ESPM 50 ac Final Exam

incorporation

acculturation vs. assimilation -chinese immigration early on was a forced separation but still integration into the labor force

chain migration

appropriated by the right to suggest that there is a phenomenon in which 1 person gets into the US and then brings all their family -used by the right to demonize immigrants and the right -phenomnenon in which initial immigrants come and establish a foot hold, they get jobs, establish a settlement enclave, maybe they acquire land and all of this means that there are now opportunities and safety in that receiving country for other immigrants from their region (the foothold serves to pull ppl in)

unit 3 topics

capitalism in CA and the American west, asian immigration, incorporation, roles and experiences in natural resource industries (mining, rail roads, agriculture) in California

unit 3 identity

class, race, ethnicity, citizenship etc -Immigration -social construction -Incorporation -sociocultural resources (what are ppl bringing in terms of financial resources, networks, the human capital they bring in terms of level of education etc -white supremacy and radicalized experiences

receiving country

country to which they travel

profit

difference between k expenditure on prod and the market price

unit 3 power relations and ideology

domination/marginality/ resistance

pushe

economy, politics, religion, policy, population, war, disaster, environmental change etc -a person wants to or needs to leave -the limitations of a geographical location in terms of the availability of land and resources relative to population and what is available elsewhere

history of resource extraction in CA: mining

gold, silver, copper, petroleum = starting point of value into system

production

how do u grow the volume of production -the state may play a role thru the use of tax for infrastructure

pearl river delta geography

isolation, concentrated and limited arable land, - areas in the pearl river delta are very fertile and then other areas are not

the vision for the market place is that

it is a market for white ppl

labor power

labor exchanged for wages in the market place

capitalism as a social process fits within liberalism

liberalism = the notion that one should have freedom of consciousness, freedom in the markets and freedom in politics ) -underpins the notion that one can fulfill human nature (a desire to consume, a desire for status, a desire for wealth) -liberal ideas emerged while the market was expanding in the 1600s/1700s -rational for seizing and commodifying and other natural resources (land theft is essential to capitalism, we can take these things bc we have a superior right to them as we have a superior notion of ourselves as thinkers, often tied to racial identity)

commodities (capitalism in the 19th century west)

livestock, timber, minerals agricultural products

rural migration

moving from rural areas to cities

immigration

moving in across a national frontier

emmigration

moving out across a national frontier

culture ideas and government

part of the broad interaction of nature society and culture -as we say TEK is the basis of myth that serves to offer values that allow for certain social production based on the reproduction of ecosystems with capitalism the goal of capital accumulation defines rationality in a capitalist system -what is rational= seeking to accumulate wealth -economic rationality is what governs decision making (more than simply economic rationality that goes into your decision making but that is afforded by the luxury of extra money -decisions as a firm or individual are constrained by the market place but you need to make decision based on economic principles (if u are firm seeking to compete against another firm you are limited in your options -decisions are based on an universally accepted abstract concepts (ex: increasing productivity); not based on the availability of resources (you might get. a price signal that would indicate that but besides that price signal that wouldn't affect ur decision making)

surplus value

profits realized over costs of production and exchange

unit 3 policy

property rights/ civil rights/ immigration and naturalization

means

technology, transportation, financing, policy etc -human capital= what sort of skills do u have that can allow u to get from one place to another

productivity

the basic notion that specialization and the division of tasks and labor allows for greater productivity -an individual clock maker who can produce a wonderful clock a day -or have a 100 ppl on an assembly line= 1000 clocks a day -have a much higher productivity with specialization of tasks -this can also be built upon by technology, management efficiency and keeping the labor cost down the productivity increases. If ur able to lower the costs of production in relation to profit this also increases productivity (key to the accumulation of capital over time)

social relations of production

the economic system and social relations required to support capitalist production -can be understood in assembling the division of labor in production -web of relationships move out from the core of capitalist activity to encompass the experience and roles of every individual and social actor in society -everyone is in a sense engaged in the social relations required for capitalist production -looked at worster's framework and we want to think about what drives what -does at any point the limits of nature or tech constraints does that drive social relations and ideas -does ideas about race, class etc shape society -It is all shaping society dialectically

