Lec ST 16: Wrld Strat, Glblizatn, Poor of Earth

In the Philippines, the slum w/in Manilla's garbage dump thousands of people try to make a living by searching through garbage for anything they can sell

From time to time, the dump explodes into flames, killing hundreds of people & injuring many more

In Nairobi, Africa, the Kibera slum is also one of the world's worst slums, where people have fewer options in life, & almost no aid from their govt

IN SUPER SLUMS, ORDER IS NOT MAINTAINED BY THE STATE, RATHER ARE THEY FREQUENTLY LAWLESS & CRIME RIDDEN, BUT GIVEN THAT, SURPRISINGLY ORDERLY

Slums are often crime ridden & dangerous b/c of the extremely unsanitary conditions

There is 1 toilet for every 800 people in the Dharavi slum

The slums in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital city, are becoming fewer & fewer b/ the govt allows foreign corps mainly from China & So Korea, to take over the slum land to build tourist hotels, condos, & casinos

The people displaced from the Cambodian slums are now living in 'relocation camps' miles form the city where there is no work nor farmland to grow food

The people displaced from the Cambodian slums were simply arrested, taken from their slum homes, & dumped in a field

Amnesty Intl estm there are 150 K people living in relocation camps in Cambodia

Some of the people in relocation camps were given small houses & had Korean sweatshops nearby which employed mostly teenage girls

	SUPER SLUMS, AS WELL AS 'WORK CAMP' REGIONS, ARE HAVENS FOR SWEATSHOPS
	Almost half of the world's population work in conditions that we would call sweatshops
	In general sweatshops exist w/ wages sometimes below $1 er day, requiring 10 to 12 hour wking days in unhealthy envs
	W/ almost half the world's pop living on less than what $2 per day will buy in the US, landing such sweatshop jobs is a big step up for hundreds of millions of people
	While Am mid class & wking class parents hop their children will get into a good college & eventually land a good job, as many as 1 or 2 bb people dream of their children being able to improve their lives through landing a sweatshop job
	The NY Times commented that it is a sad commentary on world inequality is that when intl agencies are successful in shutting some of these sweatshops, people end up in greater hunger b/c sweatshops are their only options

	ON A GLOBAL SCALE, POVERTY IS OFTEN MEASURED BY PURCHASING POWER, ACCESS TO FOOD, HEALTH (ESP INFANT DEATH RATES & HIV RATES), INCOME DISTRIBUTION, & MORE
	Using the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) measure to make comparisons of world currencies more accurate, agencies such as the World Bank (WB) & the UN estm that 1.1 to 1.3 bb people are living on less than $1 per day; this is about 20% of the world's pop
	About the next 30% of the world's pop live on less that $2 per day
	There are also extreme inequalities in how the world's food supply is distributed
	In 2008, almost 1 bb people were undernourished, an increase of over 100 mm people compared to the previous yr
	Part of this increase was due to a jump in world food prices & no doubt when new reports are published, there will be another jump in world hunger b/c of the global econ crisis which began in 2008 & was pronounced in 2009 & 2010
	For millions of the poor living in urban areas in the least developed nations, poverty means only about half of them have access to sanitary living conditions such as clean water & toilets
	An average of 107 out of 1000 babies die by the time they are 5 yrs old compared to about 6 in richer nations
	Poverty means there is very little education, if any, & almost half the pop is illiterate
	An average of about 20 % of the children 10 to 14 yrs old in low income nations must be employed for long hrs a day, & a higher % in many of these nations
	Poverty means dying at an earlier age than people in richer nations b/c there is no money for med treatment
	People inflected w/ HIV that leads to AIDS can expect to live to a normal age w/ drug treatment, but in poor nations there is no money for most drug treatments
	In African nations, some 5000 people die each day of AIDS, there are 13.2 mm children orphaned by AIDS, & in 10 yrs the deaths from AIDS alone will exceed all of those killed in WW 1 & WW 2 combined
	There are African nations that will experience pop declines of 30 to 40 % in coming yrs b/c of deaths from AIDS
	It is predicted that in 10 yrs the life expectancy in Namibia, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, & Botswana will be reduced to around 30 yrs instead of 70 yrs
	In many nations pov & inequality have been getting worse as globalization proceeds
	Many people in low income nations are experiencing improved conditions compared to people in other nations where conditions are getting worse
	Thus it is important to understand conditions in various nations, some of which make things worse while others make them better

	RATES OF POVERTY & EXTREME POV VARY DRAMATICALLY, BUT SLOWLY THE RATES ARE DECLINING
Link	The Table on the Percentage of the Population Living on Less Than $1 & $2 a Day by Region demonstrates that the % of people living on less that $1 or $2 a day varies dramatically in less developed nations
	For people living in E Asia & the Pacific, in nations such as China, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, & So Koreas, the % of people living in extreme pov has dropped since 1990 & is estm to drop to 0.9 % in 2015
	Many of the nations in E Asia & the Pacific such as Laos, Myanmar, & Cambodia, continue w/ high levels of poverty
	In regions such as S Asia, primarily India, there has been little improvement in rates of poverty in recent yrs, but conditions are expected to improve
	W/ the election of PM Modi in India in 2015, people are seeing the India econ grow rapidly
	In L Am there is much less of a drop in extreme poverty up to 2002, though the WB expects the drop to increase by 2015
	In sub Saharan Africa the rate of extreme poverty has been increasing rather than decreasing w/ almost half the pop living on less than $1 per day in 2002
	The WB now thins there is a chance for enough poverty reduction in a few African nations such as So Africa to bring down the overall rate of extreme pov in sub Saharan African slightly by 2015

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Table: Percentage of the Population Living on Less Than $1 & $2 a Day by Region

Percent of population living on

Less than $1 per day

Less than $2 per day

Region

1990

2002

2015

1990

2002

2015

E Asia & the Pacific

29.6

14.9

0.9

69.9

40.7

12.7

China

33.0

16.6

1.2

72.6

41.6

13.1

Rest of E Asia & the Pacific

21.1

10.8

0.4

63.2

38.6

11.9

Euro & Central Asia

0.5

3.6

0.4

4.9

16.1

8.2

Latin Am & the Caribbean

11.3

9.5

6.9

28.4

22.6

17.2

Mid East & No Africa

2.3

2.4

0.9

21.4

19.8

10.4

S Asia

41.3

31.3

12.8

85.5

77.8

56.7

Sub Saharan Africa

44.6

46.4

38.4

75.0

74.9

67.1

Total

27.9

21.1

10.2

60.8

49.9

32.8

Excluding China

26.1

22.5

12.9

56.6

52.6

38.6

The Table on the Percentage of the Population Living on Less Than $1 & $2 a Day by Region demonstrates that the % of people living on less that $1 or $2 a day varies dramatically in less developed nations

	POVERTY IS OFTEN MEASURED BY GNP PER CAPITA OR PPP, BUT EVEN THESE MEASURES GIVE ONLY AN APPROXIMATION OF THE DIFFERENCES IN QUAL OF LIVING ACROSS NATIONS
	It is informative to compare rates of GNP, or income, on a per capita basis
	GNP & PPP measure of currencies & incomes provides an estm of the level of pov or the general standard of living in nations around the world
Link	The Table on GNP per Capita, & PPP Measures in 2008 demonstrates that the differences in pov levels around the globe are large & that, for example b/c the figures are PPP adjusted, the $290 that the Congolese person is living off of is not what $290 Am $ would buy in the Congo, it is what $290 would buy in the US
	Norway has an annual GNP per capita of almost $60 K per yr while the sub Saharan African nations of Malawi, Burundi, & the Dem Rep of Congo, have per capital incomes of only $830, $380, & $290 per yr, respectively
	Simply considering GNP per capita, even when PPP adjusted can be misleading b/ it assumes the total is divided equally among the people of a nation
	W/o an 'income in kind' such as being able to grow some of your own food, which is not included in the estm, people would starve
	Of the 1.3 bb people living on less than $1 / day, almost 1 bb of them are malnourished
	Land inequality in Asia is generally lower than in Africa & esp L Am

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Table on GNP per Capita, & PPP Measures in 2008

Nation GNP per capita, PPP

Norway 58,500

US 46,970

Switzerland 46,460

Canada 36,220

Britain 36,130

Germany 35,940

Japan 35,220

France 34,410

So Korea 28,120

Mexico 14,270

Malaysia 13,740

So Africa 9,780

Ecuador 7,760

China 6,020

Thailand 5,990

Angola 5,020

Philippines 3,900

Indonesia 3,830

India 2,960

Vietnam 2,700

Laos 2,060

Cambodia 1,820

Tanzania 1,230

Haiti 1,180

Uganda 1,140

Rwanda 1,010

Ethiopia 870

Malawi 830

Mozambique 770

Sierra Leone 750

Niger 680

Burundi 380

Dem Rep Congo 290

The Table on GNP per Capita, & PPP Measures in 2008 demonstrates that the differences in pov levels around the globe are large & that, for example b/c the figures are PPP adjusted, the $290 that the Congolese person is living off of is not what $290 Am $ would buy in the COngo, it is what $290 would buy in the US

	RATES OF ECON DEV & RATES OF UNEVEN ECON DEV, IE INCOME INEQUALITY, ARE IMPORTANT INDICATORS OF GROWTH & POV REDUCTION, & IN GENERAL E & SE ASIAN NATIONS SCORE WELL ON THESE INDICATORS
	The differences in rates of extreme pov are not simply related to rates of econ growth
	Some L Am nations have rates of growth similar to that in E & SE Asian nations
	What divides most E & SE Asian nations from L Am nation is even vs uneven econ development, which in sub Saharan African there is no econ growth
Link	The Table of Gini Scores from the mid 2000s show that E & SE Asian nations have lower income inequality than nations in L Am or Africa & that some Euro nations have the least inc ineq overall
	Brazil has a high rate of income inequality at 0.59 on the Gini index & other L Am nations are not far behind
	In Brazil the poorest 20 % of the pop receive only 2.5 % of the income while the richest 20 % receives 63.8 %
	In sub Saharan nations, the combination of a low GNP & an unequal dist of income makes this one of the most poverty stricken regions in the world
	Mozambique has a per capita income of $1,270 in 2005, but the bottom 20 % got only 6.5 % of the income pie
	LEVELS OF LAND INEQUALITY GENERALLY BOTH INDICATE & FOLLOW LEVELS OF POV
	B/c the majority of people in less dev nation live in rural areas & depend on ag work for survival, the dist of land is an important condition
Link	The Table on the Gini Index of Land Inequality demonstrates that there is large land inequality in L Am, more equality in Africa, & the least land inequality in SE Asia
	Asian nations have a Gini index ranging from 0.30 to 0.50
	In developing nations there are major differences btwn rural & urban people
	The WB lists urban pov rates for Brazil as 13 % compared to 32 % in rural areas
	The WB lists urban pov rates for Bangladesh as 14 % compared to 40 % in rural areas
	WB lists urban pov rates for Peru as 40 % compared to 65 % in rural areas
	WB lists urban pov rates for Panama as 15 % compared to 65 % in rural areas
	WB lists urban pov rates for Guatemala as 34 % compared to 72 % in rural areas
	In E & SE Asia, the urban / rural pov rates are less
	WB lists urban pov rates for Thailand as 10 % compared to 15 % in rural areas
	WB lists urban pov rates for as % compared to % in rural areas
	L Am & Africa have a higher % of land less peasants who depend on rich landowners for their means of existence
	The rich landowners in L Am, esp, are tied to the world ag mkts & big agribusiness in the rich nations, often keeping both landowners & agribusiness firms rich as the expense of land less peasants

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Table of Income Inequality w/in Nations & Gini Index, mid 2000s

% of total household income

Nation

Poorest 20 %

Top 20 %

Gini Index

Bangladesh

8.7 %

42.8 %

0.31 %

India

8.1

46.1

0.33

Indonesia

6.0

44.9

0.35

Philippines

5.4

52.3

0.46

Thailand

6.4

48.4

0.40

China

5.9

46.6

0.45

Malaysia

4.5

53.8

0.49

Vietnam

8.0

44.5

0.35

So Korea

7.5

39.3

0.32

Ethiopia

7.1

47.7

0.30

Egypt

9.8

39.0

0.34

Kenya

5.0

50.2

0.44

Zambia

4.2

54.8

0.53

Mozambique

6.5

46.5

0.40

Guatemala

2.1

63.0

0.58

El Salvador

3.4

56.5

0.50

Peru

4.4

51.2

0.50

Costa Rica

4.0

51.8

0.48

Brazil

2.5

63.8

0.59

Panama

3.6

52.8

0.55

Mexico

3.6

58.2

0.49

Chile

3.5

60.1

0.51

Venezuela

3.7

53.

