan

                                       iii.    Problems with capitalism have created tremendous inequality, high illiteracy rates

compared with Europe, high rates of poverty

                                       iv.     There is a decline in and changing role of natural resources

                                       v.      Skills of American workers are not easily transferable. E.g. In general American

assembly line workers do not have the skills to survive outside of assembly line if

they are laid off from their job

                                       vi.     There are major trade imbalances (i.e. the U.S. imports more than it exports). This

does has the effect of sending wealth overseas

                                       vii.    There is a major budget deficit. The U.S. is 8 trillion dollars in debt. It was zero

when Bill Clinton left the white house in 2000.

                                       viii.   U.S. consumers have major debt (e.g. mortgages, student loans, credit card

balances, etc.). The only other time that U.S. consumers were in so much debt was

during the great depression

                                       ix.      Foreign companies are buying up American assets. There needs to be restrictions

on what can be bought and sold. Foreign nations can manipulate the economy with

their influence

                                       x.      The U.S. is a nation of consumers. People spend money whether or not they actually

have it

                                       xi.      Infrastructure is deteriorating. The U.S. motorway system was originally built for

the military. The problem is that it needs billions of dollars to maintain it

                                       xii.    There is a decline in the quality of products. The U.S. began manufacturing

products that only last 4-5 years to keep consumers coming back to buy more. The

reputation of products built in the U.S. has gone down

d.      Future trends:

                                       i.      If a nation has good economic indicators for 100 years, the next 100 years tends to

be promising. Based on these past indicators, the U.S. should be strong for some

time to come

                                       ii.     The U.S. may lose its #1 status, but it will still be near the top

                                       iii.    The U.K. was #1 for a very long time (up until the end of the 19th century). It is still

strong economically even though it is not #1

                                       iv.     There will be increased global competition

II.                 Western Europe

a.       Strengths:

                                                   i.      Economic indicators include:

1.      Per capita GNI PP of $29,410 (lower than the U.S.)

2.      Per capita GDP of approximately $24,000 (lower than the U.S.)

                                                 ii.      Social indicators include:

1.       A low natural increase rate of 0.1% (lower than the U.S.). This is good. While you need to grow your population to grow your economy (i.e. it creates new consumers, demand increases, so the economy increases), too much population growth is negative because it will become a struggle to fulfill basic needs within society

2.      Life expectancy = 79 years (higher than the U.S.)

3.      Infant mortality rate = 4.0 (lower than the U.S.). This low rate reflects the fact that countries in Western Europe have universal health care

                                                iii.      Other strengths include the fact that Europe is still rich; its workers have a high rate of technical skills; its infrastructure in roads, building, utilities are good; and it enjoys both economic and political stability

b.      Problems:

                                       i.      There is a lot of dependency on foreign trade

                                       ii.      The countries have large welfare budgets

                                       iii.      Unions are also strong, which can affect productivity and growth

                                       iv.      Rising unemployment rates make it so that people have less money to spend, thus consume (a major backbone of capitalism)

                                       v.      Europe has been plagued with internal conflicts for a long time

                                       vi.      Its population is declining so that means there is a loss of consumers

                                       vii.      There is increasing global competition

c.       Future trends:

                                       i.      The European Union will increasingly dominate the political economies of Europe.

There will be increased free trade, large circulation of the Euro, passports enabling

European citizens to move about freely throughout Europe. The EU is a powerhouse

                                       ii.     The European Union is a free trade zone where there are no tariffs posed

                                       iii.    The fact that there is so much conflict within Europe, and there has been no time

that it has flown under one flag, perhaps makes the future of this zone a bit

unrealistic

Unit 11: Global Environments and Political Economy

1.      What are Environments?

2.      History of Development

3.      Problems

4.      Theoretical Discussion

5.      Sources

6.      What can we do?

1.      Environments

a.       Environments are the surface layer and the surrounding atmosphere of the planet.

b.      Ecosystems which consist of an interdependence between living organisms and their physical environments

c.       Ecology is the study of relationships between living organisms and their environments

d.      Earth is 75% water, 25% land; The breakdown of the land area is as follows: 20% is unusable because it is too cold, 20% is unusable because it is too high/rugged, 20% is unusable because it’s too dry, and 40% in habitable

e.       The environment is very controversial. Some people say we have a serious problem with degradation, while others say that liberals blow the problem out of proportion.