distributional justice

the frame work we talked about it in today -workers produced incredible infrastructure and support the entire ettiface but they don't see any profits -question of surplus value or profit -their labor created something, should it have created parties for the wealthy and military that will fight them in the street -can use the concept of surplus value relative to profits to examine claims that workers might have to the fruits of their labor

labor (capitalism in the 19th century west )

the labor process involves the capitalist ownership of the means of production and the application of labor -need a free labor force, u don't need labor that is able to work for itself u don't need ppl who have enough land on their own and can move in and out of the labor force at their own free will -free of the ability to provide for themselves without wage labor= free wage labor -not working for free but the capitalist requires disciplined free labor -Immigration has always been the source of free labor -Incentive to incorporate Irish immigrants (also Italian, portages, ppl from south and east asia, Latin America, Mexico) -come into a labor system in which the more ppl arrive the more disempowered they are and less able to act as a single coherent interest -allows the capitalist to drive down wages and the abilities of ppl to interact in politics

value (of labor power)

the socially necessary abstract labor embodied in a. community -externalities

migration

typically about moving within a country

use value

utility of a thing, independent of labor

exchange value

value of a given commodity relative to that of other commodities in market exchange (mediated by the "price" mechanism)

settlement

when ppl migrate somewhere and stay there

sojourn

when some ppl immigrate somewhere but eventually return to their home country

Walker's argument

"with due regards to the gifts of nature, the secret of California's success is to be found in its social relations of production, especially open property rights and a syncretic class system, rapid capital accumulation and a redoubtable state based firmly on the capitalist society that crafted it"" (abstract) -not just the gifts of nature but the social relations of production which ultimately in a sense eclipsed the resources themselves and became the basis of a very successful economy due to the particular property rights regime associated to a syncretic class system (diverse and open) rapid accumulation of capital within the stat as opposed to capital to being generated here and taken out (redoubtable state/ prospector state very much oriented for facilitating the accumulation of capital) -CA as a place, apart from the east coast, the centers of capital accumulation in the 19th century (a region of capital formation, a resource capitalism aka prospector capitalism) -model that explains the existence of resources and economic development are reciprocal and dialectical inCA (the resources stay in the state bc there is industrialization there that uses the resources that leads to prosperity that leads to a reproduction of that economic system -resoucre bananas = think of mining at the start of this (ex: gold, copper, petroleum in social in the 20th century) timber, fish, boom in wheat production, areas in the 1860s and 1870s in places you would have never expected, water based industries, the development of water irrigation systems, hydroelectric systems -the ability of CA entrepreneurs and capitalists to retain those gains in the state is rly important, CA doesn't have more/ better resources than a lot of other places

importance of petit bourgeoisie

(small-scale producers): varied and politically powerful class CA -fee simple property rights and open access to the public domain -prospecting and small holding: mines, oil, forestry, farming, small real-estate, fishing etc -californians as "consumate modernist-men who measured everything and everyone in terms of money, seized the state and created their own government and swept aside all whose traditions stood in the way (179) ".

resource industrialization: manufacturing nature

* industrialization= spur to large scale natural resource extraction (in US after Cold War) **resource industrialization= complimentary rural extraction and urban (rural ) industry (urban industry that is tied to real extraction, regional complex)

financing for chinese immigration

-$50 passage -loans: clan-based rotating credit associations, short term loans -> work for a bit, send money back, loan goes to next person -cyclic -credit ticket system: form of debt bondage to chinese labor brokers -labor recruitment netowrks

pearl river delta population growth/ density

-16 MM in 1787 > 28 MM in 1850 (^76%) -1850: 2000+ ppl/ square mile -1850-1873: 60 MM decline in population of china-migration/starvation

chinese immigration into CA

-1849-1870: 100,000 -1870-1877: 100,000 -1877-1882: 75,000

Ronald Dukake

-UC Berkeley ethnic studies professor -leader in the 1980s to bringing asian immigration etc issues to the center