0.42

Spain

7.5

40.3

0.35

Sweden

9.6

34.5

0.25

Italy

8.7

36.3

0.31

6.6

43.0

0.34

Netherlands

7.3

40.1

0.29

France

7.2

40.2

0.31

Germany

8.2

38.5

0.28

5.2

46.4

0.38

The Table of Gini Scores from the mid 2000s show that E & SE Asian nations have lower income inequality than nations in L Am or Africa & that some Euro nations have the least inc ineq overall

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The Table on the Gini Index of Land Inequality

Country

Gini Land Concentration Index

Southeast Asia

Thailand

0.47

Burma

0.44

Indonesia

0.46

Laos

0.39

Philippines

0.55

Average

0.462

Africa

Ethiopia

0.47

Malawi

0.52

Morocco

0.62

Uganda

0.59

Average

0.55

Latin America

Argentina

0.83

Brazil

0.85

Columbia

0.80

Honduras

0.66

Panama

0.60

Uruguay

0.79

Nicaragua

0.93

Paraguay

0.78

Peru

0.91

Average

0.728

The Table on the Gini Index of Land Inequality demonstrates that there is large land inequality in L Am, more equality in Africa, & the least land inequality in SE Asia

	ECON GROWTH IS THE MAIN ENGINE OF POV REDUCTION
	The WB calculates how much pov reduction nations obtain for each % of new econ growth each yr
	If econ dev reduces inequality this a a key to even compared to uneven econ dev
	If econ growth does not lead to pov reduction, then some of the pop has an improved standard of living while others have no improvement or possibly worse conditions
	In most Asian nations, they are experiencing a high rate of econ growth & a reduction in poverty
	The WB & the IMF like to claim that econ growth always results in pov reduction, but this is not always the case
	L Am nations have averaged low rates econ growth but have had no reduction in pov
	S Asia has more econ growth, but still no reduced pov
	Some African nations have had little or even negative econ growth & thus no improvements in pov rates

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Outline on Poverty in Sub Saharan Africa

External
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- Supplement: Map of Africa

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- Supplement: Map of Sub Saharan Africa

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THE FAILURE OF ECON DEV CAN BE SEEN IN SUB SAHARAN AFRICA WHERE MUCH OF AFRICA'S WEALTH & NATURAL RESOURCES LIE IN MANY OF THE WORLD'S POOREST NATIONS

Sub Saharan Africa includes all African nations that are fully or partially located south of the Sahara, excluding Sudan, even though Sudan sits in the Eastern portion of the Sahara desert

Sub Saharan Africa contrasts w/ No Africa, which is considered a part of the Arab world

Somalia, Djibouti, Comoros, & Mauritania are geographically part of Sub Saharan Africa, but also part of the Arab world

Most sub Saharan nations are among the world's poorest

Of the world's poorest nations in term of per capita GNP, all but 8 are in sub Saharan Africa

Botswana has experienced healthy growth for some yrs, as has Mozambique after independence from Portugal & the end of civil war

So Africa is the richest nation in Africa w/ a per capita GNP of over $12,000

In Zambia & Nigeria, about 70 % of the people live on less than $1 per day

Of the 25 nations w/ the highest infection rates of HIV AIDS, only Haiti at 24th, is not in sub Saharan Africa

Sub Saharan Africa has much of the continent's wealth & natural resources

	THE POPULATION OF SUB SAHARAN AFRICA IS LARGE, & HAS A RAPID GROWTH RATE, EXACERBATING POVERTY PROBLEMS
	The population of sub Saharan Africa was 800 mm in 2007, & 1.1 bb in 2012
	The current growth rate of sub Saharan Africa is 2.3%
	The UN predicts a pop btwn 1.5 & 2 bb by 2050 for the region, that is, the pop will double or maybe even nearly triple in 40 yrs
	This region has a pop density of 80 per sq km compared to 170 for W Euro, 140 for Asia, & 30 for the Americas
	Sub Saharan African nations top the list of nations & territories by fertility rate w/ 40 of the highest 50, all w/ total fertility rates (TFRs) greater than 4 in 2008
	All the nations in the region have TFRs above the world average, except So Africa
	More than 40 % of the pop in sub Saharan nations is younger than 15 yrs old, as well as in Sudan, w/ the exception of So Africa.

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Outline on Poverty in East & Southeast Asia

External
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- Supplement: Map of E & SE Asia

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THE NATIONS OF E & SE ASIA DEMONSTRATE THAT EVEN ECON DEVELOPMENTREDUCES POVERTY WHILE UNEVEN DEV DOES NOT REDUCE, OR EVEN EXACERBATES POV

The nations of E & SE Asia include Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, & Myanmar

As we move from China, So Korea, & Japan to Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, & Indonesia, econ dev is moderate to high

Cambodia, Laos, & Myanmar (formerly Burma) are at moderate to low levels of econ dev, & No Korea is one of the world's poorest & most backward nations

Cambodia has growth of 8 % but dev is uneven, making a few rich & most of the others either no better off or poorer

Uneven dev, such as is occurring in Cambodia, is not sustainable in most cases

In Laos, econ dev is less than 7 % but it is spread more evenly among the pop

Laos is likely to surpass Cambodia w/ more steady econ dev & more pov reduction

Many nations in E & SE Asia have ancient civilizations going back thousands of yrs

These nations, along w/ India, were the most econ dominant nation in the world a few centuries ago

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Outline on Poverty in South Asia

External
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- Supplement: Map of Asia

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SOUTH ASIAN NATIONS EXHIBIT GENERALLY HIGH RATES OF POV, & ONLY IN RECENT DECADES ARE EXHIBITING NOTEWORTHY ECON DEV, MUCH OF WHICH IS UNEVEN DEV

South Asia includes India, Pakistan on the NW side of India, Nepal & Bangladesh to the NE side of India, & the island nation of Sri Lanka to the SE of India

India is the world's largest democracy b/c of its parliamentary sys inherited from the British colonial period

India inherited a colonial admin that turned into one of the most obstructive govt bureaucracies

India is the second most populous nation w/ just over 1 bb people & still one of the poorest, w/ 44 % of its pop in extreme poverty

In 2015, PM Modi was elected & it is expected that he will be able to accelerate India's growth rate

300 yrs ago, the Indian Chinese econ was the world's most powerful region

Pakistan has shown more econ growth in recent yrs, w/ just over 30 % of Pakistanis in extreme pov

Pakistan's govt rates high on world govt efficiency scales

The future of Pakistan is in doubt b/c of organized terrorist grps living in its mountainous border regions & b/c of its ancient conflict w/ India

Sri Lanka has the lowest pov rate in so Asia w/ only 6 % of its people living in extreme pov

Sri Lanka is a Buddhist nation & the nation that spread Theravada Buddhism though SE Asia during the 600s

Political & religious conflict has raged for the last several decades in Sri Lanka w/ one faction allied w/ India

Only now has the Sri Lankan civil war some hope of cooling & w/ it, much better hope for further econ dev & pov reduction

Bangladesh & Nepal remain among the world's poorest nations both w/ about 30 % of their people living in extreme pov

In Bangladesh & Nepal, per capita GNP increased by only $600 btwn 1990 & 2001

Bangladesh has at least achieved some political stability & prospects for improvement, whereas Nepal is in the midst of a rev involving communist rebels

In the spring of 2015 Nepal experienced two severe earthquakes which devastated most of the nation

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Outline on Poverty in Latin America

External
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- Supplement: Map of Central America

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- Supplement: Map of South America

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LATIN AMERICA INCLUDES CENTRAL & SO AMERICA & HAS SOME 2ND & 3RD WORLD NATIONS, EXHIBITING GROWING ECONS, & STUBBORN EXTREME POV, SIDE BY SIDE

The nations of Latin America include: Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, Fr Guiana, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, & Bolivia

Colonization ended much earlier in Central & So America than in Africa or Asia

When the Euro powers began taking territory in Asia & Africa in the early 1800s, most of Latin America was already independent from colonial rule

Nations such as Chile, Argentina, & Brazil were already achieving some econ development in the late 1800s & the 1900s, although econ dev was highly dependent on US corp dominance

L Am nations have become very unequal societies w/ extreme pov & immense wealth existing side by side

Brazil is the world's second most unequal society

Brazil has a mod econ making all kinds of industrial goods, but yet 17 % of its people living in extreme pov

The poorest 20 % of Brazilians receive only 2.5 % of GNP while the richest 20 % receive 65 % of GNP

Chile has a modern industrial econ base but over 20 % of its pop lives in extreme pov

In Chile, the bottom 20 % get 3.4% of GNP while the top 20 % receive 61 % of GNP

Mexico has 40 % of its people living in extreme poverty

Other L Am nation have even higher levels of extreme poverty than Mexico

Ecuador has over 50 % of people living in extreme pov

150 yrs of econ dominance from the US has severely hampered even econ dev in L Am

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Outline on Poverty in Eastern Europe & Central Asia

External
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- Supplement: Map of Asia

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- Supplement: Map of Europe

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E EURO HAS SECOND TIER NATIONS, W/ A STRONG SOCIAL SAFETY NET, & AN ECON BASE ABLE TO EXPAND INDUSTRIALIZATION

The nations of E Euro include: Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, & Estonia

The nations of E Euro were among the most advanced in the world; one of the 1st Euro empires, the Hapsburg Empire, held much of E Euro by 1200

By the 1500s the Hapsburg Empire contained what is now Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, & much of the former Yugoslavia

E Euro declined as it became a pawn in the struggle of the superpowers of the West (the UK, the US & others) & the Russian / Soviet Union (SU) empire

E Euro was in the middle of WWs I & II & then dominated by the SU until the beginning of the 1990s

The communist govts put in place by the SU crushed econ progress as well as human rights

Even after essentially being 'colonies' of the SU, the poor of these nations were better off than the poor of much of the world

In E Euro under SU rule, it was the mid class that lost the most

Most communist & socialist nations had the best social safety nets in history, ie housing, health care, education, job security, & more

Most of the E Euro nations have less that 1 or 2 % of their pop living in extreme pov

Today E Euro has some of the best prospects for renewed econ dev & indeed nations such as Poland, the Czech Republic, formerly E Germany, & others have done very well

In 2004 several of the E Euro nations joined the European Union (EU)

The E Euro nations which joined the EU yielded a strong econ boost from open mkts & access to the EU nations' mkts

Some commentators have noted that the mvmt of nations to the EU was interpreted as a threat by Russia

In the 2010s, the Russian empire has again begun its domineering ways, threatening or attacking several nations such as Chechnya, Ukraine, Georgia, Latvia, & others

	CENTRAL ASIA IS LESS DEVELOPED & HAS MORE POV THAN E EURO
	The nations of C Asia include: Tajikistan, Kyrgystan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazhakstan, Uzbekistan, & Mongolia
	The prospects for Central Asia are more varied & less certain than that of E Euro b/c this region had never had as extensive econ dev as E Euro
	Nomadic Asian tribe led by Attila the Hun & his descendants held territory from China & into much of what is C Asia & E Euro today some 1500 yrs ago
	Attila's empire did not last long, & it was dominance by Russian & then the SU in the 1900s that shaped prospects for people of C Asia in the 1900s & 2000s
	In the 2000s nations such as Tajikistan, Kyrgystan, & Azerbaijan are among the poorest in the region, w/ over half the pop living in pov
	Tajikistan's 2005 per capita GNP was only $1500, though per capita GNP was more than $2000 for other nations in the region, including some w/ a per capita GNP of over $4000
	Many C Asian nations have oil resources, but most have unstable & corrupt govts
	The mix of Asian & Islamic civilizations has also led to conflict & opposition mvmts that are keeping these nations from achieving econ dev & pov reduction in the near future

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Outline on Poverty in the Middle East

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- Supplement: Map of the Mid East

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RELIGIOUS & ETHNIC TURMOIL KEPT THE LEVEL OF POL & ECON DEV IN THE MID EAST AT THE LEVEL OF THE CITY STATE, IE TRIBAL AUTHORITY NOT STATE AUTHORITY UNTIL WW 1 (other than the periods of: the Assyrian Empire circa 1365–1076 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire circa 911–605 BC, the Roman Empire circa 100 BCE - 1 CE, & the Ottoman Empire in the Turkish region, circa 1299-1917)

The major nations of the Mid East (ME) include: Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine (not recognized), Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Iraq, Iran, & Afghanistan

The ME is a region of the most ancient civilizations of Earth & the birthplace of the most populous monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, & Islam

Judaism began around 2000 BCE; Christianity began w/ the birth of Jesus (0 BCE) & the formalization of the 1st Christian churches around 60 CE; Islam began in 622 CE by Mohammed the Prophet, who lived from about 570 to 632 CE

Christianity & Islam have repeatedly clashed as one grp spread its following only to decline & have the other reclaim the region

Christianity & Islam have attacked Judaism during various hist eras

It was the Roman Empire that spread Christianity through much of what is Euro, C Euro, & parts of the ME until the Roman Empire collapsed some 1500 yrs ago

Mongol invaders from C Asia stepped in to take up some of the power vacuum from the fall of the Roman Empire, abut the time Islam was born

An Islamic empire quickly spread throughout the ME, No Africa, & into much of Euro

As the Renaissance pulled Christian Euro out of its Dark Ages, during which the centuries long clash btwn Christian Euro & Islam in the ME began

Around 1100 AD the Crusades began w/ Euro Christians marching to battle against Islam

There were 8 Crusades btwn 1097 & 1212 AD w/ many thousands of Muslims killed

There was a religious frenzy of Christians purges lead by various Popes, but it was also a time of expansion of Euro dominance

After the Crusades, Islam began losing control in the western realms of its empire, but spread more to its east, through C Asia & So Asia by the 1400s

