1. Ways of the World: A Brief Global History with Sources Third Edition
Robert W. Strayer
Ways of the World: A Brief Global History with Sources Third Edition
CHAPTER 23
Capitalism and Culture:
The Acceleration of Globalization
Since 1945
Copyright © 2016 by Bedford/St. Martin’s
Distributed by Bedford/St. Martin's/Macmillan Higher Education strictly for use with its products; Not for redistribution.

3. I. The Transformation of the World Economy
A. Reglobalization
1. Global economic transactions quickened dramatically after WWII
2. World trade skyrocketed
3. Money became highly mobile
4. Transnational corporations (TNCs)
5. Laborer Migrations
I. The Transformation of the World Economy
Reglobalization
Global economic transactions quickened dramatically after WWII.
Companies market goods across the world, World trade skyrocketed ($57 billion in 1947; over $18.3 trillion in 2012).
Money became highly mobile globally. Foreign direct investment (FDI), especially after Short-term investment in foreign currencies or stocks. International credit cards, allowing easy transfer of money to other countries (e.g., in 2012, MasterCard was accepted at 33 million businesses in 220 countries or territories).
Transnational corporations (TNCs): Central to the process are transnational corporations (TNCs), huge global businesses that operate in many countries simultaneously. Some TNCs have greater economic clout than many countries. By 2000, 51 of the world’s 100 largest economic units were TNCs, not countries.
Large numbers of workers, both laborers and professionals, have moved all over the world from poor countries to richer ones. Millions more people have sought refuge in the West from oppression or civil war at home. Others migrate from developing to industrialized countries, known as labor migrants. Over one million Chinese migrated to Africa since 2000, 20 million to the United States alone between 1971 and 2010.

6. I. The Transformation of the World Economy
B. Growth, Instability, and Inequality 1. Economic growth spurt 2. New World economy crises 3. Richer Global North vs. Developing Global South 4. Growing economic inequality within states 5. Anti-Globalization movement
I. The Transformation of the World Economy
B. Growth, Instability, and Inequality
Economic Growth Spurt: Economic globalization accompanied, and maybe helped generate, the greatest economic growth spurt in world history; immense creation of wealth. Life expectancies rose nearly everywhere, infant mortality declined, literacy rates increased, great decline in poverty.
New world economy crises: New world economy experienced a series of crises, most recently in Massive chasm has developed between rich industrialized countries and everyone else. Ratio between the income of the top and bottom 20 percent of world’s population was 3:1 in 1820; 86:1 in The great disparity has shaped almost everyone’s life chances.
Richer Global North vs. Developing Global South: Growing disparities has become a source of conflict between richer Global North and developing Global South. Tension over trade rules and terms of foreign aid, growing disparities between developing countries make collective action more difficult.
Growing economic inequality within individual states, both rich and poor. The United States lost millions of manufacturing jobs, forcing factory workers into lower-paying jobs, while others prospered in high-tech industries. Northern Mexico (with links to the United States) became much more prosperous than southern Mexico. In China, urban income by 2000 was three times that of rural income.
Growing popular movement against globalization emerged in the 1990s. Involves people from both rich and poor countries. They argue that free-trade, market-driven corporate globalization lowered labor standards, encouraged ecological destruction, ignored human rights and local cultures, and enhanced global inequality. They attracted global attention with a massive protest at World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle (1999). In 2001: alternative globalization activists created the World Social Forum to coordinate strategy and share experiences.