2.      History of Development

a.       Social scientists tend to believe that development does not favor the environment

b.      The history of development can be broken down into the following modes of production:

                                                   i.      Foraging

                                                 ii.      Pastoralism

                                                iii.      Agriculture

                                               iv.      Technical changes

c.       I. and ii. include hunting and gathering and the beginning of domestication. The balance was in favor of nature. Major problems started to develop with agriculture and its intensive use of the land.

d.      Problems started with agriculture (iii.) and got out of hand with development and technical changes

                                                   i.      Agriculture required increased intensification (i.e. using the same piece of land year round, which tends to deplete/degrade the land)

e.       Technical changes (iv.)

                                                   i.      Greco-Roman antiquity

1.      Valued architecture, philosophy, art, music, etc.

2.      Physical sciences were not encouraged

3.      Only had simple technology (e.g. water pumps, water clocks, pit mines, etc.)

4.      Not very dangerous to the environment

                                                 ii.      Middle ages (500 A.D. – 1450 A.D.)

1.      Beginning of Christianity and spread of Islam

2.      Man is promoted as the most superior of God’s creations. Humans are considered as more important than nature/God provided nature to man for his use

3.      Promoted destruction of nature by human beings

4.      Simple technology (e.g. animal labor for pulling things, textile looms, some chemical technology)

5.      Environment was not in danger

                                                iii.      Renaissance (16th century)

1.      Rebirth/interest in art, culture, physical sciences

2.      Christianity ruled. All answers were in the bible. Challenge to the bible was unheard of

3.      This time period brought an interest in physics, biology, engineering, chemistry, etc. These challenged biblical knowledge

4.      People started to reject traditional knowledge with an independent mind

                                               iv.      Age of Rationalism (18th century)

1.      Continued interest in things from Renaissance

                                                 v.      Industrialization

1.      The beginning of serious environmental problems

3.      Problems

a.       Degradation of land

                                                   i.      Desertification and erosion

                                                 ii.      Deforestation (cutting down trees to build things)

                                                iii.      Water logging and salinity

                                               iv.      In the 1960’s and 70’s there was a dramatic increase in population and a shortage of food. Scientists around the world were trying to do something about this. This started the Green Revolution:

1.      New seeds were produced which increased yields per acre to feed growing populations.

2.      Problems were created because these seeds required increased inputs of water pumping, pesticides and fertilizer. This produced huge profits for the U.S. companies that made these items.

3.      Consequences included water logging (i.e. decrease in the water table as more water was used) and salinity of soil due to huge applications of water (i.e. after it evaporated it left behind salt).

4.      GR was heralded as a miracle at first because of huge boost in yields, but then became a bust as problems crept up and yields declined

5.      The focus has changed to using genetically modified seeds which do not require as much water

b.      Pollution

                                                   i.      Millions of chemicals (e.g. detergents, plastics, cleaning supplies, etc.) are polluting the environment

                                                 ii.      Solid wastes (e.g. food, glass, plastic, metal, wood, paper, electronics, etc.) are accumulating quickly as consumption increases

                                                iii.      There is tremendous water pollution as air and soil contaminants leach into waterways

c.       Endangered species leading to loss of biodiversity (plant species, animal species, fisheries, etc.)

d.      Air and Atmosphere (increased levels of carbon dioxide and methane which are leading to global warming, CFC’s leading to ozone depletion, acid rain, etc.)

                                                   i.      Global warming

1.      Thick layer of smoke that does not allow solar energy to escape back into the atmosphere. Instead, it is reflected back to earth and unevenly warms it.

a.       Composition of the smoke layer include carbon dioxide and methane gases

2.      Gases responsible for GW:

a.       Carbon dioxide from burning of coal, natural gas, oil, forests, etc.

b.      Methane from decaying of marsh lands and livestock production

c.       Nitrous oxide from factories, automobile exhaust, breakdown of fertilizer and other chemicals used for farming, etc.

d.      Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) from air conditioners and other cooling systems

                                                 ii.      Ozone depletion

1.      The ozone layer filters harmful ultraviolet solar rays. There are now holes in the layer caused by the above mentioned gases

                                                iii.      Acid Rain

1.      In many large cities like L.A. and Mexico City, you can see a thick layer of smoke above cities

2.      When it rains the water depletes sulfur dioxide by pushing it to city surface and cause health problems and deterioration of buildings, etc.

