HIS 1005 Quiz 1
Describe the dynamics of the "Long Depression" of the 1890s.
-All the industrialized "core" (first world) countries were trapped -Over investment in production and "picky" selling markets resulted in decline of profit. -Efforts to raise profits by cutting labor costs resulted in class conflicts, upheavals, and violence.
What kind does Balance of Power espouse?
-Balance of power attempts to align forces and implements war, if necessary, to prevent any one power from achieving total domination in all aspects
What is the goal and purpose of each?
-Balance of power's goal: to maintain an equal share of power among nation-states. -Hegemony goal: to create foundations that foster the internationalization of capital based on economic, political, and ideological ruling of one nation
Why has Capitalism become a system? And What is that system?
-Capitalism's tendency towards international fluidity eventually produced a configuration that could properly be described as a system, a combination of parts forming a complex, unitary whole.
What kind of system does hegemony espouse?
-Hegemonic power wants other nations to leave their national capitalism and economic controls and accept free trade, free capital flows, and free currency convertibility.
How is this connected to McCormick's theory of capitalism's re-current crises of over production?
-McCormick stated that overproduction involves high rates of production and low costs of it. However when capitalists tried to lower the cost of production by cutting wages, rebellion and resistance occurred -Rate of production increased, but, markets at this time were limited to nation-state, therefore no global expansion.
What is overproduction? Why does it happen? And How does it get resolved?
-Producing more supply than there is demand for it. Happens because companies want to keep production high to increase capital, while also keeping wages low. -Resolved when global expansion of new markets for goods occurs; when new economic frontiers are created
How would this crisis normally be resolved? Clue: think about what McCormick says are the basic features and tendencies of capitalism. Why did Britain fail to resolve the crisis and push toward a more economically integrated world?
-The crisis would normally have been resolved by a hegemony reinstating balance, though Britain had issues of its own. -Challenged by the power of a newly unified Germany, weakened by a half-century of playing the world's policeman, and debilitated by lowered productivity and declining commercial competitiveness, Britain no longer had the will or power to enforce its internationalist, hegemonic ways.
In his section on Hegemony what does McCormick say about the nation-state in relation to capitalism?
-The nation-state has both fostered and inhibited the capitalist world economy. -Nation-states have often provided crucial stimulation of economic growth and development through banking, taxation, credit, and internal improvement policies. -Nation-states have often interfered with the fluidity and mobility of capital, goods, and labor across national boundaries.
What are the contradictions of the nation state within capitalism? In other words, what contradictory role does the nation-state play under capitalism?
-The nation-state has both fostered and inhibited the capitalist world economy. -Nation-states have often provided crucial stimulation of economic growth and development through banking, taxation, credit, and internal improvement policies. -Nation-states have often interfered with the fluidity and mobility of capital, goods, and labor across national boundaries.
What is the relationship between Hegemony and Balance of Power?
-They contradict each other -Balance of power attempts to align forces and implements war, if necessary, to prevent any one power from achieving total domination in all aspects -Hegemonic power wants other nations to leave their national capitalism and economic controls and accept free trade, free capital flows, and free currency convertibility.
When has Hegemony triumphed and why?
-Twice in history -Great Britain between roughly 1815 and 1870 -United States roughly 1945 and 1970. -Time periods occurred before and after world wars; crucial to formation of hegemony- redistributed power and wealth.
What are Capitalism's inherent tendencies and under what circumstances does it best thrive?
-inherently expansionistic -international fluidity -Thrives best under long-distance trade by large capitalists with political connections and economic reserves. Goal: -to accumulate capital -enlarge market shares -maximize profits.
-the capitalist world-system -the external world (empires) -the mini systems of subsistence communities -The capitalist world-system expanded at the expense of the other two, made the world seem almost as one world rather than three.
According to McCormick's theory, what have societies looked like since the late 15th Century? How have they been organized?
According to McCormick, why does hegemony exist? (be specific. Note his discussion on the contradictions of the nation state under capitalism)
Hegemony historically has operated to soften the contradiction between international need of capitalism and the national biases of political nation-states.
What is hegemony? Upon what constants or sources of power is it erected?
Hegemony means that one nation has power of economic power, military might, and political-ideological leadership -Economic supremacy is the indispensable base of hegemony. -Hegemonic nation must have dominant financial center with high tech, high profit industry, and be worlds major importer and exporter. -Needs to have clear military superiority and ideological hegemony as well. -It must be able to exert its political will over the rest of the system and command deference to its principles and policies.
How does McCormick characterize the "World System" and its constants? What are the three constants and what are their functions?
Three Constants: -Geographical boundaries: defined by spacial limits of the world market -Free world: mostly democracy; north American Europe -Third world: south east visa, south America, Africa -Center/ pole (dominant city): controls flow -New York is financial center of the world -Zones: -Core: high tech, high profit, enterprises (US, UK, Israel, China) -Semi periphery: preforms intermediate functions of transport, local, capital , less complex, less profitable forms of manufacturing (brazil, south africa, India) -Periphery: agricultural and raw material (most of Africa, southeast Asia)