The Modern System

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The Modern System
AnthropologyThe Exploration of Human
Diversity 11th Edition Conrad Phillip Kottak
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The Modern System

• The Emergence of the World System
• Industrialization
• Stratification
• The World System Today

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The Emergence of the World System

• Modern world systemworld in which nations are
  economically and politically interdependent

• World system and the relations among the
  countries within that system shaped by world
  capitalist economy

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The Emergence of the World System

• Modern word system
• In 15th century Europe established regular
  contact with Asia, Africa, and eventually the New
  World

Opened way for major exchange of people,
resources, diseases, and ideas
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The Emergence of the World System

• Wallersteins World System Theory

• Capitalist World Economysingle world system
  committed to production for sale or exchange,
  with the object of maximizing profits rather than
  supplying domestic needs
• Capitalwealth or resources invested in business,
  with the intent of producing a profit

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The Emergence of the World System

• Wallersteins World System Theory
• Capitalist World Economy
• Core nationsstrongest and most powerful nations
  in which technologically advanced,
  capital-intensive products are produced and
  exported to the semiperiphery and the periphery

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The Emergence of the World System

• Wallersteins World System Theory
• Capitalist World Economy
• Semiperiphery nationsindustrialized Third World
  nations that lack power and economic dominance of
  core nations

• Periphery nationsnations whose economic
  activities are less mechanized and primarily
  concerned with exporting raw materials and
  agricultural goods to core and semiperiphery
  nations

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Industrialization

• Industrial Revolutionhistoric transformation (in
  Europe, after 1750) of traditional into
  modern societies through industrialization of
  the economy

European industrialization developed from
domestic system of manufacture
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Industrialization

• Causes of the Industrial Revolution

• Began in cotton production, iron, and potter
  trades
• Widely used goods whose manufacture could be
  broken down into simple routine notions that
  machines could perform

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Industrialization

• Causes of the Industrial Revolution
• Industrial Revolution began in England but not in
  France

• The French did not have to transform domestic
  manufacturing system to increase production
  because it could draw on larger labor force
• England already operating at maximum production
  so innovation was necessary to increase yields

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Industrialization

• Causes of the Industrial Revolution
• Weber argued pervasiveness of Protestant beliefs
  contributed to spread and success of
  industrialization in England, while Catholicism
  inhibited industrialization in France

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Industrialization

• Location of England (United Kingdom) and France
• Insert Figure 23.1

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Stratification

• Industrial Stratification

• Initially industrialization in England raised the
  overall standard of living

Factory owners soon began to recruit cheap labor
from among the poorest populations.
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Stratification

• Industrial Stratification
• Marx saw trend as expression of fundamental
  capitalist opposition bourgeoisie (capitalists)
  versus proletariat (propertyless workers)

• Bourgeoisie owned the means of production and
  promoted industrialization to maintain their
  position
• Intensified dispossession of the workers
• Process called proletarianization

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Stratification

• Industrial Stratification
• Weber argued Marxs model oversimplified

• Developed model with three main factors
  contributing to socioeconomic stratification
  wealth, power, and prestige

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Stratification

• Class consciousness (Marx) is recognition of
  commonalty of interest and identification with
  other members of ones economic stratum

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Stratification

• With modification, recognized that combination of
  Marxian and Weberian models can describe modern
  capitalist world

• The distinction, core-semiperiphery-periphery,
  used describe worldwide division of labor and
  capital ownership

Growing middle class and existence of peripheries
within core nations complicate issue beyond the
vision of Marx or Weber
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Stratification

• Asian Factory Women

• To combat rural poverty, the Malaysian government
  encouraged large international companies to set
  up labor-intensive manufacturing operations in
  rural Malaysia
• Factory life contrasts sharply with traditional
  customs of rural Malaysians

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Stratification

• Asian Factory Women
• Aihwa Ong studied effect of work in Japanese
  electronics factories on Malaysian women employees

• Severe contrasts between work conditions and
  culture of women generate alienation, which
  results in stress
• Stress manifested as possession by weretigers,
  spirit possessions,which expresses the workers
  resistance, but it has effected little change in
  overall situation

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Stratification

• Asian Factory Women
• Aihwa Ong
• Ong argues spirit possession is form of rebellion
  and resistance that enable factory women to avoid
  direct confrontation with source of distress

Spirit possessions actually may help maintain
current conditions by operating as safety valve
for stress
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Stratification

• Asian Factory Women
• Nike relied heavily on Asian labor in Vietnam,
  Indonesia, China, Thailand, and Pakistan for shoe
  labor

• Most factory workers women between 15 and 18
  years old
• Female workers had to wear uniforms
• Harsh physical conditions

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Stratification

• Asian Factory Women
• Nike
• Vietnamese workers adopted union tactics,
  including strikes, work stoppages, and slowdowns

Managed to improve working conditions and salaries
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Stratification

• Location of Malaysia and Vietnam
• Insert Figure 23.2

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Stratification

• Open and Closed Class Systems

• Formalized inequalities have taken many forms,
  such as caste, slavery, and class systems

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Stratification

• Open and Closed Class Systems
• Caste systemsclosed, hereditary systems of
  stratification often dictated by religion

• South African apartheid comparable to caste
  system in that it was ascriptive and closed
  through law

Slaveryhumans are treated as propertyis most
extreme form of legalized inequality
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Stratification

• Open and Closed Class Systems
• Vertical mobilityupward or downward change in a
  persons status

• Vertical mobility exists only in open class
  systems
• Open class systems more commonly found in modern
  states than in archaic states

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The World System Today

• World system theory argues present-day
  interconnectedness of the world generated global
  culture, wherein trends of complementarity and
  specialization manifested at international level

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The World System Today

• Product of European imperialism and colonialism

• Imperialismpolicy of extending rule of a nation
  or empire over foreign nations and of taking and
  holding foreign colonies
• Colonialismpolitical, social, economic, and
  cultural domination of territory and its people
  by foreign power for extended period of time

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The World System Today

• The spread of industrialization and
  overconsumption takes place from core to periphery

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The World System Today

• The World System in 2000
• Insert Figure 23.4

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The World System Today

• Industrial Degradation

• Industrial Revolution greatly accelerated
  encompassment of world by states, all but
  eliminating previous cultural adaptations

Expansion of world system often accompanied by
genocide, ethnocide, and ecocide