4.      Theoretical Discussion

a.       Realism, Malthusianism and Liberalism:

                                                   i.      Realism

1.      Resources become more scarce as population increases

2.      Governments play an important role in helping populations capture resources. Governments have responsibility for citizens’ welfare. Governments make wars to capture resources in order to achieve this goal

3.      War requires weapons, transportation, food, etc. which puts more strain on the environment

                                                 ii.      Malthusianism

1.      Yes, resources are limited, but the real problem is overpopulation

                                                iii.      Liberalism

1.      Let industries act freely and they will come up with strategies to combat scarce resources.

2.      Leave markets along. Competition will solve the problem

b.      Cooperative

                                                   i.      Live in co-op communities with agreeable situations and self-regulating and self-governing models

c.       Development

                                                   i.      Poverty and over consumption are cause of degradation of the environment.

                                                 ii.      We should not seek to develop and use/consume as many products as we do

d.      Anti-domination

                                                   i.      Capitalism is the main cause of all problems on earth, including the destruction of nature

                                                 ii.      Men are more destructive to nature than women since men tend to be dominant in most nations so they dominate their environment and women as well. Women do not have as much power

5.      Source

a.       Culture

                                                   i.      Cornucopian view says that God created nature for our use

                                                 ii.      Growth ethics believe that growth in society is a sign of development. In the U.S. everything is oversized (houses, cars, food, etc.). You always want more

                                                iii.      Materialism comes about as a result of industrialization. Spiritualism has been replaced by materialism

                                               iv.      Individualism says that welfare of the individual is the most important thing (i.e. over nature or the communal good). The concept of sharing disappears

b.      Structural determinants

                                                   i.      Capitalism

1.      Cost = A+B+C

a.       A = capital and money spent in manufacturing, B = labor, and C = raw material

2.      Critics of capitalism say real costs = A+B+C+S+P+I+H

a.       Where S = sources, P = pollution, I = intergenerational cost of damage to environment, and H = damage to health of other living organisms

b.      The above variables are not calculated within the capitalist mode of production

6.      What can we do?

a.       Structural changes to economies, politics, cultural patterns of use, technology use, family structures, etc.

                                                   i.      Economic changes to divert away from capitalist system is very difficult to achieve

                                                 ii.      Political climate is very corrupt so it is difficult to change

                                                iii.      Cultural patterns are hard to change because of their ingrained ways of being (e.g. perhaps its natural to litter, as was the case several years ago in the U.S.)

                                               iv.      Changes in technology are difficult because it advances so fast. However, solar energy, bio-fuels, etc. are promising as long as there is the right political climate to implement their use

                                                 v.      Changes in family size may be feasible considering successes such as the one child policy in China and their significant reduction in population growth rates

b.      B. Individual level changes include changes in life style (e.g. reducing your carbon foot print). Collective good of such changes are emphasized as opposed to individual gain

Chapter Seven in Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism: The Environment

If the life-supporting ecosystems of the planet are to survive for future generations, the consumer society will have to dramatically curtail its use of resources-partly by shifting to high-quality, low-input durable goods and partly by seeking fulfillment through leisure, human relationships, and other nonmaterial avenues. -Alan Durning, How Much Is Enough

A man is rich in proportion to the things he can afford to let alone. -Henry David Thoreau, Walden

The first sweetened cup of hot tea to be drunk by an English worker was a significant historical event, because it prefigured the transformation of an entire society, a total remaking of its economic and social basis. We must struggle to understand fully the consequences of that and kindred events, for upon them was erected an entirely different conception of the relationship between producers and consumers, of the meaning of work, of the definition of self, of the nature of things. -Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power.

 All animals alter their environments as a condition of their existence. Human beings, in addition, alter their environments as a condition of their cultures, that is by the way they choose to obtain food, produce tools and products, and construct and arrange shelters. But culture, an essential part of human adaptation, can also threaten human existence when short-term goals lead to long-term consequences that are harmful to human life. Swidden agriculture alters the environment, but not as much as irrigation agriculture, and certainly not as much as modern agriculture with its use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. Domesticated animals alter environments, but keeping a few cattle for farm work or cows for dairy products does far less damage than maintaining herds of thousands to supply a meat-centered diet.