"prospector capitalism": push for discovery and extraction

-a system of production and exchange centered on a push for discovery and extraction of resources -associated with an ideology of unrestrained use of resources and can do ethos -partiuclarly by smaller scale producers but it does articulate with large scale actors

primitive accumulation

-accumulation of wealth establishing the preconditions for Kism -land and removal: based on expropriation of private property in land removal of indians and Mexicans (indians and Mexicans were the subject of expropriation of their rights thru the imposition of a system of private property, those unable to assert property rights were unable to retain land and resources bc others were able to assert property rights more effectively ) -policy: state policy of land disposal (survey) -made it easy -racist/ colonial ideology: white supremacy and manifest destiny -property: established regime of fee-simple property (unencumbered, u have to pay taxes on it but besides that u can more or less do what u want with it ) tied to free labor and competitive markets -coded as white system with subordinated internal others -all of these things are coded with white supremisist ideology and so it is not an even playing field -access to property rights and the disposal of federal land opens up all sorts of opportunity, leads to resources prospecting -class: importance of petit bourgeois (entrepreneurs )

pearl river delta push factors

-british imperial policy -markets for opiates and textiles along with floods, war and famine -massive social instability in Guangdong in the 19th century driven by British colonial activity as they sought to create, capture and dominant markets for textiles and opium -all of that would be coming thru the port of Guangdong, bc there was laws that extremely limited the ports for trading and Guangdong was one fo the few here u could trade

chinese labor recruitment

-chinese desired as cheap, docile labor, recruitment networks -chinese exploitable-not going to go on strike -> yes and no -chinese were social constructed/ understood by whites as cheap labor willing to more or less work on anything for anything -these stereotypes are challenged when ppl get here but these are the ideas that serve to motivate whites to seek chinese labor

pearl river delta social institutions and land tenure

-clan, village-based social organization, loyalty, obligation -clan and kinship groups are overlapping terms -family cultural practices as a core value-loyalty and motivation towards family -strong sense of obligation and family at the center of daily life -even if you are migrating you still have this senses of soujourning back to your home village, sending resources back to ur family,ur clan

technology for chinese immigration

-clipper ships: 2-3 months ' -steamships: 3 weeks

sending country

-country of origin

chain migration

-economic and social networks -agents recruiting for ppl to come, get to the US with set up job- work for 6 months to pay for the price of journey then free to do whatever -communties, networks and opportunity in the US -through kinship and village relationships -oull factor and means

pull

-economic opportunity, political and religious freedom etc -geographically accessible

key outlets for investment

-extraction: increase in new locations, technologies etc -commerce: improved commercial and transportation infrastructure -diverse industry: wide range in manufacturing and commerce -credit: securities, savings, banks, bonds

land distribution

-feds generally ceded control to the state -removal of indigenous ppls -drastic (the imposition of bounties on the lives of some native ppl) -legalize radically populist mining claims system (that were not rly recognized within the typical framework of American property law) -taxes: mining = no taxes for whites, tax for foreigners (a disincentive to their entrepreneurial ambitions) -taxes were generally low but it favored whites -federal and state land distribution (central pacific, large scale wheat timber and cattle lands, water rights: prior appropriation and prior appropriation, much of CA is a very dry stat and if you want to develop agricultural schemes and mine gold u need water, series of acts)

property regime

-focus on discovery - "can do" ideology -property regime= key to structures of access, motivation, reward -Institutionalizes form of motivation and reward -ppl are motivated by property rights bc they assure that u will actually get the rewards of ur risks if u have property rights in the things u are exploiting -Important for initial stages of capital and primitive accumulation of capital

