SOCA2400 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Linear Function, United States House Committee On Oversight And Government Reform, Capitalism
25 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
SOCA2400
Globalization, Social Justice, and Development
March 13, 2018
Myth 2: The globalization of Capitalism (Capitalist Globalization) is an endless,
unavoidable, linear, and universal process (of expanding free market), making the
world economy freer and more competitive.
To what extent has capitalism gone global? What are the qualities?
Has globalization of capitalism been an innate/unavoidable historical process?
*WATCH: The RSA: Crisis of Capitalism
Maher interview with Wolff
• 1/8 of American households live the American dream
• Capitalism had a commitment to develop the world and grow things
o Adam Smith, etc., Invisible hand
o Karl Marx said we can do better
• US wants to be celebrator of capitalism all the time, scared of Marxism
• Capitalism takes advantage on human greed
• Better off to follow the criticisms of capitalism
WEEK 3
Globalizing Myths about Capitalism?
Decoding the Myth
• Linear growth – no ups and downs, no contractions, no geographical shifts,
moving forward towards realization of pure form, fluctuations are only corrections
in the market
o Second reading – Mann
o History is too complex to be determined by us
o There are fluctuations
▪ When cap faces crisis anywhere, it does not correct itself
▪ Moves from one place to another place
▪ EXAMPLE: Andes
o So many miracles are attributed to capitalism then disappears
▪ Cap system/elite move capital away from trouble
▪ Exploit as much as they can, prosper
o Survives because it moves as a result of deregulation and globalization
▪ Deregulation of CAPITAL only
▪ Money is allowed to move wherever it wants?
o BUT… Labor is all about regulation
▪ Think everyone is stupid
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find more resources at oneclass.com
• Endless growth – capable of overcoming its crises, though not perfect but
flexible, no alternative future
o Margaret Thatcher
• Universal – no matter if you are Chinese or American, it first your human nature
(greedy selfish)
o Capitalisms talk about humans like philosophers/biologists
o No such thing as a selfish gene
o Isn’t there a gene for collaboration?
o One sided understanding of human nature
o Relying on unbiased reductionist understanding of human nature
• Unavoidable – capitalism has an innate tendency to go global, but does
globalization need to be necessarily capitalistic?
o Capitalism freed itself from nationalistic obligations
Relationship Between Capitalism and Globalization
• Both have their own histories but it’s very intertwined
• Are we living in a world with a fully integrated global economy?
• What are the forces driving globalization?
• Globalization of Capitalism – spread of capitalism around the world using
infrastructure of globalization (ex. new tech)
• Capitalist Globalization – globalization driven by capitalism
• Market Globalism – advocates for free market
o Globalism is an ideology, becoming global is something good
o Globalization is a process
• Neoliberal Globalization
• Corporate Globalization – influenced by corporations
• McMicheal: If competing in the world market requires policies reducing public
expenditures that may lower national standards of employment, health care and
education, then globalization is a political, not a natural, phenomenon
o Neoliberalism tells us to do this
• Why do neoliberals want us to spend less/not look after our population?
o When you spend less in the public sector, this becomes dysfunctional
o Paralyze public sector – it doesn’t work, government owned
o Solution? Privatize services. It becomes functional. Prices are higher.
o We pay the cost
o Agenda: Shrink public sector, transfer into the private sector.
Understanding the Nature of Capitalism
• Capitalism – system of wage-labor and commodity production for sale,
exchange, and profit, rather than for the immediate need of the producers
• What has impressed students of modernity is the huge and largely unregulated
dominance of capitalist enterprise (with its related monetary and market
networks) across political and cultural frontiers
• Preconditions
o Mass production
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
▪ In order to produce surplus value which can later be turned into
capital (supply)
▪ Requires some certain infrastructures
o Division of labor/expertise
▪ Among set of interdependent groups that are not self-sufficient in
realizing their needs
▪ To guarantee the necessary level of demand
o Extensive trade and commodity relations
▪ Where it is agreed by all involved that goods/services can be
transferred and owned through purchase
o Monetary and financial systems
▪ For facilitating exchanges
▪ Captures the surplus value and accumulates it in the form of
money, credits, stocks, or virtual accounts
o Private property system
▪ Individuals own land, commodities, capital, and other means of
production that can be inherited, bought, or sold
▪ Requires stabilized laws that secure the ownerships and
accumulation of capital
o Formal freedom of labor
▪ Individuals are not bound to any business owner
▪ They can sell labor to employers in a labor market
▪ Labor/skills is a commodity
▪ There is no fixed wage
• Means of Maximizing Profit
o Increase sales price
o Reduce production costs (labor, materials, services, ex.
transport/transactions)
o Reduce supply (OPEC with oil supplies)
o Reduce non-production costs (taxes, environmental protection)
o Get greater share of market (advertising, merging with competitors, allow
for accessing of new markets)
o Producing ideology that values products through dimensions (ex. fashion)
or other moral reasons to consume (ex. branding)
Historical Account
1. Colonization Period (1840s-WW2)
a. Cecil Rhodes
i. Find new lands to obtain raw materials and exploit cheap slave
labour available from natives of colonies
ii. Colonies provide dumping group for surplus goods produced in
factories
2. Immediate post-WW2 until 1970s oil/debt crisis
a. Decadent international individualistic capitalism
b. Not good – Keynes
c. Post War decolonization
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Myth 2: the globalization of capitalism (capitalist globalization) is an endless, unavoidable, linear, and universal process (of expanding free market), making the world economy freer and more competitive. Prices are higher: we pay the cost, agenda: shrink public sector, transfer into the private sector. Individuals own land, commodities, capital, and other means of production that can be inherited, bought, or sold: requires stabilized laws that secure the ownerships and accumulation of capital, formal freedom of labor. Individuals are not bound to any business owner: they can sell labor to employers in a labor market, labor/skills is a commodity, there is no fixed wage, means of maximizing profit. Capitalists would begin to consume the government along with the physical and social structures that sustained them. Democracy, social welfare, electoral participation, the common good and investment in public transportation, roads, bridges, utilities, industry, education, ecosystem protection and health care would be sacrificed to feed the mania for short- term profit.