AT THE END OF WW 1, THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE WAS CRUSHED & THE EURO NATIONS & THE US DREW NATL BOUNDARIES, IGNORING RELIGIOUS & ETHNIC BOUNDARIES, & BEGAN NEO-COLONIAL RULE TO MAXIMIZE CONTROL OF OIL FIELDS

The end of WW I, however, brought down the last of the Islamic Empire, the Ottoman Empire based in Turkey, which was allied w/ Germany

Before & after WW I, the nations & people of the Mid East were almost completely taken over by Euro colonial regimes

The new oil riches were exploited, & nations in the region had new boundaries drawn to suite the needs of the Euro powers w/o regard to natural & historic boundaries

Several Mid East leaders, trying to throw off Euro dominance, were deposed by Euro, & later Am military or covert actions to keep the low cost oil flowing

Although the nations of the Mid East are now free of any formal colonial control from W nations, Islamic nations in the Mid East continue to have little trust of W nations, but they are also w/o a central unifying nation able to focus this opposition to the W

The region is at conflict w/in itself as much as w/ the Western nations & Israel

THis is esp so after the Israeli rev in 1948 took control of what was before that time, the nation of Palestine, sending hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes & into refugee camps around the Mid East

	IN MANY WAYS, THE MID EAST IS STRUGGLING TO RE-ESTB BOUNDARIES TO MATCH ITS HERITAGE, & TO ESTB DEMOCRACY & ECON DEV IN THE FACE OF FORCES WHO WANT TO INSTALL AUTHORITARIANISM & STOP MODERN ECON DEV
	It is the nearly continual state of conflict & disarray that has left much poverty in the Mid East, though not as much pov as many other places in the world
	Not including the very small oil rich nations such as Kuwait & Qatar, & also not including Israel, Turkey & Iran have the highest per capita GNPs in 2005, both around $8000
	Lebanon & Jordan are next at over $5000 per capita
	Syria comes in at almost $4000, but it has been in continual war since 2012 & thus today has created some of the largest & most pov stricken refugee camps in the world
	Yemen & the Gaza Strip territory, full of Palestinians displaced by Israel, are by far the poorest w/ per capital GNP of $700
	Iran has more than 50 % of its pop living in pov; Jordan & Lebanon have 30 % of their people living in pov
	Since 911, Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Syria, then Yemen are torn by war, limiting & even destroying econ dev, exacerbating pov
	Fledgling democracies are estb in both Iraq & Afghanistan, but these continue to be assaulted by authoritarian forces
	Since the Arab Spring which began in 2010, there have been limited democratic reforms in some nations, but the majority continue to be authoritarian states
	As the result of wars on multiple fronts, Euro is experiencing hist level of refugees from the Mid East

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Outline on the World Sys & Econ Dev in Peripheral Nations: Why the Poor Remain Poor

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THE ECON DEV PROCESSES THAT BROUGHT THE CORE NATIONS TO INDUSTRIALIZATION ARE NOT FUNCTIONAL FOR NATIONS ATTEMPTING DEV TODAY

For yrs, economists assumed nations throughout the world would follow a similar pattern of econ dev

W/ some initial cap investment, it was believed, nations would proceed on a path from pre industrial agrarian societies, like the very early hist of today's industrial societies, to industrialization

The theories of econ dev that worked well after WW 2 to rebuild Euro & Japan have failed in most cases since the post WW 2 period

The econ & pol conditions faced today by undeveloped & developing nations in the periphery & semi periphery are different from the already developed, or core nations faced when they were in the process of econ dev, or the nations rebuilding after WW 2, which were already developed nations

Among the conditions are fewer nat resources, a larger pop, a larger % of the pop living in poverty, a poorer climate, & an econ dev env of core nations

The nations that are now developed did not have other developed nations to contend w/ in their early process of dev

Non core nations today find it much more difficult to achieve econ dev

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Outline on the Barriers to Econ Dev & Pov Reduction

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CURRENT ECON DEV POLICIES FROM THE CORE TO THE PERIPHERY GENERALLY HAVE SOME SHORT TERM IMPACT, BUT DO LITTLE FOR LONG TERM GROWTH

Several studies show that many peripheral nations that have extensive aid & investment from the core nations have less long term econ growth

These nations tend to have some econ growth in the short term, about 5 yrs, b/c of aid & investment coming from the core

But the longer term prospects for growth may actually be harmed by the kinds of outside aid & investment these nations have received

THERE ARE MANY REASONS THE ECON DEV OF THE PERIPHERY IS WEAK, INCLUDING:
1. STRUCTURAL DISTORTION OF THE ECON
2. AG DISRUPTION
3. INTERNAL CLASS STRUGGLE
4. TRADE TREATIES
5. THE IDEOLOGY THAT FREE MKTS ARE A PANACEA
6. 'FREE MKT' PROTECTIONISM
7, THE MKT POWER OF THE CORE NATIONS

The barriers to econ dev & pov reduction in the periphery nations do not hurt or help all nations equally or in the same way

Other common problems faced by the least dev nations are govt & corp corruption, tradl rule by an oligarchy of families, war (conflict resulting from an external force), terrorism (conflict resulting from an internal force), disease, illiteracy, & more

1. STRUCTURAL DISTORTION OF THE ECON RESULTS WHEN PERIPHERAL NATIONS OVER SPECIALIZE IN A NARROW MKT NICHE WHICH OFFERS LOCAL ELITES SUCCESS, BUT DOES LITTLE FOR MOST OF THE PEOPLE

In an undistorted econ process some natural resources, human or non human, leads to a chain of econ activity creating jobs, profits, & econ growth

An example of the chain of econ activity is where copper is mined, then refined into metal, then mfring the metal into products, then distributing & selling the products either to other industries, or to retail consumers

Jobs & profits are created at each stage of the econ process

From the mining process to retail sales, there is a chain of jobs & profits providing econ growth & the revenues that can be used for infrastructure dev

When copper is mined in a peripheral nation the ore is shipped to other nations where the remainder of the econ chain is completed

The addl jobs & profits from the chain of econ activities are lost to the periphery nation; they go the core

The periphery nation loses the chain of econ activity that comes from its natural resources, which means no econ dev b/c of structural distortion in the econ

	2. AGRICULTURAL DISRUPTION RESULTS WHEN PERIPHERAL NATIONS PRODUCE FOR THE MKT RATHER THAN FEEDING THE PEOPLE
	Export ag often becomes an important econ activity of a periphery nation brought into the modern world sys
	Before this time, tradl ag was directed toward local consumption, & there was no incentive to intro capital intensive, labor saving methods of farming
	As a result of tradl ag methods & lack of mkt for ag products, some land was left for poor peasants, food was cheaper, & jobs were more plentiful
	But w/ export ag & capital intensive farming methods food is now more expensive, poor peasants are being pushed off the land so more land can be used to grow crops for the world mkt, & more machines are doing the work, resulting in fewer jobs for poor peasants
	As peasants lose jobs in ag in the country, they move to the cities, creating urban poverty
	Profits go to a small group of wealthy landowners & large global agribusinesses, w/ peasants, a majority of people in the country, losing jobs, income, & land
	The lands & food the peasants lose acts as a larger barrier to econ dev which prevents the peasants from becoming active consumers which an econ needs if it is to naturally dev

	3. INTERNAL CLASS STRUGGLE IN PERIPHERAL NATIONS RESULTS IN ELITE SUCCESS & LITTLE FOR THE OTHER CLASSES
	Class conflicts w/in poor nations create barriers to econ dev
	Political & econ elites in poor nations become more tied to, & accommodating to, corp elites from rich nations who have invested in their nation
	The elites in poor nations know that global corps are making investments in the poor nation b/c labor costs are low, unions are nonexistent, taxes are low, & other things such as lax env & safety controls
	For self serving elites there is a direct conflict of interest btwn them & the masses of people in the poor nation, just as there is a conflict of interest btwn Am corp elites & the mid & wking classes here
	The people of the least dev nations want less poverty, better wages, more humane wking conditions, & so on
	If the poor in the less dev nations could achieve better wages & wking conditions it can mean corps will leave
	The problems of structural distortion in the econ & ag disruption noted above could, w/ difficulty be reduced
	It is often the 'will' to overcome these problems that is lacking, ie the will of the local elites

	4. THE RESULTS OF TRADE TREATIES ARE HOTLY DEBATED, OFFERING BOTH ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES TO EACH CORE OR PERIPHERAL NATION, DEPENDING ON THE COMPLEX FINE PRINT OF EACH TRADE DEAL, CREATING WINNERS & LOSERS
	After the No Am Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect under the Clinton Admin, & a Republican Congress, thousands of export factories from the US, Euro, & Japan moved to Mex to take advantage of low wages & free access to the No Am mkt
	By 2000 there were almost 4000 new factories, mostly on Mex's northern border
	By 2002, factories began moving out w/ 500 closed & 250 K jobs lost in 1 yr as the factories began moving to nations such as China where beginning wages for low skill jobs were $0.25 / hr compared to Mex's $1.50 / hr
	WKING CONDITIONS HAVE IMPROVED IN SOME PERIPHERAL NATIONS B/C OF PUBLIC PRESSURE & CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
	In El Salvador after yrs of wking in sweatshop conditions for $0.50 / hr, wkrs employed by a small firm making clothes for The Gap began a strike
	Normally a strike in El Salvador should have been put down w/ little effort or media attn, but b/c The Gap & other corps were under heavy media pressure from No Am protesters & labor grps, the strike had a chance to win
	The Gap gave in & demanded some improvements in wking conditions & increased wages to $0.55 / hr
	The Gap reported that the small sweatshop, which was owned by Taiwanese investors, made few changes & local govt officials made sure such strike activity did not happen again
	B/c of the publicity & potential for increased labor costs, several firms making clothes for JC Penney, Eddie Bauer, & Target canceled contracts & moved to other nations

	5. GLOBALIZATION IS LOOSELY REGULATED BY SUCH GLOBAL REGULATORY INSTITS AS THE IMF & WB & THEY TRADITIONALLY SUPPORT THE DOMINANT IDEOLOGY OF THE FREE MKT AS A PANACEA
	Power imbalances in the global strat sys & the dominant ideology of 'free mkts' pushed by the dev nations & the Intl Monetary Fund (IMF)
	The dev nations have not adjusted their strat of econ dev, which worked for them both in their original path to dev & in the reblding after WW 2, to the conditions faced by less dev nations today
	The world econ is very different than it was 300 yrs ago
	300 yrs ago, free mkts were rare
	Free & open mkts can contribute competitiveness & econ efficiency in the already dev nation today but for poor nations struggling to dev the world econ does not provide them w/ the same open mkt as the dev nations
	Open mkts do not help poor nations when there are already dev nations over them b/c dev nations are able to distort open mkts w/ billions of dollars in subsidies to their own corps, preventing infant industries in poorer nations from having a chance of survival
	The control of mkts by corps & dev nations did not exist when most of the already dev nations were becoming rich b/c they were the 1st to become rich
	Most of those nations that became rich in the second wave of dev more than 100 yrs ago, such as Germany & Japan, did so w/ decidedly unfree domestic mkts protecting their infant industries
	Today the worldwide strat sys give core nations the power to enforce rules of the global econ & avoid some for themselves that help them while harming periphery nations

	6. IN TRADE TREATIES EACH NATION COMPETES TO MAINTAIN ITS OWN TARIFFS WHILE HAVING OTHER NATIONS LOWER THEIRS, IE PROTECT THEIR OWN MKTS WHILE EXPLOITING OTHERS' MKTS, & PERIPHERAL NATIONS TYPICALLY LOSE AT THIS COMPETITION
	Peripheral nations typically lose in the competition to protect their mkts
	Dev nations want open mkts in other nations, but not in their own nation
	The dev nations can buy cheap resources & sell their mfred goods, esp in less dev nations
	Global trade has increased some 60 % in the past 10 yrs, but it has decline for the least dev nations b/c of trade barriers placed on their goods by the dev nations
	The US has one of the highest tariffs on imported ag products to protect Am farmers
	Though the Euro Union has its share of tariffs
	Duties on imported textiles into the US are relatively high, unless the clothing is made abroad using Am made textiles by firms such as The Gap, JC Penney, Eddie Bauer & Target
	In the EU the duties on ag products are less than in the US, but there are restrictions to protect Euro producers
	African nations can export cocoa beans to Euro mfrs such as Nestles, but it the African nations process the beans & attempt to sell chocolate to Euro, the tariffs are high
	Corps like Nestle want the profits from processing the cocoa beans & selling the finished product; but they need the cocoa beans coming from nations in Africa