social division of labor

-fundamental distinction of a class based division of labor -capitialst class, middle class, working class (middle class/managerial professional class expanded after world war 2) -division of labor between classes, between industries and firm (some industries focus on the production of power and electrocute and use that electricity to manufacture+ consumers use that directly) -competition between firms to increase productivity gain market share -divisions in terms of occupations of workers (ex managerial class) -can look within a factory there are those that have "higher levels of skill" involved in machine work and others just on the assembly line -In the field some ppl organize labor and teams, others just harvest -can get down it very specific divisions of tasks -Incredible level of specialization and differentiation that relates to a broader set of the ways that society is organized to support production -those involved in dif occupations fit within that broader relations of social production frame and have a lot of limits on their options within that social production frame -lots of their opportunities will be decided by where they fit in that social production frame

capitalism in the 19th century west

-global periphery of the capitalist system that was becoming much more sophisticated -Investment frontier= Angus cowboys with 100,000s of cattle rambling around the west (cowboys are the labor engaged in the first wave extractive activity of grass, having the cattle eat the grass and then be slaughtered and then providing the markets of the east with meat ) -notion that the west is on the frontier (rounds of capitalization investment in the extraction of forest resources, agriculture, mining, railroad production etc -some individuals involved but a lot of these things involve just the type of system of production we discussed earlier , accumulation of capital, highering labor in the production of things, reinvestment of profits ) -west seen as high risk but also high reward

chinese pull factors

-gold mountain: labor shortage, highest wage level in the world, lots of opportunities for whites coming from the east coast but there was also a need for labor in agriculture, restaurants, laundering etc -wages 5 to 6 times higher in CA than in china -gold mountain= California -even if you can't get gold- got be an entrepreneur -you were going to get a job at a place with the highest wages in the world at the time, there was also a real need for labor -active recruitment for labor railroad, agriculture, mining -chain migration process

social contract is about how the state plays a role in mediating the distribution of rights, opportunities, access to decision making arenas

-how does the state serve to expand or contract the social contract

marxist critique: value of labor power

-how much labor socially necessary to produce a thing corresponds more or less to the cost of labor -Instead of profits u can think of these as surplus value: the value generated over the costs of production and exchange -why does the surplus value return to the capitalist and not to the worker (not exclusively and argument for a complete dismissal of capitalism but something to consider as a valid question when u have millions of ppl in this country working for minimum wage for Jeff Bezos with more money than all them put together. Is that rly the way to do it, maybe some of that surplus value should go back to the ppl who created it). Also all the means of production are not just derived from profit, investment and entrepreneurship but they represent a means of production in accumulated surplus value derived from labor. Should that all be subsumed in the form of profit? The directing motive, the end and aim of capitalist production is to extract the greatest possible amount of surplus value and consequently exploit labor-power to the greatest possible extent -Karl Marx das capital -there are substantive critics that rly questions what happens to the power that comes from profit (can think about this with corporate taxes working to redistribute wealth to workers)

capitalism as a social process

-how the economy relates to cultural forms in a society -Worster's framework for understanding environmental history looking at how society culture and nature interact with one another( very broad and almost nebulous, flexible and has a great ability to contain everything we look at, involves dialectical relationships back and forth, central to society is the economy, Andy term to think about the degree to which the economy does or doesn't shape social relations, the legal and political structures etc

cultural values

-ideology of unrestrained use of resources= important -but argument is about relations of production and exchange

capitalism, class and race

-in terms of how different racial groups fit into the class system, the labor process, the capitalist social division of labor and relations of production and in a practical sense in terms of access to natural resources, jobs the struggles over working condition wages -what happens to the surplus value in a system that is grounded in the exploitation of resources

government promotion and subsidy

-infrastructure = key -RR highways, water, military base installations -both the state itself and the state working in tandem with the federal gov -R&D: universities and agencies -tax policies: low taxes on agriculture etc -cooperative marketing= supported by govt

big capital and small property

-investment in an urban real-estate amplifies the wealth using wealth of nature as a lever for raising the value of and and the dynamic economy and social organization of the cities of California, extraction driving commerce, the development of transportation and the diversification of industry and associated financialiazation thru banking, bonds, and a lively credit market that underscores investment -resource industrialization (industrialization serves as a means of grouting wealth thru industry, the development of manufacture process that add value to the natural resources that can then be sold in the state and elsewhere (industrialization spurs further resource extraction, you really start to get the development of technologies)