7. I. The Transformation of the World Economy
C. Globalization and an American Empire 1. Opposition to “American Empire” 2. United States in new global struggle 3. Growing international economic competition 4. Opposition to U.S. international policies 5. Controversy within the United States
I. The Transformation of the World Economy
C. Growth, Instability, and Inequality
Opposition to “American Empire:” For many, opposition to corporate free-trade globalization = opposition to growing U.S. power and influence in the world. Often seen as an “American Empire,” most Americans deny that America is an empire. Perhaps best described as an “informal empire” like those exercised by Europeans in China and the Middle East in the nineteenth century.
United States in new global struggle: The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war left the United States without any equivalent power in opposition. The United States was able to act unilaterally against Afghanistan and Iraq after being attacked by Islamic militants on September 11, Establishment of a lasting peace is more elusive. The United States is in a new global struggle, to contain or eliminate Islamic “terrorism.”
The United States has faced growing international economic competition since the 1980s. U.S. share of overall world production: about 50 percent in 1945; 20 percent in the 1980s. Sharp reversal of U.S. trade balance: U.S. imports now far exceed its exports.
Armed struggle against U.S. intervention in Vietnam, Cuba, Iraq, etc. During the cold war, some states turned toward the USSR to limit U.S. influence; France even withdrew from NATO in Intense dislike of American “cultural imperialism.” By 2000, widespread opposition to U.S. international policies. Russia opposed Western desires to bring former Soviet territory into NATO and thus pressured the Ukraine to stay allied with Russia and seized the Crimea in 2014.
The global exercise of American power has also caused controversy within the United States. The Vietnam War split the country worse than anything since the Civil War. The U.S. invasion of Iraq provoked similar protests and controversies.

11. II. The Globalization of Liberation: Focus on Feminism
A. Feminism in the West 1. Western Feminism revived (1960s) 2. “Women’s liberation” 3. Black women emphasized solidarity with black men
II. The Globalization of Liberation: Focus on Feminism
A. Feminism in the West
Organized Western feminism lost momentum in the 1920s after success with suffrage but revived in 1960s with a new agenda against historic understanding of women as “other” or deviant. Demanded right of women to control their own bodies. Agenda of equal rights in employment and education
“Women’s liberation”: broad attack on patriarchy as a system of domination. Consciousness raising: becoming aware of oppression. Open discussion of issues involving sexuality.
Black women emphasized solidarity with black men, not separation from them.

12. II. The Globalization of Liberation: Focus on Feminism
B. Feminism in the Global South 1. Communist and revolutionary movements 2. African feminists vs. Western feminists 3. Women’s movements in Kenya, Morocco, and Chile
II. The Globalization of Liberation: Focus on Feminism
B. Feminism in the Global South
Women had been welcomed in communist and revolutionary movements but were sidelined after movements’ success.
Many African feminists (1970s) thought Western feminists were too individualistic and too focused on sex. They resented Western feminists’ interest in cultural matters like female circumcision and polygamy. Many African governments and many African men identified feminism with colonialism.
Women’s Movements in Kenya, Morocco, and Chile: Not all women’s movements dealt explicitly with gender. Kenya: women’s group movement supported individual women and communities. Morocco: feminist movement targeted laws defining women as minors; women finally obtained legal equality in Chile: women’s movement during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973–1990) crossed class and party lines, helped groups survive economically, exposed human rights abuses.

13. II. The Globalization of Liberation: Focus on Feminism
C. International Feminism 1. The “woman question” 2. Who has the right to speak on behalf of women? 3. Global backlash to feminism
II. The Globalization of Liberation: Focus on Feminism
C. International Feminism
The “woman question”: The “woman question” became a global issue in the twentieth century. Patriarchy lost some of its legitimacy, UN declared 1975 as International Women’s Year, and declared 1975–1985 as the Decade for Women. UN sponsored a series of World Conferences on Women. By 2006, 183 nations had ratified the UN Convention to Eliminate Discrimination against Women.
Who has the right to speak on behalf of women?: Sharp divisions within global feminism: Who has the right to speak on behalf of women? Conflict between developed and developing nations’ interests. Third world groups often disagreed.
Global backlash to feminism: Some argued agenda undermined family life and relations between men and women. It fueled religious revivalism in Muslim world. Some took exception to emphasis on reproductive rights.

15. III. Religion and Global Modernity
A. Fundamentalism on a Global Scale 1. Major reaction against modernization and globalization 2. Modern world threatens established religions 3. U.S. religious conservatives call for a return to the “fundamentals” of Christianity. 4. Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism: Bharatiya Janata Party
III. Religion and Global Modernity
A. Fundamentalism on a Global Scale
“Fundamentalism” is a major reaction against modernization and globalization. A militant piety, defensive and exclusive. It has developed in every major religious tradition.
Many features of the modern world appear threatening to established religion, such as those that have upset customary class, family, and gender relationships. Nation-states (often associated with a particular religion) were undermined by the global economy and foreign culture. Disruption was often caused by foreigners from the West. Fundamentalists have responded with selective rejection of modernity. They actively use modern communication technology.
The term “fundamentalism” comes from U.S. religious conservatives in the early twentieth century; called for a return to the fundamentals of Christianity. Many saw the United States on the edge of a moral abyss; in the 1970s, they began to enter the political arena as the religious right.
Another fundamentalism, called Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism, developed in India in the 1980s but had roots in the 1920s. They formed a political party (Bharatiya Janata Party), which opposed state efforts to cater to Muslims, Sikhs, and the lower castes. BJP promoted a distinct Hindu identity in education, culture, and religion. BJP had electoral success in 2014.

16. III. Religion and Global Modernity
B. Creating Islamic Societies: Resistance and Renewal in the World of Islam 1. Islamic Fundamentalism 2. Foreign intrusion in Egypt, Iran, Algeria 3. “Jihad”: effort to return to true Islam 4. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood
III. Religion and Global Modernity
B. Creating Islamic Societies: Resistance and Renewal in the World of Islam
Islamic fundamentalism is the most prominent fundamentalism of the late twentieth century. Earlier renewal movements focused on internal problems of Muslim societies. In the twentieth century they respond to external pressures as well.
Great disappointments in the Muslim world by the 1970s. New states (e.g., Egypt, Iran, Algeria) pursued basically Western and secular policies. New policies were largely unsuccessful, foreign intrusion continued.
Growing attraction of an Islamic alternative to Western models. Young Turks movement of 19th century, foundations laid early in the century (e.g., Mawlana Mawdudi, Sayyid Qutb), effort to return to true Islam was labeled “jihad.”
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood founded in 1928, the earliest mass movement to resist Western influence. Gained large following, still a major presence in Egypt.

17. III. Religion and Global Modernity
B. Creating Islamic Societies: Resistance and Renewal in the World of Islam 5. Islamization of public life 6. Overthrow of compromised regimes 7. Attacks on hostile foreign powers 8. Violent struggle in the Islamic world: Salafism vs. Sufism
III. Religion and Global Modernity
5. Penetration of fundamentalist thought in the Islamic world by the 1970s. Movements for the Islamization of pubic life, increase in religious observance, many women voluntarily adopted modest dress and veils, many governments used Islamic rhetoric and practice as anchor. Series of Islamic organizations were formed to provide social services. Islamic activists became leaders in unions and professional organizations, entry into politics.
6. Some groups sought overthrow of compromised regimes. Islamic movements took power in Iran (1979), Afghanistan (1996), some parts of Northern Nigeria (2000); implemented radical Islamization. In Pakistan and the Sudan military governments introduced elements of sharia law. The Egyptian Islamic Jihad assassinated Anwar Sadat in Egyptian Islamic Brotherhood came to power through elections in 2012 but overthrown by the military in 2013.
7. Attacks on hostile foreign powers. Hamas (Palestine) and Hezbollah (Lebanon) targeted Israel, response to Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979), in 1998, al-Qaeda issued a fatwa (religious edict) declaring war against America. Attacks on Western interests in East Africa, Indonesia, Great Britain, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen. The “great enemy” was irreligious Western-style modernity, U.S. imperialism, and economic globalization.
8. Violent struggle also in the Islamic world. Fundamentalists interpreted the Quran in highly literal and dogmatic ways. They were legalistic in regulation of daily life, opposed to “innovation” in religious practice, defined those who disagreed with them as “non-Muslims,” drawn to violent jihad as a legitimate part of Islamic life, deeply skeptical of Sufism, known as Salafism, this form of fundamentalist Islam spread with financial backing of Saudi Arabia.

22. III. Religion and Global Modernity
C. Religious Alternatives to Fundamentalism 1. Militancy not the only religious response to modernity 2. Considerable debate within the Islamic world 3. Other religious traditions respond to global modernity
III. Religion and Global Modernity
C. Religious Alternatives to Fundamentalism
Militancy isn’t the only religious response to modernity
Considerable debate within the Islamic world. Many have acted peacefully within established political structures; some Muslim intellectuals have called for dialogue between civilizations. Others have argued that traditions can change in the face of modern realities. In Turkey Fethullah Gulen inspired a reformist movement. The “Amman Message” call for Islamic unity was issued in 2004–2005.
Other religious traditions responded to global modernity; e.g., Christian groups were concerned with the ethical issues of economic globalization. Liberation theology (especially in Latin America) advocated Christian action in areas of social justice, poverty, human rights. There was a growing movement of “socially engaged Buddhism” in Asia; Buddhist monk in Cambodia promoted peace marches.

23. IV. Experiencing the Anthropocene Era: Environment and Environmentalism
A. The Global Environment Transformed 1. Human impact magnified: population, fossil fuels, and economic growth. 2. Environmental disruptions 3. Climatic change interacts with social conditions: the Syrian civil war
IV. Experiencing the Anthropocene Era: Environment and Environmentalism
A. The Global Environment Transformed
Three factors have magnified the human impact on the earth: World population quadrupled in the twentieth century (but has slowed in the 21st century), massive use of fossil fuels (coal for electricity and oil for automobiles), and enormous economic growth. Uneven spread of all three over the world, but economic growth came to appear possible and desirable almost everywhere.
Human environmental disruptions are now of global proportions: doubling of cropland and corresponding contraction of forests, grasslands, and wetlands, numerous extinctions of plant and animal species, air pollution in many major cities and rivers, chlorofluorocarbons thinned the ozone layer, and the Great Pacific Garbage patch.
By 2000, scientific consensus on the occurrence of global warming as the result of burning of fossil fuels and loss of trees. Climatic change has interacted with social conditions, contributing to major upheavals such as the Syrian civil war (2011– ).

24. IV. Experiencing the Anthropocene Era: Environment and Environmentalism
B. Green and Global 1. Nineteenth century: Gandhi, John Muir 2. Global phenomenon in second half of the twentieth century 3. Global concern by end of twentieth century 4. Sharp conflicts between the Global North and South 5. Global environmentalism: the plight of all humankind
IV. Experiencing the Anthropocene Era: Environment and Environmentalism
B. Green and Global
Environmentalism began in the nineteenth century as a response to the Industrial Revolution. It did not draw a mass following, and was considered Romanticism. Gandhi and John Muir.
Environmentalism only became a global phenomenon in the second half of the twentieth century. It began in the West with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth (1972). Impetus for action came from the grass roots and citizen protest. Deep Ecology wants to stop putting man at the center, “environmental justice” calls attention to unequal environmental impact on the poor; in Germany, environmentalists entered politics as the Green Party; rise in environmental consciousness in Communist countries.
Environmentalism became a matter of global concern by end of twentieth century. Legislation to control pollution in many countries, encouragement for businesses to become “green,” research on alternative energy sources, conferences on global warming, international agreements on a number of issues, millions of people adopting greener lifestyles.
Sharp conflicts between the Global North and South. Northern efforts to control pollution and global warming could limit the South’s industrial development, developing countries perceive the developed ones as unwilling to give up their extravagance and really help matters.
Nonetheless, global environmentalism has come to symbolize focus on the plight of all humankind. It’s a challenge to modernity itself, especially commitment to endless growth, growing importance of ideas of sustainability and restraint.