The degree to which environments are altered and damaged is determined in part by population and in part by the technology in use. Obviously, the more people in a given area, the more potential there is for environmental disruption. Tractors and bulldozers alter the environment more than hoes or plows. But the greatest factor in environmental alteration-in the use of raw materials, the use of nonhuman energy, and the production of waste-is consumption. Because of our level of consumption, the average American child will do twice the environmental damage of a Swedish child, three times that of an Italian child, thirteen times that of a Brazilian child, thirty-five times that of an Indian child, and 280 times that of a Chadian or Haitian child (Kennedy 1993:32).

In per capita production of energy alone, the United States leads other countries by a vast margin (see Table 7.1). (Table 7.1 is a word file attached to the bottom of this post). William Rees, an urban planner at the University of British Columbia, estimated that it requires four to six hectares of land to maintain the consumption level of the average person from a high-consumption country. The problem is that in 1990, worldwide there were only 1.7 hectares of ecologically productive land for each person. He concluded that the deficit is made up in core countries by drawing down the natural resources of their own countries and expropriating the resources, through trade, of peripheral countries. In other words, someone has to pay for our consumption levels, and it will either be our children or inhabitants of the periphery of the world system (Korten 1995:34).

Our consumption of goods obviously is a function of our culture. Only by producing and selling things and services does capitalism in its present form work, and the more that is produced and the more that is purchased the more we have progress and prosperity. The single most important measure of economic growth is, after all, the gross national product (GNP), the sum total of goods and services produced by a given society in a given year. It is a measure of the success of a consumer society, obviously, to consume.

However, the production, processing, and consumption of commodities requires the extraction and use of natural resources (wood, ore, fossil fuels, and water); it requires the creation of factories and factory complexes whose operation creates toxic byproducts, while the use of commodities themselves (e.g., automobiles) creates pollutants and waste. Yet of the three factors environmentalists often point to as responsible for environmental pollution-population, technology, and consumption-consumption seems to get the least attention. One reason, no doubt, is that it may be the most difficult to change; our consumption patterns are so much a part of our lives that to change them would require a massive cultural overhaul, not to mention severe economic dislocation. A drop in demand for products, as economists note, brings on economic recession or even depression, along with massive unemployment.

The maintenance of perpetual growth and the cycle of production and consumption essential in the culture of capitalism does not bode well for the environment. At the beginning of Chapter 1 we mentioned that the consumer revolution of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was caused in large part by a crisis in production; new technologies had resulted in production of more goods, but there were not enough people or money to buy them. Since production is such an essential part of the culture of capitalism, society quickly adapted to this crisis by convincing people to buy things, by altering basic institutions and even generating a new ideology of pleasure. The economic crisis of the late nineteenth century was solved, but at considerable expense to the environment in the additional waste that was created and resources that were consumed. At that time the world''s population was about 1.6 billion and those caught up in the consumer frenzy was a fraction of that total.

The global economy today faces the same problem it faced one hundred years ago, except that the world population has almost quadrupled. Consequently it is even more important to understand how the interaction between capital, labor, and consumption in the culture of capitalism creates an overproduction of commodities and how this relates to environmental pollution. To illustrate, let''s take a quick look at the present state of the global automobile industry.

In capitalism competition between companies for world markets requires that they constantly develop new and improved ways to produce things and lower costs. In some industries, such as textiles, as we saw in Chapter 2, competition requires seeking cheaper sources of labor; in others, such as the automobile industry, it means creating new technologies that replace people with machines to lower labor costs. Twenty years ago it took hundreds of hours of human labor to produce one automobile. Today a Lexus LS 400 requires only 18.4 hours of human labor, Ford Motor Company produces several cars with 20.0 hours of human labor, and General Motors lags behind at about 24.8 hours per car (Greider 1997:110–112).

In addition to reducing the number of jobs available to people, advanced productive technology creates the potential for producing ever more cars, regardless of whether there are people who want to buy them. In 1995 the automobile industry produced over 50 million automobiles, but there was a market for only 40 million. What can companies do? Obviously they can begin to close plants or cut back on production, which some do. In the 1980s some 180,000 American auto workers lost their jobs because of cutbacks and factory shutdowns. But each producer, of course, hopes the problem of selling this surplus is someone else''s problem, so they continue to produce cars.