the mode of production has a sort of primacy over the culture

-it is not the consciousness of men that determines their social existence but the social existence of men that determines their consciousness -according to Marx -there is a certain primacy of the social order the fundamental part of that being the economy that shapes culture but culture can also shape the social order (dialectical)

capital accumulation and growth: production and profits

-labor, value and profit -costs of production and exchange: materials, machinery, land, taxes, salary etc (private assessments and liabilities of capitalists as the owner of means of production) -costs of labor: wages necessary for reproduction of labor (wages to the worker) -profit appropriated by the capitalist -exchange value, mediated by price (surplus value: difference between socially necessary abstract in production and exchange value; value(of labor power): labor socially necessary to produce a thing; costs of production and exchange: materials, machinery, land, taxes, salary etc (means of production in accumulated surplus value derived from labor)

capitalist production and exchange

-less market regulation and social safety net than there is now -capitalist production and exchange in a general sense= a system in which a capitalist class controls the means of production and purchases wage labor to produce things seeking to realize a profit thru exchange in a market place with a goal of accumulating capital thru a cycle of reinvestment in the market and growing the capital stocks -class based division of labor -means of production and labor -market exchange -profit and reinvestment -capital accumulation and growth

pearl river delta imperial trade policy

-limited exports to the key cities -kwantgou was one of those cities so it was important for trade -want to reduce tariffs etc

capital accumulation and growth: private capital investment

-materials (land, natural resources etc) get these thru acquisition of debt in credit markets thru the role of the state and the state has acquired these materials thru violence -technology (the state is involved as well, ur tax dollars go to support the effective and efficient use of tech, generating funds from credit markets, acquiring the natural resources, building the infrastructure that allows for the transportation of commodities and resources and the creation of educated consumers. State is important for incentivizing technology that may lead to better outcomes) -could say u need investment in a managerial class

in the 19th century the US gov was not particularly interested in interfering with the markets

-might subsidize certain interest (ex: builiding the railroads, giving away the mineral rights, subsisidez agriculture and electrification by subsidizing the consutrcion of water management infrastructure (damns etc) -ultimatley there is the notion that the gov should leave things be as much as possible -production should be the main goal, not about fighting for pieces of the pie -growth, maximizing the production and facilitating increases in productivity are essential in free market economy (state has a set of laws that facilitated the taking of risks with resources bc they are in private hands, private property tenure system allows ppl to feel confident taking skis with their own property ) -poor need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps

tech (capitalism in the 19th century west)

-mining equipment, railroads, refrigeration, electricity etc -part of industrial capitalism -transportation, u need to be able to get the stuff places so railroads are essential to that -Innovations in things like refrigerated rail cars, barb wire allowed for dividing space on the range, all sorts of things that allow for the extraction, transportation and efficient exploitation of natural resources -also development of industrial processing facilities in SF La Seattle etc

pearl river delta geopolitics

-opium wars (treaty of nanking -1842) Taiping Rebellion -treaty allowed for the seeding of Hong Kong to the British -Indemnity-british imposes taxes on small rice farmers to pay for the war -lots of instability -civil war -1839-1842 -also about textiles -humiliating defeat for the Ching empire and signs the treaty of 1843 and china has to pay for the cost of the air and they seed Hong Kong to the British and open the ports -chinese gov is forced to impose a tax to pay for the indemnity, so it is a tax on rice (the are trying to get cash instead of rice in a fairly cashless economy) -1850-1864 Taiping rebellion = 20-30 million dead -1840s: floods, famine, chaos, economic desperation -dispossesion> rural migration> emigration -decision by village leaders to send half the young men out to bring back remissions

labor- unproletariate workers

-petite bourgeois ambitions in working class (american/ California dream) -relatively well paid, highly skilled free of obligations -proletariate treated by waves of immigration -high wages -mobile labor force (unattached, male, and resistant to "wage slavery" ) -skilled craftsmen -entrepreneurship (small business) -non-whites: exploitation and extraction of surplus value <<< not addressed in walker's argument

is the market place an effective arena for achieving some form of procedural justice if those who are at the bottom of this pyramid do not have as much of a say?