	7. THE MKT POWER OF THE CORE NATIONSOVERWHELMS THAT OF THE PERIPHERAL NATIONS
	The average effective tariff rates for dev & developing nations is 6 % while the average effective tariff rates for less dev nations is 15 %
	Despite their free mkt ideology, the dev nations, led by the US, advocate the position that open mkts are best in less dev nations rather than their own
	Core nations & their global crop class have the power through agencies such as the IMF, WB, & the World Trade Org (WTO) to protect their domestic industries, but then use their global power to make sure poor nations open their borders to products produced & processed in the dev nations
	Investments by the IMF, WB & other intl orgs & by global corps is not the sole cause of the troubles of the least dev nations
	One estm is that the 49 least dev nations in the world lose about $2.5 b a yr due to tariffs & quotas placed on their products by dev nations
	Oxfam estm the US gets back $7 for every $1 given in aide to Bangladesh b/c of import barriers
	Oxfam estm that dev nation subsidize their own ag business at a level of about $1 bb per day, which floods the world mkt w/ cheap food, while the IMF pushes these least dev to keep their mkts open to these ag products
	Dev nations give subsidies to their farmers so they can produce farm products more cheaply & w/ more profits, but disallow less dev nation to do so, even when the govt of the less dev nation could afford to provide subsidies
	The UN estm that dev nations subsidize their industries w/ over $100 bb each yr to make them more competitive
	The least dev nations have no means w/ which to subsidize their industries at the level the dev nations do
	When forced to open their mkts to products from rich nations backed by govt subsidies, they cannot compete
	When left to themselves, world mkt forces can make people in some nations poorer than they otherwise would be
	A free world mkt where global corps can come & go at will, & w/o controls on their behavior in poor nations, can increase pov & inequality in many if not most nations

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Outline on the Dysfunctions of Global Corps

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RESEARCH ON WORLD SYS THEORY DEMONSTRATES THAT AID & INVESTMENT FROM CORE TO PERIPHERAL NATIONS CREATES SHORT, BUT NOT LONG TERM GROWTH

Soon after the utility of the mod world sys theory became recognized in the 1970s, it generated an impressive amt of research, most showing consistent results

One important question is whether less dev nations have less long term econ growth when they become tied to global crops from the dev nations

Several studies show that peripheral nations that have extensive aid & investment from the core do have less long term econ growth (Chase-Dunn, 1975, 1989; Bornschier & Chase-Dunn, 1985; Bornschier, et al, 1978; Snyder & Kick, 1979; Stokes & Jaffee, 1982; Nolan, 1983a, 1983b)

The less dev nations receiving global corp investments tend to have some econ growth in the short term, but longer term prospects are actually harmed by the kinds of outside aid & investment these nations receive

RECENT RESEARCH SHOWS CONTRADICTORY RESULTS ON THE INFLUENCE OF CORP INVESTING IN THE PERIPHERY

One study found extensive global corp investment produces some positive econ growth in the long term, while another study finds outside investment results in more long term econ growth

Other studies show that outside corp investment in poor nations does not lead to less econ dev when consideration is taken for the the types of goods imported from or exported to the poor nations

Other studies have found that corp investment in the periphery increases income inequality & lowers the standard of living among the poor masses of people in many nations

These studies suggest there is a complex relationship btwn global corps investment & income inequality & thus the types of investments, gov structures, debt structure, ownership, etc, all interact in a complex manner resulting in some poor nations experiencing income growth while others do not

INVESTMENTS IN HI TECH INDUSTRIES IN PERIPHERAL NATIONS SEEMS TO BE MORE ADVANTAGEOUS THAN TRADITIONAL INDUSTRIAL INVESTMENT

Today there is more direct foreign investments in tech industries going to developing nations

There is evidence that hi tech investments leads to more sustainable econ growth for these nations than previous low tech investments

W/ the cold war over & dev nations focused more on profits & less on fighting communism, some undeveloped nations are courted by developed nations giving the undeveloped nations more leverage when playing one dev nation or global corp off against another

	CLEARLY, SOME INVESTMENT IN PERIPHERAL NATIONS HAS RESULTED IN LONG TERM GROWTH
	A statistically significant relationship btwn global investment at one pt in time & slower econ growth at a later time, 10 yrs later, means that most nations w/ heavy amts of global corp investments have reduced econ growth rates later, but it does not mean this happens in all nations, only that there is a tendency for it to occur when looking at a sample of 100 nations
	Some nations w/in a sample have hi levels of outside global corp investments & strong econ growth in later yrs
	Nations w/ growth are outliers in the sense that they are located on the margins of where the other nations line up on the variables
	So it is both the typical investments & nations as well as the outlier investments & nations that must be examined to determine how the factors in these social relationships function to produce no growth, or growth

	WORLD SYS THEORY SHOWS THAT INVESTMENTS IN PERIPHERAL NATIONS DO NOT ALWAYS CREATE ECON DEV, BUT THE THEORY NEEDS TO BE EXPANDED TO EXPOSE THE FACTORS THAT PRODUCE DIFFERING OUTCOMES AMONG THESE NATIONS
	Durkheim assumed there are 'natural laws' of human behavior & social org that span across all societies & then showed how these laws might be discovered in his work Suicide in 1897
	Research uncovers important tendencies across nations, but at the same time much of the detail about what is happening w/in each nation is ignored
	Thus world sys theory can show that global investments do not necessarily create econ growth in the host nations, but it does not reveal 'internal processes' w/in nations that help produce differing outcomes among these nations w/ the same level of outside global investments
	ONLY A MULTI DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS CAN REVEAL THE INTERPLAY OF THE FACTORS THAT ENCOURAGE OR DISCOURAGE ECON DEV
	Weber's research rejects single dimensional analyses & recognizes that all social phenomenon have a complex & unique combination of historical forces interacting to produce important outcomes
	Weber recognized that a certain outcome could have varied causes in differing nations
	A unique historical & comparative analysis of specific nations or grps of similar nations is suited to detect important differences w/in nations or grps of nations that affect their chances for econ dev
	Research on econ dev should not rely solely on numbers or things that can be easily measure, it must also utilize details about each particular case such as how a nation's political sys operates, or the past effects of colonialism

	GLOBAL CORP INVESTMENTS HAVE HAD DIFFERENT EFFECTS IN DIFFERENT: HISTORIC TIMES, NATIONS, TYPES OF INDUSTRIES, MKT CONDITIONS, & MORE
	Global corp investments have different effect in different parts of the world
	There are different outcomes from global corp investments going to Asian nations in contrast to L Am or African nations
	During the 80s & 90s most east & SE nations experienced rapid econ growth while growth in L Am was slower, & even slower yet in most African nations
	More global corp investment has gone to Asian nations than all other poor nations since the 1980s
	Nations w/ more human capital, eg a more educated pop, are able to use global corp investment for positive long term econ growth

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Outline on the World System Effects on Non Core Stratification Systems

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THE POSITION OF NON CORE NATIONS IN THE WORLD SYS HAS AN IMPACT ON: THE POWER OF THE ELITES, WKING CLASS POWER, THE POLITICAL SYS, THE LEVEL OF INCOME INEQUALITY, & MORE

The position of non core nations in the world sys has an impact on
A. the existence & power of a small grp of elites
B. the degree of wking class powerlessness
C. the type of political sys maintained
D. the level of income inequality w/in non core nations

The power of elites, wking class powerlessness, the pol sys, & the level of inequality are central aspects of the overall strat sys w/in a nation

The power of elites, wking class powerlessness, the pol sys, & the level of inequality are interrelated & influence other conditions such as a lack of evenly dist econ dev, inequalities of ownership & wealth, health & health care, soc services, opportunities for soc mobility, & more

	FOR AN ECON TO SUCCESSFULLY DEVELOP, THE NUMBER & TYPE OF OCCUPATIONS MUST INCREASE
	Following Lenski, it is important to describe change in the degree of material inequality as societies move from agrarian, or less econ dev societies to industrialism
	There is a strong tendency for inequality to be reduced once nations become fully industrialized
	The Asian difference of very low income inequality even at lower levels of econ dev, has not been recognized in all research
	The relations btwn econ dev & less inequality remains strong even when the possible effects on inequality from other variables such as type of pol sys are not examined
	For Lenski an important factor impacting inequality is the occupational structure, which expands as econs dev, ie more different types of occupations are created
	As new & different types of occupations are dev as industrialism develops, a larger % of these occupations are in the mid income range
	More occupations in industrialized societies require more knowledge & skills thus producing a greater range of econ rewards

	THE ACTIONS OF THE CORE IMPACT HOW PERIPHERAL NATIONS DEVELOP, ESP TRADE POLICIES & THE NATURE OF INVESTMENT BY GLOBAL CORPS
	For many peripheral nations the major factors impacting them have to do w/ core nations who dominate the modern world sys
	The factors impacting the peripheral nations slow or block their long term econ dev, prolonging or making permanent the high levels of inequality that are characteristic of pre industrial nations
	THE CONTINUAL CLASS STRUGGLE BTWN THE UC & THE LOWER CLASSES IMPACTS ECON DEV
	The internal class relations shaped by the world sys influence income inequality & other aspects of domestic strat
	The power of elites in non core societies is often focused on keeping global corps in the nation, primarily b/c their favored econ position is dependent on global investment & trade
	One outcome of domestic elite ties to global corps is that wages are kept low to attract global investment & trade
	Domestic elites work to keep corp taxes & other duties low to attract global corps but also keeps govt redistribution to the poor very low
	IN MOST PERIPHERAL NATIONS, THE WKING & LOWER CLASSES ARE NEARLY POWERLESS
	The power of the wking & lower classes in peripheral nations is very low
	Industrial wkrs are a smaller proportion of the labor force & are kept unorganized b/c unions are usually lacking or very weak due to repression, while ag wkrs are often isolated, unorganized, & powerless
	The weakness of the lower class of peripheral nations b/c of lack of power, has little political or econ influence
	The state bureaucratic structures, which could help produce less income inequality, are usually dominated by wealthy elites, domestic or core
	The ultimate effect of a powerless lower class in peripheral nations is a very low level of democracy, w/ the state wking to serve the interests of elites rather than other classes

	AID TO PERIPHERAL NATIONS CAN RESULT IN THE BURDEN OF HIGH LEVELS OF DEBT WHICH THE GOVT/PEOPLE MUST REPAY TO: THE IMF, THE WB, PRIVATE BANKS, CORE NATIONS' GOVTS, & OTHERS
	Both heavy foreign debt dependency are related to greater income inequality
	In peripheral nations w/ more foreign investment in the econ & grater debt dependence on the core, the top 5 % of the pop have a higher income
	A small elite is formed in peripheral nations that depends on core global corps & that has strong interests in continued core domination
	Rubinson, 1976, found that the conditions that were related to greater income inequality in peripheral nations include a higher degree of: foreign control over internal econ production, dependence on external mkts, & foreign debt dependence in the econ
	The poorer & less dev nations have a reality not faced by today's dev nations when they were in their process of development many yrs ago
	The new reality for less developed nations is the imposing influence of core or already dev nations
	Bornschier, 1978, found that greater foreign investment & greater aid or debt dependency in a non core nation produces more income inequality

	MANY FACTORS OF THE POL SYS IMPACT ECON DEV: THE ED SYS, POP GROWTH, THE SAFETY NET, THE LEVEL OF DEMOCRACY IN THE POL SYS, & MORE
	Nielsen, 1994, found that other factors impacting econ dev & inequality are the ed sys, pop growth, the occupational structure, & more
	When a small but wealthy & powerful elite is able to dominate the state, there is less democracy & less state aid to reduce income inequality
	Democratic performance of the state was related independently to the degree of income inequality; that is, less democracy was related to greater income inequality
	Several factors related to the pol sys are important in producing class divisions & shaping the nature of soc strat, including: a. the property structure, ie ownership or non ownership of the means of production, b. bureaucratic authority structures, c. the occupational structure d. the ed sys, & others
	a. Bornschier & Ballmer-Cao, 1979, found that greater global corp investment in the non core econ is related to more income inequality
	b. The less bureaucratic dev in the non core nations was related to greater income inequality
	W/ fewer ranks w/in bureaucratic power structure or a greater separation btwn bureaucratic elites & the masses, there is greater income inequality
	When there is more global corp influence in the nation, state resources are used to help industry more than to meet the needs of the poor, demonstrating the influence of class interests on state behavior
	c. The less dev occupational structure in non core societies is related to greater income inequality
	The less dev occupational structure was indicated by fewer tech experts & a smaller, powerless, & controlled industrial labor force
	Internal class processes which impact occupational structure as structured by the pol sys can help or hinder income inequality
	d. Whether the elites & the govt they usually dominate in the peripheral nations funds an effective ed sys for the lower & working classes is usually a clear decision, but when they choose not to fund it, it is obfuscated
	The clearest road to econ dev that is widespread & robust in a peripheral nation is the education of the populace
	A lack of an effective ed sys, indicates that the elites do not support econ dev for the people