From the perspective of the automobile companies and their workers, the preferred solution to overproduction, is to create a greater demand for automobiles. This is difficult in core countries, where the market is already saturated with cars. In the United States, for example, there is one car for every 1.7 persons. However, there are places in the world where there are few cars. In China, for example, there is only one car for every 680 people. Imagine the environmental impact if the consumption rate of automobiles in China, with a population of well over a billion people, even began to approach the consumption rate in the United States.

But that is exactly the goal of automotive manufacturers and the nation–states that operate to help them build and sell their products. Not only would automobile makers in the core like to enter the Chinese market, the Chinese themselves plan to build an automobile industry as large as that of the United States, to produce cars for their own market and compete in other markets as well. If China-or India, Indonesia, Brazil, or most of the rest of the periphery-even approached the consumption rate of automobiles common in the core, the increased environmental pollution would be staggering. There would be not only massive increases in hydrocarbon pollution but also vastly increased demands for raw materials, especially oil. And the overproduction dilemma is not unique to automobiles: the steel, aircraft, chemical, computer, consumer electronics, drug, and tire industries, among others, face the same dilemma.

The environmental problem could be alleviated if consumers simply said "enough is enough" and stopped consuming as much as they do. But, as noted above, any reduction of consumption would likely cause severe economic disruption. Furthermore, few are aware of how large our reduction would have to be to effect a change. A study by Friends of the Earth Netherlands asked what the consumption levels of the average Dutch person would have to be in the year 2010 if consumption levels over the world were equal and if resource consumption was sustainable. They found that consumption levels would have to be reduced dramatically. For example, to reduce global warming by the year 2010, people in the Netherlands would have to reduce carbon emission from the current 12 tons (it is 19.5 in the United States) to 4 tons; to accomplish that a Dutch person would have to limit the use of carbon-based fuel to one liter per day, thus limiting travel to 15.5 miles per day by car, 31 miles per day by bus, 40 miles per day by train, or 6.2 miles per day by plane. A trip from Amsterdam to Rio de Janeiro could be made only once every twenty years. (Korten 1995:34).

Thus it is unlikely that we will ever significantly change our consumption patterns. Consumption is as much a part of our culture as horse raiding and buffalo hunting were part of Plains Indian culture; it is a central element. Consequently there is no way to appreciate the problem of environmental destruction without understanding how people are turned into consumers, how luxuries are turned into necessities. That is, why do people choose to consume what they do, how they do, and when they do?

Take sugar, for example. In 1995, each American consumed in his or her soft drinks, tea, coffee, cocoa, pastries, breads, and other foods sixty-six pounds of sugar. Why? Liking the taste might be one answer. In fact, a predilection for sweets may be part of our biological makeup. But that doesn''t explain why we consume it in the form of sugarcane and beet sugar and in the quantities we do. Then there is meat. Modern livestock production is one of the most environmentally damaging and wasteful forms of food production the world has known. Yet Americans eat more meat per capita than all but a few other peoples. Some environmentalists argue that we can change our destructive consumption patterns, if we desire. But is our pattern of consumption only a matter of taste and of choice, or is it so deeply embedded in our culture as to be virtually impervious to change?

To begin to answer this question, we shall examine the history of sugar and beef, commodities that figure largely in our lives, but involve environmental degradation. Sugar and beef is an appropriate combination for a number of reasons: 1. The production and processing of both degrade the environment; furthermore, the history of sugar production parallels that of a number of other things we consume, including coffee, tea, cocoa, and tobacco, that collectively have significant environmental effects. 2. Neither is terribly good for us, at least not in the quantities and form we consume them. 3. Both have histories that closely tie them to the growth and emergence of the capitalist world economy. They are powerful symbols of the rise and economic expansion of capitalism; indeed they are a result and a reason for it. 4. With the rise of the fast-food industry, beef and sugar, fat and sucrose have become the foundations of the American diet; indeed, they are foundation foods of the culture of capitalism symbolized in the hamburger and Coke, hot dog and soda, and topped with a fat and sucrose dessert-ice cream.

CONCEPT REDESIGN

Learning Goal: 1.1 Analytical thinking

Dimension: Acquires, analyzes, and evaluates information from multiple sources.

