Psychology assignment.

GLOBALIZATION !

Question 7 from from Lectures and Today’s Globalization (related to question 8)

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Question 7 Discuss the interrelationships among the interests of the economic elites in the stages of the great depressions and the beginning of the Welfare State Reform (1929-1945) the period of Economic Expansion and Welfare State Reform (1945-1970’s), Globalization in the Electronic Age (1980’s- 2000) Global Corporation Rule and Neo-Liberalism and end of the Welfare State as “we know it.” (Breaking of the Social Contract)

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Economic Exclusion of Blacks ■ The struggle of the inclusion of blacks in the political process will show how economics

is always the basis for action ■ In US history, blacks were excluded because white Americans exploited slave labor for

profit and capital. They based their economy on the gains made by slavocracy. ■ Post WWII was a period of economic expansion therefore it set the stage for the

beginning of inclusion into American society – Era of “politics of inclusion” and “politics of reform”

■ Powerful social movements occurred due to the period of inclusion: civil rights, women’s antiwar, ethnic/racial, and gay rights, environmental rights, nationalism and liberalism

■ Capitalism began to bribe sections of the labor force (mainly white men and in northern unionized industry) with good-pay jobs and benefits

– Their loyalty was the key to capitalist control over the lower, un-bribed sections of labor

– To exploit black labor and southern white labor, black workers had to be integrated into the workplace

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Social Contract ■ In the Industrial-Financial stage of capitalism established its first limited and modest

programs (the New Deal) in response to the Great Depression ■ The Great Depression made distinctions between the economic elite and the working

class ■ In order to stop revolution, the economic elite created a “social contract” (the New

Deal) ■ The “contract” allowed for large corporations to begin defining the American economic

structure and cement the United States defining role in the world economy ■ The New Deal was a “social contract with the more privileged sections of the industrial

and middle class workers, mostly whites” who obtained grater benefits ■ War on poverty expanded the social contract of the New Deal welfare state to include

people of color and poor (the third leg)

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Global Expansion ■ Globalization- growing integration of national economies and outcome of increase

international trade ■ Countries and companied are heavily dependent on exports, imports, foreign

investment and immigration labor ■ Blacks and women of color had legal rights but they did not benefit from globalization ■ Bretton Woods Agreements

– Financial institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) that expand global wealth, impose harsh economic policies and maximize profits

■ Outsourcing became a way for global corporations to avoid having to share their wealth with a domestic middle class

■ Businesses can manufacture goods in one country and sell them in another cheaply ■ New communication technologies can make it easier for corporations headquartered in

one country to communicate with other satellite locations in other cities

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Electronic Age ■ Computers, robotics, and automation were introduced into the production and distribution of

goods and services ■ Politics of economic contraction for the poor and working class led to the politics of exclusion ■ Global corporations assume greater power than nation state ■ Global institutions (i.e. World Trade Organization) transcends national polices with new global

policies ■ Globalization has reduced the quality of jobs available to many Americans

– Altered the relationship between business and labor, weakening the ability of workers to negotiate a fair share of the national’s growing wealth

– Full time jobs are being transformed to part-time jobs ■ Proponents of technology argue that tech can be a benefit to all and others argue that it can

only be beneficial in a socialist setting

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Neo-Liberalism Policies ■ Created a race to the bottom ■ Policies are being used in the U.S to maximize profits ■ Neo-liberalism translates into the breaking of the social contract

– “Harsher policies that generate maximized profits for global corporations and the forced payment of interest on debt of developing nations.”

– Pensions, housing, healthcare, education research, etc. become privatized – Entitlement programs are eventually eliminated – Increased racial profiling, higher poverty rates, sweatshops, etc. – Welfare state will we replaced with a growing police state

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Possible Solutions ■ According to Robert Reich, former US Secretary under Clinton, free trade and global capital

are essentially good things if managed correctly (i.e. as in the socialist setting) – This requires interventionist polices implemented at the national level to ensure that

benefits associated with globalization are shared equitably ■ World Bank should forgive debt burdens ■ Developed nations should increase aid to developing nations and help countries that struggle

with crushing poverty

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