	THE LACK OF ECON DEV OF PERIPHERAL NATIONS IS A FUNCTION OF THE EFFORTS, OR LACK OF EFFORTS OF LOCAL & GLOBAL ELITES WHO OFTEN WOULD PREFER TO MAINTAIN THEIR POWER RATHER THAN SEE WIDESPREAD DEV
	B/c of the unequal exchange & power relation btwn core & peripheral nations, core nations are favored
	Benefits flowing to core nations are not equally dist w/in core nations, & the wking class in core nations is harmed by core dominance
	For corp elites in core nations, there are greater profits, cheap raw materials, & a mkt for export, all of which strengthen core econs
	Some benefits of globalization trickle down to non elites in core nations in the form of a higher standard of living & cheaper consumer goods
	Walmart is a good example of trickle down costs & benefits of the world sys to wkrs b/c Walmart wages & benefits are low, while their products are cheap
Link	The Figure of the World Sys Influences on Internal Strat in Non Core Nations demonstrates the influences of the core nations may create more or less inequality, depending on the polices they choose in relation to the occupation structure, democracy, elite over bureaucratic rule, & concentrated ownership
	The negative effects for core non elites include the million + jobs lost b/c of global corp moves to peripheral nations w/ cheap labor
	Corp investment in poor nations have reduced the wages of wkrs in core nations b/c they are more in competition w/ low wage wkrs in peripheral nations
	The military costs of maintaining core dominance are large & are never factored into corp calculations
Link	The Figure of the Means of Core Dominance & Its Outcomes for Core & Periphery Nations demonstrates that a complete analysis of the world sys must include the effects on core & non core nations, esp in terms of control of raw materials, control of econ surplus, cap investment, debt dependence, aid dependence, trade dependencies, pol & mil influence, control of the mkt, & control of the finished products
	Some non elites in core nations attempt to resist core dominance just as some try to resist in peripheral nations
	Many Asian nations have avoided the worst effects of the world sys on long term econ dev, & are in the process of developing a significant mid class
	As the mid class develops in these Asian nations they will both advocate for more power & benefits as well as be more likely to experience some of the negative effects, ie losing jobs to cheaper labor mkts, & more

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The Figure of the World Sys Influences on Internal Strat in Non Core Nations

The Figure of the World Sys Influences on Internal Strat in Non Core Nations demonstrates the influences of the core nations may create more or less inequality, depending on the polices they choose in relation to the occupation structure, democracy, elite over bureaucratic rule, & concentrated ownership

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The Figure of the Means of Core Dominance & Its Outcomes for Core & Periphery Nations

The Figure of the Means of Core Dominance & Its Outcomes for Core & Periphery Nations demonstrates that a complete analysis of the world sys must include the effects on core & non core nations, esp in terms of control of raw materials, control of econ surplus, cap investment, debt dependence, aid dependence, trade dependencies, pol & mil influence, control of the mkt, & control of the finished products

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Outline on the Characteristics of the Rise East & SE Asian Nations

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THERE ARE HIGH LEVELS OF GLOBAL CORP INVESTMENT IN E & SE ASIA

The nations of E & SE Asia include Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, & Myanmar

In much of E & SE Asia, global corps from the major core nations are widespread

In Seoul, Taipei, Bangkok, the special econ zones of China the number of bldings & logos of global corps form the US, Japan, Germany, France, & a few others of Western industrial powers are as common a site as as in the core nations themselves

In the major cities of E & SE Asia, massive construction projects / econ dev is in progress including the construction of the tallest bldings in the world, the most advanced / fastest commuter rail sys, water projects, coal fired power plants, & more

Much of the econ dev in E & SE Asia if comparatively evenly dist, reducing pov in the country as much as in the cities

Through most of the 90s & 00s the nations of E & SE Asia had the highest rates of econ growth in the world

W/ the core nations in No Am & Euro experiencing 2 to 3 % growth in good yrs, many of the E & SE Asian nations were often growing at 10 % or more annually

	THE 'ASIAN TIGERS' OF E & SE ASIA HAVE MORE, & MORE EVEN ECON DEV THAN OTHER NON CORE REGIONS
	Unlike other peripheral nations trying to dev econ, E & SE Asia, eg Korea, Taiwan, China, Thailand, & Malaysia, have less uneven dev compared to L Am
	Inequality increased in China as the econ boom raced along in the 1900s & 2000s, but this econ inequality is not b/c the rich are getting richer & the poor are getting poorer; it is b/c the rich are getting richer faster than the poor are becoming less poor
	Infrastructure investment & open mkts are making the rural people less poor, & acct for most of the pov reduction in China & much the same can be said for SE Asian nations that are reducing pov
	Even though inequality is rising, though not to US levels, lower income people are seeing many benefits
	Uneven dev, which causes more inequality & poverty, is the big problem of most nations in L Am & Africa
	There are homeless people from places such as rural NE Thailand around Bangkok, but there is much less than in L Am, Africa, or India
	Econ growth among the 'Asian tigers' produces jobs, & the labor shortages in many SE Asian nations brings up average wages
	In L Am by contrast, even though there is significant econ growth in the 90s & 00s unemployment & pov continued to rise, as does inequality
	Only E & SE Asia have a strong record of reducing extreme pov & continue this trend in coming yrs
	In L Am there has been almost no pov reduction in the last 20 yrs, & in Africa pov is expected to increase dramatically in coming yrs

	THE ASIAN ECON CRISIS OF 1997 WAS SEEN AS BEING CAUSED BY FINANCIAL SPECULATION
	Beginning in July of 97, many E & SE Asian nations were hit by the Asian econ crisis
	Econ growth slowed dramatically in So Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, & Malaysia
	In some E & SE Asian nations, eg Thailand, the 90s had earlier brought some increasing inequality w/ the econ dec, though the level of pov kept falling
	By the end of 99, the econs of E & SE Asia were moving upward again
	The Asian econ crisis was the result of 'golf course capitalist boom' fueled by too much money in the hands of corrupt financial elites in these nations
	By 99 the govt of Thailand, So Korea, & Malaysia had greater control of the failed financial instit & made econ adjustments that restarted the Asia econs toward the 21st C predicted to be dominated by Asia

	CHINA IS THE DOMINANT ECON & MILITARY FORCE IN THE REGION & THUS OTHER NATIONS STRUGGLE TO MAINTAIN FAVORABLE RELATION, & RESIST DOMINATION
	Investment & econ ties from core nations are not supposed to harm the econs of peripheral nations & create more inequality & pov, but sometimes they do
	Taiwan & other E & SE Asian nation have a strong state which is more involved w/ econ planning, & more concerned w/ domestic econ dev for the nation as a whole, not just for a grp of elites & a small mid class, as is typical of many peripheral nations
	For several decades the Taiwanese state has had influence & motivation, & has been wking to ensure that global corps do not harm the domestic econ
	Contemporary Taiwanese policies emerged after the Nationalist Party of China, fleeing Mao's revolution on mainland China in 1949 took control of the island
	Learning from past mistakes on the mainland, Taiwan helped ensure long term econ dev & regained popular support which had been lost during the communist takeover
	The strong Taiwanese state was supported by the US as a showcase against communism which brought special benefits
	Land redistribution made consumers of the farmers making up the majority of the pop, & the ag infrastructure created by the Japanese from 1895 to 1945 both enhanced Taiwan's econ dev

	SO KOREA & OTHER E & SE NATIONS ARE NOTEWORTHY ECON ENGINES IN THE REGION
	Other nations such as So Korea have also had a strong state active in econ planning, low inequality helped by land redistribution, & an econ infrastructure started by Japanese occupation in the 1st half of the 1900s
	Other nations such as Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, & now China are experiencing econ dev which helps all classes

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Outline on the Cultural Explanations for the Rise of E & SE Asian Nations

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IT IS DIFFICULT FOR PEOPLE TO UNDERSTAND THE CULTURAL REASONS FOR POVERTY OR WEALTH B/C OF THEIR OWN CULTURAL IMPERIALISM

Cultural explanations are perhaps the most popular common knowledge based explanation of the rise of the E & SE Asian nations, ie the 'Asian Tigers'

Often people who are doing well in core or non core nations wonder 'What is wrong w/ those people?'

Comfortable people in rich nations know they themselves have wked hard for what they have achieved

The more affluent tend to judge others from realities of their own lives, form the logic of how human behavior brings rewards & punishment in their own day to day interactions

As many surveys demonstrate, many people in the US tend to blame the poor for their poverty

A culture of poverty theory is most popular in the US b/c it complies w/ these assumptions of blaming the poor for their pov b/c of 'irresponsible & lazy' behavior

When looking beyond rich nations, it is even more difficult for the affluent of this world to understand the everyday realities & options of the world's poor

	THE RISE OF THE ASIAN TIGERS HAS BROUGHT A RESURGENCE OF CULTURAL EXPLANATIONS FOR WEALTH
	Cultural explanations for pov & world pov have reemerged in recent yrs, esp since the WTO protests in seattle during the fall of 1990 placed blame directly on rich nations & corps themselves
	Harrison wrote Underdevelopment IS a State of Mind, 1985, which was critical of dependency theory & Spanish Catholic vals inherited by L Am nations (updated & reissued in 2000)
	Huntington collaborated w/ Harrison on Culture Matters: How Vals Shape Human Progress, 2000,
	The WB picked up the theme of cultural barriers to econ development, pouring millions into new books, intl conferences, & aid projects in developing nations designed to change cul vals believed to be detrimental to econ dev
	Traditional values in developing nations can have negative effects on econ dev
	There can be impediments to econ dev from present time orientations an an inability to save & plan for the future just as w/ the cul of pov explanations for domestic pov
	Most theorists recognize that econ dev is best served when mod trads of time mgt, a work ethic, equal opportunity, an acceptance of a mid class life style, at least limited democracy, & others are combined more or less w/o conflict w/ trad vals
	Just as the cul of pov theory in the US neglected structural barriers to getting out of pov, & how the present situation of people has only a short term effect on their attitudes; other factors related to econ opportunities in poor nations are more imp
	Much of the same critique against the cul of pov theory in the US fits the cul explanations for world pov
	THE CUL EXPLANATION CAN BE ONLY PART OF THE STORY OF THE SUCCESS OF E & SE REGION B/C THE CULTURE VARY SO MUCH, INCLUDING: ISLAM, BUDDHISM, CONFUCIANISM, & SIGNIFICANT OTHER MINORITY CULTURES
	In the intl context there is a problem w/ the Asian vals many claim are responsible for the Asian econ miracles in recent decades
	Not all the successful E & SE Asian nations have these Asian vals claimed most imp & some nations w/ the Asian vals have not achieved significant econ dev or much pov reductions
	W/in SE Asia Malaysia, the most econ adv nation in the region, is a majority Islamic population, as is Indonesia, which has achieved considerable econ growth in recent decades
	In the northern half of SE Asia, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, & Thailand have almost identical Theravada Buddhist cultural heritages
	Thailand has one of the best records of pov reduction & econ dev in the world
	Burma, Laos, & Cambodia are among the poorest nations in the world w/ still no prospects of moving out of that status
	Vietnam is the only nation in SE Asia w/ the type of Asian vals most often cited as encouraging econ dev: a mix of Confucianism & Buddhism imported from China centuries ago
	Vietnam is only now starting on the road to econ dev after being among the poorest nations in the world like its neighbors: Laos & Cambodia
	In addition to cultural explanations, there are obviously other factors related to world strat through hist that strongly affect why some nations are able to dev & others are not, even w/ the same cultural traditions shaping their current value orientations

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Outline on Some Commonalities of Asian Traditions & Forms of Soc Org

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ASIAN NATIONS ARE RACIALLY HOMOGENOUS, BUT ETHNIC, CULTURAL, ECON, HIST DIVERSITY IS HIGH

There is a great amt of diversity in Asian nations in terms culture, econ sys, hist traditions, & ethnicity, even if they are racially homogenous

W/in this diversity there are some characteristics of Asian societies that have had significant econ dev even w/ the outside intervention from the mod world sys found harmful to other nations

	*E & SE ASIAN NATIONS HAVE ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS W/ CULTURES THAT SEEM* HARMONIOUS, TODAY, W/ ECON DEV**
	People who live in nations w/ ancient civilizations have a stronger identity w/ & pride in their nation & recognize their common natl interests
	The Hanoi Temple of Literature is 1000 yrs old, & thus older than Oxford Un in the UK or University of Salamanca in Spain
	L Am & Africa contained ancient civs, but by & large these civs have not survived to the mod era
	About all that exists of the ancient civs in So & Cen Am are the stone pyramids
	Just a few hundred yrs ago, Euros created new national boundaries through colonialism so that the the nations of So & Cen Am are nominally only 300 yrs old
	The people in Cen & So Am are descendants of people from ancient civs such as the Maya & Incas but it is the ancestors of recent immigrants from Euro during the Spanish & Portuguese colonial period wo are mostly in control
	There are fractured nations where the people of Euro descent feel less identity w/ the original people & thus are less likely to promote dev & pov reduction for all the people
	In Africa there is ancient civ & the cradle of human evol, but except for a few cases in No Africa & the horn of Africa, these old civs were mostly destroyed, & finally erased in one sense by the Euro colonialists
	W/ the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, the Euros partitioned Africa into what would become nations that make no sense socially, culturally, or ethnically
	The colonial partition by Euro is the roots of African pol instability today w/ tribal conflicts helping to spark some civil wars, & these are also impacted by the radical / mainstream conflict in Islam
	In contrast to L Am & Africa, nations throughout most of Asia come from or were central parts of ancient civs
	Chinese & Indian civs were predominant ancient civs, but most Asian nations today have strong roots in ancient civs
	Colonialism is Asia was less likely to result in new nations w/ boundaries cutting across old civs or ethnic grps
	Most Asian nations today are more likely to make 'sociological sense' w/ respect to rather natural societal boundaries (Myrdal, 1968)

	IN GENERAL, THE MORE THE CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN THE E & SE ASIAN NATIONS, THE MORE DIFFICULT THE ECON DEV
	There are Asian nations that do not fit the commonality of a predominant culture, & many of these are the nations w/ the most instability & the least econ dev
	Indonesia has the highest levels of pol violence since the end of the 90s, & a once healthy econ has been harmed
	Indonesia is a collection of many old civs put together by the Dutch during their colonial dominance of the region
	Laos, one of the poorest nations in SE Asia today, was a product of the end of Fr colonialism in Indochina
	Laos was created by the Fr out of smaller kingdoms existing before colonialism
	The national boundaries of Myanmar, formerly Burma, were constructed out of British colonialism
	Myanmar, since independence, has been contested territory w/ various grps all seeking independence / freedom
	Cambodia was once the center of an ancient empire, but is just now regaining some stability after the Indochina wars involving the Fr, then the Japanese, then the Fr again, & then the US
	The Philippines is a the nation w/ the least claim to an ancient civ & was the most dominated & changed by colonialists from Spain & the US
	The Philippines encompass Muslim areas among the dominate Christian areas creating an Islamic separatist rebellion
	Malaysia was formed out of many Islamic sultanates & is fairly culturally homogeneous & developed

	FOR E & SE ASIAN NATIONS, 'GOOD GOVERNANCE' MEANS SOME DEMOCRACY W/ SOME AUTHORITARIAN DIRECTION TOWARDS MODERNISM, ALL OF WHICH LEADS TO ECON DEV, THE FOUNDATION OF A MID CLASS, POV REDUCTION, & POL STABILITY
	What the World Bank (WB) calls 'good governance' is important for pov reduction, econ dev, stability, & success in the world econ sys
	Many studies show that good govt is correlated w/ pov reduction & econ dev in less dev nations (Kerbo, 2006)
	But no one has figured out how to produce good govt if a nation doesn't already have it
	Nations w/ ancient civs are more likely to have some functional govt instits before Euro colonials invaded 300 yrs ago
	Nations w/ ancient civs were better able to reestb better govt after the colonials were forced to give the nation independence

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Outline on Traditions of Authority & Elite Responsibility in SE Asian Nations

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ELITES FROM NATIONS W/ TRADITIONAL RIGHTS & OBLIGATIONS WILL SOMETIMES LIMIT THE EXPOSURE OF THE PEOPLE TO GLOBAL CORPS

In addition to a sense of natl identity, the older civs of Asia are more likely to have retained ancient trads of authority, natl identity, & elite responsibility

For Myrdal, (1968) Euro colonialism was less likely to harm indigenous sys of rights & obligations among the pop

Outside intervention by global corps often results in powerful elites enriching themselves at the expense of econ dev & the continued pov of the people

Nations w/ trad of rights & obligations in place, when faced w/ the dilemma of pleasing global corps or pushing for protection & benefits for the nation & a common people, often have elites that will temper their narrower self interest to protect the nation & people

	ELITES MAY IGNORE TRADITIONAL RIGHTS & OBLIGATIONS, BUT THIS IS RISKY & MAY DAMAGE THEIR CREDIBILITY & AUTHORITY W/ THE PEOPLE, & THEREFORE RESULT IN A LOSS OF POWER
	Elites from nations w/ ancient civs sometimes ignore these trads of elite responsibility, both they do so at their own peril
	Barrington Moore's Injustice: The Soc Bases of Obedience & Revolt, (1978) found that when elite obligations are violated various types of protest or even rev were likely to occur
	For Moore, the obligations most imp for elites to uphold include: a. protection from outside forces b. internal peace & order c. material security
	Charles Tilly's work on authority & pol violence corroborated Moore's thesis (1975, 1978, 1981)

	MANY ANCIENT E & SE ASIAN NATIONS HAVE THE TRADITION OF THE 'HEAVENLY MANDATE' FOR RULERS, WHICH WAS A MANDATE OF RESPONSIBILITY TO THE PEOPLE
	Reinhard Bendix noted that in Asia from at least 2000 BC there was the idea of a 'heavenly mandate' for emperors in China
	Emperors were obligated to take care of the nation & perform, in a sense, or the mandate would be lost
	The earlier emperors were believed to deserve their rule b/c they alone had the power to control ancestor spirits for the good of the nation
	About 500 BC, Confucius wked out his phil of rights & obligations btwn rulers & subjects in response to a preceding period of almost 200 yrs of social disorder
	Old trads of rts & obligations in China held the nation more or less together & maintained emperor rule for centuries until the emperors had difficulty meeting their obligations w/ soc change & Euro colonialism beginning around 1800
	These changes led to massive rev in China during the 1900s resulting in communist China which evolved into the Asian Tiger we know today at the 2nd largest econ

	THE TRADITIONS OF ELITE OBLIGATIONS HAD A DIFFICULT TIME SURVIVING EURO COLONIALISM & ARE HAVING DIFFICULTY SURVIVING MODERN MKT CONDITIONS
	Most kingdoms in SE Asia are younger than those of India & China, but still centuries old
	Some imp kingdoms include those found in Cambodia, Sumatra, & Myanmar
	Like other Asian empires, these Buddhist kingdoms along w/ Vietnam's Confucian model inherited from china, had strong trads of obligations & rts dev & amended over the centuries
	Most of the trads of elite obligations survived Euro colonialism, though there are some exceptions such as the Philippines which was dominated by Spanish rule

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Outline on the Influence of the Strength of the State in SE Asian Nations

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'SOFT STATES' ARE THOSE THAT REQUIRE LITTLE OF THEIR CITIZENS & DO NOT OFFER MUCH IN THE FORM OF: INTERVENTION IN THE ECON, A SAFETY NET, BUREAUCRACY, POLICING, & MORE

Myrdal notes that in south Asia, govts require little of their citizens in that there are few obligations either to do things in the interest of the community or to avoid actions opposed to that interest

Myrdal was discussing the 'soft states,' ie those w/ weak govts after British colonialism, of India, Pakistan, & Ceylon

Myrdal saw how harmful it was when global corps spread rapidly in poor nations w/ weak govts in the early 60s

Myrdal recognized that the strength of the state was one of the most important aspects of econ dev

	ALL DEV NATIONS HAVE REQUIRED SOME STATE INTERVENTION IN THE ECON, & TODAY'S DEV NATIONS REQUIRE EXTENSIVE STATE INTERVENTION
	Myrdal & others saw that late developing nations often require extensive state intervention, planning, & even state ownership of many industries
	Many German territories were not even united into a single nation until the late 1800s under Bismarck
	Already behind most of Euro by this time, the German state used state intervention in the econ in the form of planning, state directed loans, econ incentives to businesses, & extensive govt ownership of corps
	Nations trying to dev in the 2nd half of the 20th C are called late, late, developers & are in even more need of state assistance in overcoming obstacles created for them by the new global econ
	The 'four Asian tigers' of Taiwan, So Korea, Hong Kong, & Singapore achieved rapid econ growth in the 80s w/ extensive state intervention
	It was Japan that led the way as an Asian late dev nation w/ extensive state intervention from the late 1800s to become the 2nd largest econ power, just behind the US (until China took 2nd in 2013)
	It was Japan that more or less perfected what is now know as the Asian dev model, copied by many S & SE Asian nations

	STRONG STATES HAVE: RATIONAL ORGS, POWER, LEADERSHIP, BUREAUCRACY, & MORE
	A strong state is one w/ sufficient rational orgl & power to achieve its dev goals
	There must be a state w/ the ability to provide consistent econ guidance, rat org to efficiently achieve its goals, & the power to back up its long range econ policies
	Most importantly, the state must be able to: - resist external demands from outside corps - eschew short term gain; focus on long term gains - overcome resistance from strong internal & external elites - reduce corruption - control infighting w/in the nation over who will benefit from econ dev
	The strong state needs leadership & bureaucracy that is comparatively honest, efficient, & has the power to back up policy decisions

	THE TRAD OF THE ASIAN NATIONS COINCIDE W/ THE FUNCTION OF THE STRONG STATE
	The characteristics of Asian nations make a strong state more likely to occur in E & SE Asia
	B/c of ancient trades & a sense of identification w/ their nations & its govt, people embrace their common interests as a nation & are will to sacrifice for their common interests
	W/ restraints from ancient trads of obligations to the nation & people, elites in these nations are also more likely to restrain their selfish interests & use their power to protect the long term interests of their nation & people

	THE WEBERIANNESS SCALE MEASURE THE STRENGTH OF THE STRONG STATE, & IT FINDS THAT MANY ASIAN NATIONS RANK HI ON THE WEBERIANNESS SCALE & THE STRONG STATE
	Evan & Rauch, 1999, created their Weberianness Scale which measured the characteristics of rational & efficient bureaucratic orgs defined in the works of Weber in the mid 1800s
	Evan & Rauch found that of the 37 nations in the sample, 7 were Asian, & they all ranked above average on their Weberianness Scale, w/ the exception of the Philippines, while the 4 tigers, ie Taiwan, So Korea, Hon Kong, & Singapore, clustered at the top 4 positions
	The Weberianness Scale positively related to econ dev

	STRONG STATES ARE NOT DICTATORSHIPS, STRONG STATES WHICH FOSTER ECON DEV SUPPORT AT THE LEAST, LIMITED DEMOCRACY
	A strong state as discussed here is not equated w/ a dictatorship or any form of totalitarian govt
	Generally a strong state in the sense of fostering econ dev has characteristics which abrogate or nullify totalitarian govt
	Military dictatorships in 3rd world nations often develop b/c the state is unable to provide basic support for the health, welfare, & infrastructure needed by the nation
	It is in response to the resulting political instability that an oppressive military dictatorship may come into existence, such as in Myanmar today
	A strong state can be right wing, left wing, repressive, or relatively democratic
	A strong state is a state able to implement & carry out policies protecting national interests, thus giving more assurance of long term econ dev

	GLOBAL REGULATORY INSTITS TRYING TO AID PERIPHERAL NATIONS EXPERIENCE ECON DEV ARE BEGINNING TO RECOGNIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF 'GOOD GOVERNANCE'
	Despite all the evidence supporting the concept of the strong state for econ dev by Myrdal in the 60s, many intl agencies still do not seem to recognize these characteristics, & in fact the US seems to have ignored them in both Afghanistan & Iraq, as well as in the other nations it supports through econ dev aid
	The concept of the strong state is paid lip service in such agencies as the UN, in its report in April of 2000, Overcoming Human Poverty: UNDP Poverty Report, 2000
	Overcoming Human Poverty, 2000, focuses on 'good governance' in poor nations as a key to econ dev & overcoming the selfish interests of wealthy elites often behind state actions in developing nations
	Overcoming Human Poverty, 2000, concludes that w/o good govt, reliance on trick down econ dev & a host of other strats will not work
	It has take time for Western dominated intl dev agencies & govts to acknowledge that bad governing & collusion btwn Western global corps & 3rd world govts have been part of the problem
	In fact there is resistance to the characteristics of the strong state b/c this is an obstacle to control by global corps

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Outline on the Case of Thailand's Economic Development

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THAILAND HAS EXPERIENCED ECON DEV, POV REDUCTION, & FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT

Thailand has a steady record of not only econ dev, but also pov reduction

Thailand's growth & pov reduction coincided w/ foreign direct investment (FDI) from global corps

Thailand has brought up the overall standard of living, & the bottom econ grp has been reduced even more

The typical dev nation sows disparities in standards of living btwn rural & urban people, but in Thailand, this disparity is less; the pov rate is 10 % in urban areas & 15 % in rural areas

	HISTORICALLY, THAILAND WAS POPULATED BY CHINESE, THEN COLONIZED BY THE FRENCH, EARLY INDEPENDENT THAILAND HAD A MIX OF MILITARY & POPULAR RULERS, & TODAY THE STRUGGLE IS BTWN AN OLD ELITE & DEMOCRATIC MVMTS
	Thai ethnic people from south China populated Thailand over 2000 yrs ago
	During the 1800s both Thailand & Vietnam became regional dominants
	Then came the threat of colonialism
	From 1850 to the turn of the century, Thailand began its transformation into a mod nation state
	The Western powers, esp Britain, forced the integration of Thailand into the Western dominated econ sys
	The Fr stripped away Thai territory to form Laos & Cambodia
	In 1932 a military coup overthrew the monarchy & turned over exec functions to govt ministry bureaucrats
	In 2006, w/ the backing of this bureaucratic elite & the old royalty, another military coup deposed the govt of PM Thaksin
	Thaksin was a US educated sociologist who became a billionaire, who threatened the power base of the bureaucratic elite & the old royalty
	Thaksin had programs for the rural & wking class poor to gain their support in elections
	The problem for the non elected elite was that Thaksin became more powerful & helped himself & his circle to become more wealthy
	Thaksin was reducing restrictions on global corps, restrictions the elite believe were needed to help long term growth
	After the coup of 2006, the ruling elites rewrote the Thai constitution taking out some of the measures promoting more democracy , such as full popular election of the upper house of parliament
	The red shirt mvmt opposed the coup & the attack on democracy
	The yellow shirts made up of ed urb elite opposed democracy & rural influence, all of which produced increase political violence in Thailand in 2010
	Thailand achieved its econ dev & relatively low poverty rate under a strong state beginning a few decades ago

	IT IS MORE LIKELY THAT ECON DEV ENHANCES DEMOCRACY, THAN VICE VERSA, THOUGH THERE IS SOME CAUSAL INFLUENCE IN BOTH DIRECTIONS
	Western style democracy is not necessary related to econ dev & pov reduction
	There is a correlation btwn econ dev & dem, but the causal direction is from a longer history of high levels of econ dev to dem
	When people become more affluent & better ed, they demand more democracy, freedom, rights, & power

	THAI DEVELOPMENT POLICIES FOSTERED ECON DEV IN RURAL AS WELL AS URBAN REGIONS
	For most nations trying to catch up the the West in the last 150 yrs, econ dev meant a focus on urb industry w/ surpluses extracted from peasants to fuel the ind expansion, as did Stalin, Japan & other similar dictatorships
	Thailand saw a peasant population as an opportunity & dev that opp by investing in agriculture
	The Rural Employment Generation Program gave each grp of village an annual grant that could be spent on ag dev, providing a bottom up approach to rural dev
	Thailand's 5 yr plan had a goal of econ dev evenly dist throughout the pop
	THAILAND HAD HIGH TARIFFS TO PROTECT THE DEVELOPING LOCAL INDUSTRIES
	The Thai policies told the global corps that any goods imported will have tariffs as high as 80 to 150 % to prevent these goods from competing w/ goods made in less efficient (at first) infant industries
	Thailand told auto mfrs that the tariff on imports would be 150 % but if they came to Thailand to create joint venture, they would get many forms of govt assistance
	THAILAND MOVED AWAY FROM AG TO PRODUCTION FOR EXPORT IN THE 80s
	It became evident that So Korea & Taiwan were the most successful nations in expanding their econs, & were going so by attracting foreign investments for mfr for exports
	By the 90s, Thailand was exporting hi tech electronic goods
	Thailand continued to protect its econ despite a high level of foreign investment
	Thai policies protected it from the mod wrld sys, which, w/o the protections that a strong state can enforce, long term econ growth & reduce pov
	Thai bureaucrats initiated rules such as those demanding a sufficient % of domestic content in goods mfr by global corp in Thailand & the famous 51 % rule where any foreign corp must form a joint venture w/ a Thai corp who will own at least 51 % of the company
	The result of the 51 % rule is that the company is better able to keep jobs & profits in the nation

	THAI PEASANTS BROUGHT POLITICAL ACTION TO PROTECT THEIR INTERESTS IN RURAL POOR AREAS AS WELL AS URBAN SLUMS
	Even before the red shirts in 2006 there was the protests in the 70s over econ dev policies
	By the mid 90s there were at least 2 rural protest mvmts each day
	As in most nations, esp in dev nations, there is often a rural urb split in political & econ interests
	The urb pop of Bangkok has become an increasing pol force but w/ rural peasants making up most of the pop & a large % of these people relatively well organized political, rural issues have been kept before the Thai politicians
	Pol mvmts in Thailand are influenced by a culture that did not have a strong sense of national boundaries
	The kingdoms of Pagan, Angkor (Cambodia), & Siam (Thailand), extended as far as their power to enforce rules over villages
	The peasants in many areas were relatively independent until one kingdom came in to press its claims
	The ruling kingdoms did not rule the villages directly; they provided a lifetime lease that could be passed to offspring but not sold or transferred to others
	In contrast to feudalism in Euro, L Am, Japan, & elsewhere in Asia, SE Asian peasants had their own land & had no feudal lord dominating them
	B/c of the traditions of independence & organizing, Thai peasants have brought successful pressure on the central govt to protect their interests in the process of econ dev
	Thailand continues to have low levels of land inequality
	Thai urb slum dwellers are better off that most urb slum dwellers around the wrld b/c Thai peasants continue to own land around their native villages & they are in the city to sell produce or work jobs to bring money back home

	THAILAND RETAINED WIDESPREAD PEASANT LAND OWNERSHIP
	Studies have shown that land reform policies that get more land to the cultivators themselves are one of the best ways to reduce pov
	When peasants & farmers own their own land, farming is more productive, ag is more labor intensive, which creates farm jobs, & small farmers & peasants are able to keep more of the profits
	While Thailand had policies which maintained widespread land ownership, other nations such as Japan after WW 2 have estb land equality after a high concentration of land ownership

	STRONG TRADITIONS OF NAT IDENTITY & ELITE RESPONSIBILITY RESULTED IN ELITE RESPONSIBILITY TO THE PEOPLE AS WELL AS TO THEMSELVES
	W/o traditions of national identity & elite responsibility, elites are tempted into siding w/ core global corps to make themselves rich
	Elite dominance makes it difficult for a strong state to develop the policies for long term & even econ growth & pov reduction
	Around the globe, colonialism destroyed natl identity & enriched elites at the expense of the peasants
	The most difficult prob in econ dev is creating the motivation to use econ policies that enrich an entire nation when the domestic elites tied to global corps find the status quo more conductive to their personal short term interests
	'GOOD GOV,' IE THE STRONG STATE, CULTURAL TRADITIONS OF PEASANT LAND OWNERSHIP & ELITE RESPONSIBILITY ARE ALL IMPORTANT IN FOSTERING ECON DEV
	The case of Thailand shows that cultural explanations have been overused in that Thailand's neighbors, ie Myanmar, Laos, & Cambodia, have identical cultural traditions but remain among the poorest nations in the world
	The UN & WB now stress that 'good governance' is a key to econ dev

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Outline on the Future of the World Stratification System

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- Project: Your Prediction on the Future

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POVERTY & GLOBAL INEQUALITY HAVE A RANGE OF CAUSES, INCLUDING: GEOGRAPHY, CLIMATE, WARS, RESOURCES, AS WELL AS THE: SOCIAL, POLITICAL, ECON, & CULTURAL CAUSES

The world strat sys & global corps are not the cause of all the world's inequality

Culture, climate, lack of resources, war, & more not directly related to world strat can help produce & maintain poverty

To a large degree, all regions of the world are increasingly interrelated in a worldwide econ sys

B/c of differing econ interest in this sys & differing amts of pwr to ensure these interests are met, there is a world strat sys that produced inequality among nations & inequality among classes w/in nation

The data are clear that since globalization has accelerated in the last century, income & wealth inequalities have drastically increased

	THERE IS NEVER ANY 'MAGIC BULLET' SOLUTION TO ANY SOCIAL PROBLEMS, BUT THERE ARE ALWAYS POLICIES WHICH CAN EITHER IMPROVE OR WORSEN THE PROBLEM
	No easy solutions to under dev can be identified, but remedies are available which would yield improvement
	Many problems faced by poor nations will not be solved by removing core dominance
	The rapid dev in some Asian nations shows that late dev for the periphery is not impossible at this stage of the mod world sys
	The problem for most periphery nations outside East & SE Asia, however, is that they often lack key factors that are crucial to dev from the new Asian econ dev model

	SOME SOCIAL STRUCTURAL & TECHNICAL TOOLS FOR DEVELOPMENT INCLUDE: LAND REFORM, MICRO LOANS, DEBT RELIEF, A NEW GREEN REV, GOOD GOVERNANCE, & MORE
	1. LAND REFORM MUST GIVE RURAL & URBAN PEASANTS A SHARE OF THE PIE AS A FOUNDATION ON WHICH LARGE SCALE DIRECT FOREIGN INVESTMENT MAY SUPPLEMENT SMALL SCALE ENT
	Land reform is a key to sustainable & more even econ dev
	Land reform, esp in Africa & Latin America has seldom been followed
	As land ownership becomes more concentrated, the peasants often move to urban areas & compete for jobs in industry, & concentrate in urb slums
	Land reform must take the shape of not only making land available to small, family micro farms, but it must also create mkts for these farmers' produce
	2. MICRO LOANS CAN FOSTER GRASS ROOTS ECON DEV IN BOTH URBAN & RURAL REGIONS, WHICH IN MANY WAYS PROVIDES A FOUNDATION OR SAFETY NET THAT IS USEFUL IN CONJUNCTION W/ LARGE SCALE DIRECT FOREIGN INVESTMENT TO ENCOURAGE ECON DEV
	Farmers w/ their own land produce more, create more jobs & income, which helps sustain a cycle of econ dev
	Micro loans, as developed by the Grameen Bank's 'micro credit' program in Bangladesh gives loans for as little as $100 to farmers where a small pump, for $50, can make a big difference in a village w/o means of irrigation
	Thousands of farmers can increase their incomes & lead to more even & sustained econ dev
	Dividing loan money into thousands of micro loans has promoted more evenly distributed dev in poor nations in contrast to older programs
	Older programs put millions of dollars into big projects like dams, which tend to provide more econ benefits for global corps & those already rich

	3. DEBT RELIEF: PAST, FAILED ATTEMPTS TO FOSTER ECON DEV HAVE RESULTED IN GOVT & PERSONAL DEBT WHICH MUST BE FORGIVEN IF ECON DEV TODAY IS TO SUCCEED
	Debt relief, reducing trade barriers in core nations, & empowering women have all been shown to be policies that foster econ dev & policy reduction
	Improving women's rights fosters econ dev b/c better ed women contribute more to the econ
	Women manage family budgets & econ resources better than men & are more aware of the importance of pop control for the family, w/ the influence to demand the use of birth control

	4. A NEW GREEN REV: AG POLICIES WHICH ALLOW FOR PRODUCTION FOR LOCAL AS WELL AS GLOBAL PRODUCTION W/ THE DEV OF CORP AG AS WELL AS SMALL FARMS
	During the 60s, a quick fix scheme was the 'green revolution' where rich nations, led by the US, sent ag experts to poor nations to teach farmers to use new strains of crops, new farm equip, herbicide, fertilizer, & more
	As a result of the old green rev, food production increased dramatically, but the poor became poorer just as the rich became richer
	Rich landowners grew different crops to sell on the world mkt, exporting everything they could to increase their profits, while they stopped growing many other crops used as cheap food for local people
	The old green rev created an incentive for big landowners to acquire more & more land, thus taking land from small farmers & & peasants
	New capital intensive ag promoted by the green rev forced peasants out of ag jobs
	The old green rev resulted in many poor nations exporting food while their own poor when hungry

	5. GOOD GOV, THE STRONG STATE, POLITICAL STABILITY, & STOPPING FIGHTING WARS ARE ALL CONCEPTS WHICH DENOTE THAT WHILE CONFLICT WILL INEVITABLY OCCUR AMONG COMPETING INTERESTS DURING ECON DEV & POV REDUCTION, THIS CONFLICT MUST BE HANDLED IN A CIVIL, NOT MARTIAL MANNER IF GROWTH IS TO OCCUR
	Studies by the WB show that btwn 90 & 95 about 90 % of all cases of civil war & strife occurred in poor nation
	Civil war & strife is spread evenly among all the world regions w/ poor nations
	The National Defense Council found 59 cases of serious conflict in 193 nations around the world in 2001 compared to 35 cases 10 yrs ago
	There is a correlation btwn inequality & levels of political violence
	Any war against terrorism by rich nations cannot stop w/ arresting or killing leaders; solutions must include econ & dev & pov reduction

	ANY SOLUTIONS TO POV & ECON DEV REQUIRE CHANGES AT ALL LEVELS FROM THE LOCAL TO THE GLOBAL, & THEY REQUIRE 'BUY-IN' OR COMMITMENT FROM PEOPLE & ELITES AT THEIR VARIOUS LEVERS OF CONTROL
	The new technical means of sustainable econ dev often face the problems of a lack of will or motivation for change & support for the status quo by the nation's elites & global corps
	Elites & global corps are yielding extraordinary profits & fear that any changes in the current sys will threaten their position
	None of the solutions for econ dev & pov reduction will work on their own, or at least not work very well on their own
	Solutions for econ dev & pov reduction will work optimally when used as a system of changes in domestic strat, the political sys, the ed sys, the culture, & more

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Outline on Forecasting

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FORECASTING USES HISTORICAL DATA TO PREDICT THE DIRECTION OF FUTURE TRENDS OF ONE OR SEVERAL VARIABLES, OR OF ENTIRE SCENARIOS

Perhaps the most common usage of forecasting is by firms to determine how to allocate their budgets for an upcoming period of time

Local, state, fed, & other levels of govt use forecasting in a number of areas such as: crime rates, econ development, population levels, usage of govt services, & much more to help in setting public policy in these areas

For firms, forecasting is typically based on demand for the goods & services it offers, compared to the cost of producing them

Investors utilize forecasting to determine if events affecting a firm, such as sales expectations, will increase or decrease the price of shares in that firm

Forecasting also provides an important benchmark for firms which have a long term perspective of operations

A prediction is a similar, but more general term for forecasting

Forecasting is the process of making statements about events which have not yet been observed

Examples of forecasting include: the estimation of a variable of interest at some specified future date such as population, the occurrence of an event such as a regime change, the development of a new technology such as self driving cars, the estb of a new social relationship such as gay marriage, & much more

Forecasting & prediction might refer to formal statistical methods employing: demographic, time series, cross sectional, or longitudinal data, or alternatively to less formal judgmental methods