Description: In this assignment, you will write a 5-6 page paper answering a question related to course content and critiquing the accuracy and reliability of your sources. You will:

1) Choose a ONE of the following topics that is relevant to this class (ISS 315)

a. Gender inequality

b. Race/ethnicity

c. Poverty

d. Globalization

e. Population

f. Immigration

2) Choose a question that relates to this topic within the course:

a. Example question addressing the course concept, gender inequality: “Since women in the United States now do not have access to free birth control, what has been the impact of this policy change?”

b. Example question addressing the course concept, race/ethnicity: “How has policy concerns regarding gun control affected minority populations in the United States?”

c. Example question addressing the course concept, population: “Since the “one-child” policy in China is no longer in place, what has been its impact on Chinese culture?

d. Example question addressing the course concept, immigration: “How has the decline of immigration from Mexico impacted the U.S. economy?”

3) Identify THREE different sources that you can use to answer your question.

These sources might include: Google, Wikipedia, social media, library, newspaper, or article databases. You must include proper citation of your sources so that someone else would be able to find the article.

4) Write an essay answering your question and critiquing the sources you use to answer it.

Paper format:

(Your paper does not necessarily need to be divided into 6 paragraphs specifically. For instance, you might want to include more than one paragraph to address the background section of your paper. However, the overall structure of your paper should follow this format)

· Make sure each section of your paper has the appropriate heading.

· Example: Introduction, Background, Methodology, Conclusion, Bibliography

Paragraph 1: Introduction

· State the course topic you are trying to address. Highlight this course concept in yellow.

· Why are you trying to address this topic?

· How does it relate to class content?

· Cite the class content which relates to your topic.

· At the end of your introduction, state the question you are trying to answer. Highlight the question you are trying to answer in blue.

Paragraph 2(ish): Background

· Write one (or more) paragraphs summarizing how your sources answer your question.

· Use in-text citations to show where you found the information you are summarizing.

· Example: “According to the book, ‘_____’, 1 in 4 girls report being sexually assaulted while at college.”

Paragraph 3-5 (ish): Methodology

· Critique the methods that your research sources use to answer the question.

· Paragraph 3 (ish):

· State your first source

· What type of source is it (Book, website, etc.)?

· Why did you decide to use this source?

· What are some strengths of this source? Highlight these strengths in Green.

· What are some weaknesses of this source? Highlight these weaknesses Red.

· Paragraph 4(ish):

· State your second source

· What type of source is it (Book, website, etc.)?

· Why did you decide to use this source?

· What are some strengths of this source? Highlight these strengths in Green.

· What are some weaknesses of this source? Highlight these weaknesses Red.

· Paragraph 5(ish):

· State your third source

· What type of source is it (Book, website, etc.)?

· Why did you decide to use this source?

· What are some strengths of this source? Highlight these strengths in Green.

· What are some weaknesses of this source? Highlight these weaknesses Red.

Things to consider when examining the strengths/weaknesses of your sources:

· Is your source reliable? How do you know?

· Did your source research your question itself or does it report what others have found?

· If it reports what others have found, does it appear to cite information from a reputable source?

· Does your source appear bias about the topic? Does your source have a reputation of eliciting any biases when reporting information in general?

· Example: Does your source tend to favor liberal or conservative perspectives?

· Do any of your sources contradict each other? If so, how?

· Is your source recent? If not, do you think that your source is weaker because it is older? Why or why not?

· If your source conducts its own research, can you think of any shortcomings in how they conducted their research?

· Example: Did they ask the right questions to the right people?

· Is the writer of your source credible? Do they appear to have the qualifications to answer your question accurately? Is your source peer-reviewed?

Paragraph 6 (ish): Conclusion

· Summarize the answer to your question in 1-2 sentences. Highlight this summary in pink.

· Reflect on whether your sources allow you to answer your research question.

· Do you think your sources provide diverse perspectives that allow you to make a conclusion about the accuracy of your answer?

· Do you think your sources are reliable enough to answer your question definitively?

Bibliography:

· Cite your THREE sources using either APA or MLA format. (Though you should have cited the course content that relates to your topic within the paper, you do not need to include it in your bibliography)

ASSESSMENT RUBRIC: COURSE CONCEPT REDESIGN

Learning Goal: Analytical Thinking

Dimension: Acquires, analyzes, and evaluates information from multiple sources

CONCEPT REDESIGN

Learning Goal: 1.1 Analytical thinking

Dimension: Acquires, analyzes, and evaluates information from multiple sources.

