One World, Ready or Not

1
One World, Ready or Not The Manic Logic of
Global Capitalism
Chapter 2 The New Against the Old
William Greider
2
Key Issues

• Global Revolution
• -Technology
• -Geography
• -Politics
• Ideology of Capitalism

3
Technology-Industry Revolution

• Economic Revolution always originates with the
  invention of a new power source p27
• Automation
• A machine that can do the work previously done
  by human toil but cheaper, faster and more
  effectively. p27

4
Technology-Industry Revolution Continued

• Mass Assembly
• Mass assembly imposed dehumanizing clockwork
  routines, treating workers like moving parts in a
  larger machinethe unskilled and ill educated
  could enter took to work at jobs in which they
  focused on narrow, regularized functions in a
  complex process they themselves did not have to
  understand or manage. p28
• new technology is more individualistic and
  antiegalitarian it restores a premium for the
  higher technical skills held by the best-educated
  people, it demands more sophistication and
  flexibility, even from many routine jobs. p28

5
Technology-Industry Revolution Continued

• Ex. The silicon chip
• it literally liberated computers from their
  bulky limitations of size and cost and allowed
  them to become ubiquitous in modern life. p27
• New technology encourages the Migration of
  capital p27

6
Geography-Industry Migration

• Greenfield
• - Production moves to new locations,
  undeveloped territories where it will be easier
  (and cheaper) for enterprises to build the new
  production systems, free of old restraints, like
  established laws and social commitments,
  including taxes and wages. p27
• Pattern
• - Borrowed technology and investments in
  Greenfield. p28

7
Migration Examples

• Steel industry
• - England?United States?Japan?Korea p29
• Center of commerce
• - Venice?Genoa?Amsterdam?London?New York p30

8
Where to ?

• Multinationals Survey
• - China, India, and Brazil p32
• Numbers behind the heady prospects
• - Double-digit percentage growth, but starts
  from a very weak base.
• E.g. China Vs. U.S.
• Per capita income 490 Vs. 24,750
• GNP 580 billion ? New York States
  (1993) p32
• Interferences from politics

9
Politics-Political Deregulation

• Escape from the Past p28
• Offshore tax havens
• Deregulation of social controls
• Decontrol of capital movement
• Harmonization of Laws p34
• Bayer biotech research in U.S.
• European ban on growth hormones in cattle
• Persuading the Developing Countries to Adopt New
  Rules
• Protection of property rights p34
• Trade liberalization p35

10
Politics-Political Deregulation continued

• The End of Empire
• - As the impact of new technology, capital
  migration and political deregulation approached
  full acceleration, the collapse of Soviet
  communism occurred, perhaps hasted by those
  forces, and acted like a supercharger in the
  engine. p35

11
Supercharging the Revolution

• Revolutionary Forces Accelerated
• Collapse of Soviet Union has expanded
  capitalisms field of play p35
• Western Europe reduced costs by moving plants
  eastward
• Competition in Future Production
• Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and others
  possess skilled and educated workers p35
• Beyond the transition period former Soviet bloc
  nations will emerge
• Russian aircrafts against Boeing and Airbus p36
• Aluminum and steel production

12
Unforgiving Aspects of New Economy

• Little Fish vs. Big Fish
• - The emergence of new economic rivals
  resembles a kind of inverted food chain in which
  the little fish try to eat the big fish and
  sometimes succeed. p31
• The New Become the Enemy of The Old
• - the upstart offspring devour their
  parents. p31

13
Ideology of Capitalism

• Capitalism Vs Democracy
• - capitalism that fosters economic prosperity
  by requiring citizens to forgo such decadent
  Western luxuries as free speech, free press, free
  assembly and other liberties. p36
• -Post-Cold War
• - concern for human rights has been pushed
  aside by commercial opportunity. p37
• -Singapore, Chile, Iran
• -Fascism- Germany, Japan

14
Question

• Will the global system restart history along the
  same path that has been created by previous
  revolutions?

15
Notes

1. The Chip
2. Afterthoughts on Capitalism
3. World Bank Atlas
4. Statistical Abstract of the US
5. World Economic Survey
6. International Monetary Fund
7. International Herald Tribune
8. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy