Anthony Jack Knowles
December 21, 2015
... Systems Theory until they take upper division level classes. This PowerPoint and lecture notes
sanctioned grouping of the world’s business and political leaders, but a conceptual grouping of these people as a class distinct from other classes. The point is to emphasize how the TCC is so involved in global affairs, that their overall focus may be more on the interests on the global economy, rather than the specific interests of their home country. In addition, Slide 36 asks students to question what it means to be a global citizen. Are members of the TCC the only true global citizens?
Works Cited
Foster, John Bellamy, Clark, Brett, and York, Rickard. 2010. The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Foster, John Bellamy and Holleman Hannah. 2014. “The Theory of Unequal Ecological Exchange: a Marx-Odum Dialectic.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 41: 199-233.
Frey, R. Scott 2012a. "Globalization, Environmental Justice, and Sustainability in the World-System: The Case of E-Waste in China." Pp. 169-188 in Toward a More Livable World: The Social Dimensions of Sustainability, edited by Jerry Williams and William Forbes. Nacogdoches, Texas: Stephen F. Austin Stare University Press.
Frey, R. Scott. 2012b. "The Displacement of Hazardous Products, Production Processes, and Wastes in the World-System." Pp. 440-442 in Routledge Handbook of World-Systems Analysis: Theory and Research, edited by Salvatore Babones and Christopher Chase-Dunn. New York: Routledge.
Frey R. Scott. 2013. "Breaking Ships in the World-System: An Analysis of Two Ship Breaking Capitals, Alang, India and Chittagong, Bangladesh" CSSJ Working Papers #13-01. http://trace.tennessee.ed/utk_cssjpapers/2/
Goldfrank, Walter. 2000. “Paradigm Regained? The Rules of Wallerstein’s World-System Method.” Journal of World-Systems Research 2 (Summer/Fall): 150-195.
Gould, Kenneth A., Pellow, David N., and Schnaiberg, Allen. 2008. The Treadmill of Production: Injustice and Unsustainability in the Global Economy. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.
Robinson, William I. 2011. “Global Capitalism Theory and the Emergence of Transnational Elites.” Critical Sociology 38: 349-363.
Robinson, William I. 2014. Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity. New York: Columbia University Press. Globalization and World Systems Theory Lecture Notes
Globalization: This is a process that increasingly brings countries together economically, politically, and culturally. One way to think about globalization is to imagine it as a “time-space compression.” This means that globalization processes and advanced technology decreases the amount of time it takes to make economic, political, or cultural exchanges, which as a result, makes the world more connected than ever before. Globalization processes are especially seen in areas such as economic production, faster transportation, increasing diversity and migration, and instant communication through the internet.
The World System: The World System is the capitalist socio-economic system that encompasses the globe. In this system, countries are divided categorically into Core, Semi Periphery and Periphery countries. World Systems theory analyzes the dynamics and processes occurring in either groups of countries, regional analysis, or at the entire World System as a whole.
Core: These are countries that we traditionally think of as “rich countries,” “industrialized countries” or “first world countries.” These countries are the most economically developed in the world and tend to have the highest standards of living. These countries benefit the most from the workings of the World System. Examples include the United States, Western Europe, Japan, and Australia.
Periphery: These are that are primarily thought of as “developing” or the “3rd world countries.” Often these countries are rich in resources and may have a history of colonialism. Their resources are often extracted and sent to the core, or products are produced cheaply within the country to be shipped to the core countries. They also typically contain Resource Extraction Frontiers and Waste Disposal Frontiers.
Semi-Periphery: These are countries that cannot be easily categorized into either the core or periphery status. This is because they typically have some characteristics typical of core countries and some characteristics typical of peripheral countries. For example, a semi-periphery country may have great resources frontiers that are being extracted and have mass poverty in some areas, but other parts of the country are rich urban areas with high standards of living. Examples include countries such as Russia, China, and Brazil.
Resource Extraction Frontier: This is an area where wealth in the form of raw materials, food, and energy resources flow from resource rich countries in the periphery to the industrialized countries of the core. These produce problems of resource depletion, pollution, and degradation of the environment. There can also be Resource Extraction Frontiers within the peripheral areas of a core country. An example of this would be mountain top removal practices in West Virginia.
Waste Disposal Frontier: Areas where “anti-wealth” in the form of waste, pollution, and hazardous material is exported to the periphery, semi periphery, or to a global commons such as the atmosphere or the oceans. Examples include: E-waste dumping in China and India, or the Plastic Vortex in the Pacific Ocean.
Treadmill of Production: The “growth machine” of the global capitalist economy in the world system. It is composed of “Big Business” which conducts the flow of the treadmill and decides what it produces, “Big Labor” who does the work that fuels the treadmill, and “Big Government” that regulates and keeps order in the society so that the treadmill keeps going.
Metabolic Rift: The World System, both economy and society, are embedded in nature. The relationship between humans and nature is metabolic, with flows of resources, energy, and waste moving between the two systems. However, the workings of the Treadmill of Production extract too many resources, and create too much waste. This imbalance of exchange between humans and nature is called the Metabolic Rift. It is a disruption in the exchange of the social system and natural systems which can lead to an ecological crisis.
Ecological Unequal Exchange: This is the metabolic rift of exchange between core, semi periphery, and periphery countries in the World System. There are unequal exchanges of resources, wealth, waste, and economic prosperity between the countries. The core countries tend to receive most of the benefits from the Treadmill of Production, while the peripheral countries suffer more of the negative impacts from resource extraction and waste disposal. Examples include shipbreaking in Bangladesh and e-waste in China.
Transnational Corporations: These are businesses and corporations that operate across multiple countries in the World System. They are very powerful economic actors in the World System. They control a vast amount of the world’s wealth and are becoming increasingly tied with one another through mergers and interlocking ownerships. Some examples include: Walmart, McDonalds, and Apple.
Transnational Capitalist Class: The “modern bourgeoisie,” the Transnational Capitalist Class are leaders in business and government who have vested interests and connections in multiple countries in the World System. It is comprised of: owners and controllers of Transnational Corporations and their affiliates; global bureaucrats and politicians such as the heads of the World Bank or IMF; globalizing professionals such as engineers, lawyers, and consultants who all work across multiple countries; and the consumerist elites such as celebrities and media elites. They have a global orientation rather than a local or national orientation. Examples include Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg. ..."
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Subject Area(s):
- Environmental Sociology
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Resource Type(s):
- PowerPoint
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Class Level(s):
- College 100
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Class Size(s):
- Any
- Abstract:
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Understanding the social world from a global perspective is becoming increasingly important for sociologists. World Systems Theory is a useful framework for explaining some of the macro level dynamics occurring around the globe. However, undergraduate sociology...