-politics are dominated by access to capital

pearl river delta economy

-poverty, chaos, insecurity, starvation, British domination of trade -handicrafts, remissions, subsistence rice farming -tradition of out migration, sojourning and coming back, a history of migration to the southeast parts of asia tin mines in Malaysia and Borniou ppl going to Trinidad, cuba, the carribian and sending remissions (money) back -farming gets increasingly difficult due to smaller and smaller plots of land due to divisible inheritance -lots of land lords rented in long term leases and those leases could be passed on to others (fairly small plots of land with intensive rice cultivation, say u have an acre of land for rice farming and u have 4 sons and giving inheritance to the sons (petrolineal inheritance) that land is divided into 4 pieces -this goes on and on within generations and it is not rly sustianable and as population increases and u have to acquire new land ppl are driven into the cities -tenacy divisible inheritance

policy for chinese immigration

-pre 1882: no formal restrictions on male chinese immigration into the US -no enforceable restrictions on emigration in china (lack of capacity to enforce in south eastern china by imperial gov) -1868: Burlingame-seward treaty (opened up the immigration from china to the US)

capitalist modes of production: California and the US west

-production and reproduction: prospector capitalism and the errand into the wilderness -Natural resource industries: mining, railroads, grazing, fisheries, agriculture etc -class-based division of labor: race, gender, and geographic mobility -production and distribution: costs, benefits, risks, opportunities -socioeconomic mobility: status and entrepreneurship -niches: production/geographic -labor organizing, class, race, and resistance

capitalism and the social contract

-property ownership reflects moral worth and is the basis of inclusion in the social contact -moving forward to Thomas Jefferson and others talking about the notion of liberty in the social contract you have questions about how you might extabilsih a system in which the social contract can contain all the different interests in socially and limit the friction in society -the notion that the social contact can maybe expand over time -there are some basic fundamental rights that human beings have and the social relations and production didn't allow for a full realization of those rights but the constitution has the notion of expanding the social contract -american politics becomes a fight to expand the social contract

geography for chinese immigration:

-proximiity to california -closer than the eastern US in terms of time

does the accumulation of the greatest amount of weatlth serve s the basis of the social contract/ should that be the goal of the social contact

-question of equity?

the public interest

-regulation: regulatory commissions -few barriers to resource extraction -state management of key public resources (eg SF waterfront) -municipal ownership -regulation of hazards (Sawyer decision) (more about a recognition that the interest of property owners can be undermined when u have too much pollution wast and particular things, Sawyer decision eliminated hydraulic mining in CA, about farmers property rights not about environmentalists bc this was in the 1800s -examples of regulatory intervention to prevent collapse of resource stocks: "in every one of these cases, property struggles were not the key, not environmental protection or public wealth (190)" -public interest supported thru philanthropy by wealthy: focus on science (on the university level, the level of the firm and the state encouraging, there were ppl prospecting in the fields of tech, prospector state looks out for them) -value of democratization of knowledge -CA political culture: parties were weak, non paticianship strong, and governed by direct ballot enthroned (190) -the social contract today is built partly on recognition of the environment, some recognition of the values of ppl and communities -historically CA has always been a somewhat conservative state with limited gov regulation, domination of republican political interests and a very mild form (until very recently) -politial parties have been less important in CA than in other places and have been seen at least 100 yrs going back as getting in the way of a rly successful econ in CA -democracy has circumvented political parties in CA and actors have not rly sought to exploit particular political parties as they have in other parts the US -the satte holds particularly important places: ex the SF waterfront to not see these places privatized by others to faciliate commerce

physical endowment: an assessment

-scarcity versus abundance -CA is well endowed, but not significantly more so than other places

balance / struggle between small and large K:

-small K has held on through new resource (and tech) bonanzas/ innovation -dialectic = source of dynamism/ innovation/ prospecting/ development

explanation for success of CA

-social distribution of wealth of nature -open structure for opportunity -property relations> direct access to profits= widely available and distributed -petty bourgeois owners and aspirants -Big K> invested in regional development -SF as a regional metropole of K accumulation

competitive markets

-supply, finance, consumer, labor, -supply markets -financial markets (u need that supply of capital, it comes from NY, London, Paris, etc ) the west is a region of speculation in land cattle railroads etc -consumer markets (growth of population and wealth on the east coast and global associated with industrialization and capitalism leads to the growth of consumer markets which drives the pursuit of more wealth and drive for capturing market share, supply markets, capturing finance capital

Production and reproduction (capitalism in the 19th century west)

-tensions resolved thru : -scale/ geography of markets, production -labor productivity -Innovation -externalaities that are devastating to that landscape and the fact that there is tons of mercury at the bottom of the bay due to mining (led to on disaster after another) -how do you reproduce a system that is all about profit and growth when you keep encountering this crisis of reproduction due to extranalties (can expand the scale and geography of supply markets, the production of the infrastructure that allows for exchange in other markets, innovate technologically and financially, increase the productivity of the system by exploiting a racially divided labor force -can also be described as a crisis of over production -too much meat on the market this can be addressed by driving down the cost of labor -capitalism isn't inherently good or bad but we need to recognize it as the key driver of resources management and the way society is organized in the late 19th century and today

resource prospecting

-the american west was a riot of small property with mass access to natural resources as million s of settlers laid hold of land and claims to minerals, forests and waters -many way that the notion of small property has come to be contested -there are places with further concentrated land holdings and a movement towards larger land holdings over time

Richard Walker article

-the basis of the California prospector capitalism lecture -walker was a geographer at UC berkekely, a marxist geography professor -presents his argument from the field of historical political economy in CA -tries to theorize the economic success of califiornia as a state and region particularly in terms of natural resource extraction and production -compares CA to other natural resource economies -why does the extraction of natural resources make some countries poor and some countries rich -nature and other dimensions of economic growth are very intertwined so this is difficult to answer and plays out in different ways in different places even tho the fundamental thing the economies are based on is natural resource extraction

the notion that one should be looking out for themselves

-the best way one can act as a social being is thru the pursuit of rational self interest in the marketplace -competitive individualism -by means of enlightened self interest the magic of the market place (invisible hand) will allocate things in the way that serves the most good -the greater good for everyone will emerge out of this notion that everyone acts in rational self interest

conclusion (for prospector capitalism)

-the gifts of nature can only explain so much: gold and small holding at start, timing= good for many industries, "the state bred success out of success (191)", "the prospector -petit bourgeois class structure was repeatedly revived by new resource rushes (191)" "all along the way, California's resource economy walked forward on 2 legs: natural wealth and social production, industry and extraction, big business and small property, city and country, state and private enterprise, capital and skilled labor (not to mention highly exploited labor) safe bets and Wild speculation (191)" -emphasizes the dialectic process -walkers argument is subject to an important critic: it leaves the under class and the excluded out of the story

the state (in capitalism in the 19th century west

-the state takes control and allocates land within property rights -u want to take this land, turn it into property, put it in the hands of individuals who will be able to extract natural resources, put labor to work and grow capital and grow the economy -the federal gov sends a survey team out, the entire landscape is divided up into a grid pattern and then lots can be distributed thru the general land office disposal of private property -a system of law and institutions that facilitate security of property claims and commerce (set up to make all this stuff work) -labor and immigration laws oriented to bringing in labor that is exploitable by capital (able to drive down wages bc they have control over the institiotns of gov that are not going to allow non whites to acquire property rights, support the development of a large disempowered labor force) -at first it is very difficult to get enough labor to make this work so labor is very high and the challenge is to enlarge and disempowered the labor force

history of resource extraction in CA: resource bonanzas: series

-timber -riven/ ocean-based resources (water and fish) -wheat -petroleum (1900-1930)= leading producer in the world -fisheries in normal -timber -water management: storage, hydro, irrigation -Intensive agriculture

procedural justice

-to what degree does a captialisit mode of production serve procedural justice -alot of who gets a seat at the table is based on who has what resources in the market place (allow you to pursue your american dream, or at least not starve)

California's extraction -industrialization interaction

-vertical integration of industry along commodity chain -can be within the same firm or along dif firms but the point being the commodity chain is all done within California and by firms that will then sink their profits back into the state of CA -extraction of resources and then natural resource processing 1. natural resource processing: post extractive steps= key to CA manufactures -research and development in machinery and means of increasing productivity in manufacturing 2. equipment supply for extraction: machinery raised productivity: SF machinery and metal works complex in late 19th century (mining), union iron works= largest metal manufactures in the west 3. secondary demand for resource products (industrial markets): timber and water for mining, urban consumer markets: construction, food etc; part of and driven by a complex system of technological innovations, innovations that increase productivity tremendously in mining, manufacturing -CA could be described as a learning region (innovations are played out at a rapid place and then diffuse elsewhere , CA= a proving ground for technologies that could be exported around the world) 4. technological innovation: tech unlocks access to resources (eg mining, water etc) a.)^^^ productivity, b.) export of mining and other equipment, c.) CA system of innovation: property regime, skill ambition, freedom, greed etc d.) CA as "learning region", e.) link innovation to K investment, f.) link to industrial capacity> implement capitalized innovation, g.) labor pool: high wages and high skill i.) walker doesn't take about the low wage and low skill labor, he isn't emphasizing it here bc he wants to make a dif argument -freedom + the ambition that comes with liberal culture comes together to create an incredibly successful and dynamic economy that is constantly innovated as new capital is put in and new resources are opened up and the extracting leads to accumualation leads to further investment

accumulation and growth

-when we have polluted rivers, waste, climate affected these costs are externalized -additionally the things that we use to get the materials (imperialism land theft also results in externalized costs that are not represented in the commodity price)

model (for California prospector capitalism)

1. resource and econ development were reciprocal in CA 2. gains of resource extraction led to prosperity in the region 3. regional social order allowed for reproduction of system

emigration from china

1840-1900- 2.5 million left china (many returned) -many sojourners but many also settled -went to Hawaii, Cuba, Latin America, Africa -In 1880 25% of Hawaii's population was chinese

regional accumulation:money, circulation and finance

3 parts to the story of K accumulation: -resource wealth turning into money in local hands -money piling p into big k stocks -k investment into the regional econ

money piling up into big K stocks

>>> capital piles up: ^K stocks (process: "acquisition, business alliances, urban real estate, banking, and securities speculation all played parts") -west as colony and empire: SF & LA >extraction from hinterlands> urban accumulation of K, "poles of accumulation": SF and LA independent of NY etc, reinvestment in regional's natural resources after initial accumulation by big k -emergence of new bourgeoisie class: promotion >increase scale fo investment and k pooling, urban real-estate devel= key to amplifying wealth , banking: natural resources saving san profits+ aggressive investment, securities: SF mining exchange< corruption

-K investment into the regional econ

>>> reinvestment: return of profits into new enterprise(" using the wealth of nature as a lever to raise the level of productivity and wide the base of expansion" ) (183)

resource wealth turning into money in local hands

>>> sticky hands: value= retained regional (key difference) -prospector class= key> gold into econ, urban development, agriculture etc -small K> developed into big K in some cases: natural resources, banks etc -sticky hands depended on strong property rights

4.) the prospector state: government and politics

A state is born: selective use of state powers in a fundamentally conservative (republican business-friendly) state -the state of CA has a Gov that serves the interest of capital (sets the institutional framework thru which all of what has already been described can be realized)

Chinese diaspora

Guongdong (Kwantung) -90% of immigrants to California came from this province -mountains, a large river valley with all sorts of water available (the pearl river delta) -there are ppl who are migrating from the rural areas into the pearl river delta (still rural in some ways but a densely populated area) and then into the city itself -somewhat isolated from the centers of power in china