Description: In this assignment, you will write a 5-6 page paper answering a question related to course content and critiquing the accuracy and reliability of your sources. You will:

1) Choose a ONE of the following topics that is relevant to this class (ISS 315)

a. Gender inequality

b. Race/ethnicity

c. Poverty

d. Globalization

e. Population

f. Immigration

2) Choose a question that relates to this topic within the course:

a. Example question addressing the course concept, gender inequality: “Since women in the United States now do not have access to free birth control, what has been the impact of this policy change?”

b. Example question addressing the course concept, race/ethnicity: “How has policy concerns regarding gun control affected minority populations in the United States?”

c. Example question addressing the course concept, population: “Since the “one-child” policy in China is no longer in place, what has been its impact on Chinese culture?

d. Example question addressing the course concept, immigration: “How has the decline of immigration from Mexico impacted the U.S. economy?”

3) Identify THREE different sources that you can use to answer your question.

These sources might include: Google, Wikipedia, social media, library, newspaper, or article databases. You must include proper citation of your sources so that someone else would be able to find the article.

4) Write an essay answering your question and critiquing the sources you use to answer it.

Paper format:

(Your paper does not necessarily need to be divided into 6 paragraphs specifically. For instance, you might want to include more than one paragraph to address the background section of your paper. However, the overall structure of your paper should follow this format)

· Make sure each section of your paper has the appropriate heading.

· Example: Introduction, Background, Methodology, Conclusion, Bibliography

Paragraph 1: Introduction

· State the course topic you are trying to address. Highlight this course concept in yellow.

· Why are you trying to address this topic?

· How does it relate to class content?

· Cite the class content which relates to your topic.

· At the end of your introduction, state the question you are trying to answer. Highlight the question you are trying to answer in blue.

Paragraph 2(ish): Background

· Write one (or more) paragraphs summarizing how your sources answer your question.

· Use in-text citations to show where you found the information you are summarizing.

· Example: “According to the book, ‘_____’, 1 in 4 girls report being sexually assaulted while at college.”

Paragraph 3-5 (ish): Methodology

· Critique the methods that your research sources use to answer the question.

· Paragraph 3 (ish):

· State your first source

· What type of source is it (Book, website, etc.)?

· Why did you decide to use this source?

· What are some strengths of this source? Highlight these strengths in Green.

· What are some weaknesses of this source? Highlight these weaknesses Red.

· Paragraph 4(ish):

· State your second source

· What type of source is it (Book, website, etc.)?

· Why did you decide to use this source?

· What are some strengths of this source? Highlight these strengths in Green.

· What are some weaknesses of this source? Highlight these weaknesses Red.

· Paragraph 5(ish):

· State your third source

· What type of source is it (Book, website, etc.)?

· Why did you decide to use this source?

· What are some strengths of this source? Highlight these strengths in Green.

· What are some weaknesses of this source? Highlight these weaknesses Red.

Things to consider when examining the strengths/weaknesses of your sources:

· Is your source reliable? How do you know?

· Did your source research your question itself or does it report what others have found?

· If it reports what others have found, does it appear to cite information from a reputable source?

· Does your source appear bias about the topic? Does your source have a reputation of eliciting any biases when reporting information in general?

· Example: Does your source tend to favor liberal or conservative perspectives?

· Do any of your sources contradict each other? If so, how?

· Is your source recent? If not, do you think that your source is weaker because it is older? Why or why not?

· If your source conducts its own research, can you think of any shortcomings in how they conducted their research?

· Example: Did they ask the right questions to the right people?

· Is the writer of your source credible? Do they appear to have the qualifications to answer your question accurately? Is your source peer-reviewed?

Paragraph 6 (ish): Conclusion

· Summarize the answer to your question in 1-2 sentences. Highlight this summary in pink.

· Reflect on whether your sources allow you to answer your research question.

· Do you think your sources provide diverse perspectives that allow you to make a conclusion about the accuracy of your answer?

· Do you think your sources are reliable enough to answer your question definitively?

Bibliography:

· Cite your THREE sources using either APA or MLA format. (Though you should have cited the course content that relates to your topic within the paper, you do not need to include it in your bibliography)

ASSESSMENT RUBRIC: COURSE CONCEPT REDESIGN

Learning Goal: Analytical Thinking

Dimension: Acquires, analyzes, and evaluates information from multiple sources

Essay 1

Concept topic: Globalization

How did Trump influence world economy?