Usage of the concepts of forecasting & prediction can differ btwn areas of application: for example, in hydrology, the terms forecasting is sometimes reserved for the est of values at certain specific future times, while the term prediction is used for more general est, such as the number of times floods will occur over a long period

Probability, risk, inaccurate or scant data & uncertainty are central to forecasting & prediction

It is generally considered good practice to indicate the degree of uncertainty attaching to forecasts, though measurements of uncertainty are also problematic

When the CIA forecasted that a US military would find WMD in Iraq, they told Pres Bush Jr, it would be 'a slam dunk,' but it turned out there were not WMD

A primary concern for forecasting is whether the data is accurate & up to date

	FORECASTING UTILIZES BOTH QUANTITATIVE & QUALITATIVE METHODS & DATA
	Most forecasting by social scientists, firms, & govts utilize quant data & methods
	Qualitative forecasting techniques are subjective, based on the opinion & judgment of consumers & experts; they are appropriate when hist data is not available
	Qualitative forecasting is usually applied to intermediate or long range decisions
	Examples of qualitative forecasting methods include: informed opinion & judgment, the Delphi method, mkt research, hist life cycle analogy, & more
	Quantitative forecasting models are used to forecast future data as a function of past data; they are appropriate when hist data is available
	Quantitative forecasting methods are usually applied to short or intermediate range decisions, but may also be applied to long range forecasting
	Examples of quantitative forecasting methods include: election outcomes, suicide rates, birth rates, last period demand, simple & weighted N Period moving averages, simple exponential smoothing, multiplicative seasonal indexes, & more

	NAIVE FORECASTING IS THE SIMPLE PREDICTION OF THE FUTURE BASED ON PAST TRENDS, W/O MODIFICATION BASED ON OTHER FACTORS OR THEORY
	Naïve forecasts are the most cost effective forecasting model, & provide a benchmark against which more sophisticated models can be compared
	For stationary time series data, the naive approach says that the forecast for any period equals the hist average
	For time series data that are stationary in terms of first differences, the naïve forecast equals the previous period's actual value

	TIME SERIES FORECASTING PROJECTS HIST DATA INTO THE FUTURE, ALLOWING FOR VARIATIONS BASED ON OTHER FACTORS OR THEORY
	Time series methods use historical data as the basis of estimates of future outcomes
	Time series methods include methodologies such as: moving average weighted moving average Kalman filtering exponential smoothing auto regressive moving average (ARMA) auto regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) extrapolation linear prediction trend estimation growth curves statistical surveys & more

	CAUSAL FORECASTING METHODS IDENTIFY UNDERLYING FACTORS THAT MIGHT INFLUENCE THE VARIABLE THAT IS BEING FORECASTED
	Causal forecasting methods try to identify the underlying factors that might influence the variable that is being forecast
	For example, info about climate patterns might improve the ability of a model to predict umbrella sales
	Forecasting models often take acct of regular seasonal variations
	In addition to climate, such variations can also be due to holidays & customs; one might predict that sales of college football apparel will be higher during the football season than during the off season
	Several informal methods used in causal forecasting do not employ strict algorithms, but instead use the judgment of the forecaster
	Some forecasts take acct of past relationships btwn variables: if one variable has, for example, been approximately linearly related to another for a long period of time, it may be appropriate to extrapolate such a relationship into the future, w/o necessarily understanding the reasons for the relationship
	One type of causal analysis, regression analysis, includes a large grp of methods for predicting future values of a variable using info about other variables
	The social sciences uses regression analysis & a number of other statistical methods to make predictions on everything from development of androgyny as a lifestyle to zoophilia
	Statistical methods include both parametric (linear or non linear) and non parametric techniques

	JUDGMENTAL FORECASTING INCORPORATES INTUITIVE JUDGMENTS, OPINIONS, OBSERVATIONS, SUBJECTIVE DATA, & SUBJECTIVE PROBABILITY ESTIMATES
	Judgmental forecasting methods include: composite forecasts Cooke's method Delphi method forecast by analogy scenario building
	Judgmental forecasting is often done by experts in the field being forecasted
	Experts can often make a forecast for 1 to 5 yrs w/o in depth analysis

	ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FORECASTING USES AI ALGORITHMS SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO FORECAST ONE OR MORE VARIABLES
	AI methods include: artificial neural networks grp method of data handling support vector machines crowd sourcing
	Often AI forecasting methods are carried out by specialized programs loosely labeled: data mining, machine learning, pattern recognition, & big data

	THE MORE SOPHISTICATED FORECASTERS OFTEN INCLUDE REFLEXIVE THEORY; THE IDEA THAT AS CONDITIONS CHANGE IN THE FUTURE, HUMANS WILL NOT MERELY EXPERIENCE CHANGE, THEY WILL ACT TO MAKE CHANGE, & REACT TO CHANGE
	Many socioeconomic forecasters often try to include a humanist, ie reflexive, factor
	Ritzer & Habermas have developed reflexive theories
	See Also: Ritzer
	See Also: Habermas
	Those embracing reflexive theory claim that humans, through deliberate action, can have a profound influence on the future
	Those embracing reflexive theory argue that it should be regarded a real possibility w/in our current socio econ sys that its future may be influenced by, to a varying degree, individuals & small grps of individuals
	Recent popular publications like Capital in the Twenty First Century are regarded as major contributors to the increasingly apparent possibility of such reality where humans see a problem, ie rising inequality, & react to change it
	It is argued that the influence which private & public investments have on our future can never be completely disconnected from the individual Machiavellian human character, but perhaps it can be harnessed for the benefit of humanity through democratic oversight
	The methods that disregard the reflexive factor can never accurately predict our socio econ future
	The Forecasting Flow Chart depicts a series of observations, analyses, simulations, & decisions which may be made to construct a forecast using either quantitative (statistical) or qualitative (judgmental) methods

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A Forecasting Flow Chart

The Forecasting Flow Chart depicts a series of observations, analyses, simulations, & decisions which may be made to construct a forecast using either quantitative (statistical) or qualitative (judgmental) methods

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Outline on Future Scenarios

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ONE IMPORTANT ASPECT OF FUTUROLOGY IS TO OFFER FUTURE SCENARIOS, IE PREDICTIONS OF AN OUTLINE OF A HYPOTHESIZED CHAIN OF EVENTS

A scenario is an outline of a hypothesized chain of events

There are many possible scenarios that spring from the key themes in society

Will the internet bring about new patters of human interaction?
Will we be able to cope w/ the env stresses that increasing industrialization & rapid population growth will bring to many parts of the world?
Will The US retain its position as the world's most powerful & influential nation?
Will more nations move up from peripheral status to join the semi periphery & care nations of the future world sys?
What kind of problems will the future bring for local regional, & international development?
What new tech is likely to have the most impact in reshaping societies?
Will globalization undermine regional cultures?
Will tech & human determination be able to cope w/ the env stresses that industrialization in the periphery & rapid pop increases will create?
Will new regions emerge based on new types of connectivity such as trade, the internet, or any number of pol mvmts such as mobilization against globalization or the human rts mvmt?

Using what social scientists from a range of fields, developing a scenario is done by looking back at the way that the present condition related to the scenario has unfolded

The next step is to look at how present conditions are trending

The 3rd step is to use what is known about soc change, again from a number of soc sci fields, & the basic principles of the soc sciences to begin to map out the kinds of structures, cultures, processes, & dynamics that the future most probably holds

Future scenarios must be mapped out from a combination of existing structures, & budding trends

The future must be anticipated from how the shreds of tradition & the strands of contemporary change will be rewoven into new societies

While developing future scenarios is speculative & complex, we can draw w/ a good deal of confidence on what we know about soc processes, soc change & the major principles of the soc sciences

Futurists see soc change as a composite aggregation, ie not a simple linear causal change, of local or micro social grpings interacting to create the larger processes & structures of change that operate w/in the dynamic framework of the world sys

Many important dimensions exist to soc org & soc change, from the demographic dimension through the urban

	IN FORECASTING SCENARIOS, IT IS CLEAR THAT SOME ASPECTS ARE MORE PREDICTABLE THAN OTHERS, & SOME ASPECTS ARE MORE CHAOTIC THAN OTHERS
	As we look to the future, we can appreciate that some dimensions of soc org are more certain than others
	In some ways the future is already here, embedded in the world's instit structures & in the dynamics of its pop
	We know more about demographics than at any time in history but there are still major gaps in our knowledge
	We know a much more than in the past about the dist of resources & constraints, about the character of local & regional econs, about the legal & pol frameworks w/in which soc change will take place
	We also merely guess at some aspects of the future
	Two of the most speculative realms are those of pol & tech
	While we can foresee some of the possibilities, politics & technology are both likely to spring surprises at any time
	We may be able to understand, for example, the spread & intensification of ethno nationalism, a new railway era based on high speed trains, the rise of energy efficiency econs, the diversification of wkplace, & more
	We now know we had hints at such events as Sept 11th, the rise of ISIS, challenges from N Korea, conflicts btwn China & Japan, & more, but these events are essentially nearly impossible to predict, w/ current social science
	Such events as Sept 11th are a powerful example of the sort of essentially unpredictable events that can deliver a blow the the econ, draw the nation into full military status, & transform daily life in the US

	IN SOME WAYS, THE FUTURE IS ALREADY HERE, EMBEDDED IN THE WORLD'S INSTITL STRUCTURE & IN THE DYNAMICS OF ITS POPULATION
	In envisioning any future scenario, any issues or topics, including: the internet, pop, the env, soc mvmts, & more, will all interact in unique ways to impact any future scenario
	New & emerging technologies that are likely to have a large impact in reshaping any society including: advanced transportation, biotechnology, materials technology, info tech esp artificial intelligence (AI), war, & others
	The changes involved in shaping future societies will inevitably bring some critical issues, conflicts, & threats, including issue that center on cultural dissonance & sustainability

	THERE ARE MANY CATEGORIES OF FUTURE SCENARIOS, SUCH AS: OPTIMISTIC, MIDDLING, PESSIMISTIC, FRAMEWORK, SHORT TERM, MID TERM, LONG TERM, & MORE
	There are many visionary scenarios, but broadly speaking, futurists' projections can be divided into 3 kinds: optimistic, middling, & pessimistic
	Optimistic futurists stress the potential for tech innovations to discover & harness new resources, to provide faster & more effective means to transportation & communication, & to make possible new ways of living
	The optimistic futurist is often characterized by science fiction cities of mile high skyscrapers & spaceship style living pods, by bioecological harmony, & by unprecedented social & cultural progress through the info hwys of cyberspace
	Optimistic futurists projects a world that will be stabilized & homogenized by supranational govts, world govts, or even multi world govts
	Pessimistic futurists stress the finite nature of Earth's resources, the fragility of its env, & the pop growth rates that exceed the capacity of peripheral regions to sustain them
	Pessimistic futurists emphasize the probability of a sharp polarization btwn the haves & the have nots at every scale
	Doomsday forecasting is characterized by scenarios that include irretrievable env degradation, increasing soc & econ polarization, the breakdown of law & order, widespread violent conflicts & war, & more
	The middling futurists often recognize some, but not all of the pts made by the optimists & the pessimists, offering analysis about why particular possibilities may or may not manifest
	For the middling futurist, history has shown that few of the major predictions of world changing tech or human harmony have come true as seen in the failure to develop unlimited clean energy, or transportation, or the lack of human like computers or robots
	The middling futurist recognizes that other tech & human relationships unforeseen by any have become common, such as mass jet flight, smart phones, the internet, TV, & more
	For the middling futurist, history has shown that few of the major doomsday scenarios have come to be, including the population bomb, crashing tech, global war, env collapse, & more
	Thus for the middling futurist, new favorable situations do & will arise, but they are rarely as important as people imagine, & dire scenarios do present themselves, but to date people / societies have always found ways to mitigate them
	The middling futurists critique of the optimist & pessimist futurists is that whatever scenarios arise, people will adjust to them
	Future events happen in a context of humans & human societies that are adaptive to change
	Changes does not happen to people & societies; change happens with & in people & societies
	Middling futurists recognize that events may overwhelm people & societies, but to date, to the credit of the resilience of humanity, it has not happened

	A USEFUL RANGE OF SCENARIOS MIGHT INCLUDE: THE CONVENTIONAL WORLD, REFERENCE, BALANCED GROWTH, BARBARISM, SOCIAL BREAKDOWN, FORTRESS WORLD, GREAT TRANSITIONS, GLOBAL GOV, & NEW SUSTAINABILITY SCENARIOS
.	Possible framework level scenarios include: The Global Scenario Grp, Stockhholm Env Insit posits 6 scenarios, 2 for each of 3 types of conventional world, barbarism, & great transitions
	Conventional World Scenarios envision a world in which development is governed by gradual & steady ind growth
	Reference Scenarios assume that most of the world's regional econs will open & that unreg mkts will expand
	Balanced Growth Scenarios see the implementation of policy reforms that guide econ growth & sustain the env
	Barbarism scenarios are characterized by: persistent poverty, pop pressure, resource shortages, disastrous env problems, & more, all which lead to localized armed conflicts & violence in peripheral regions, as well as by: rising unemployment, depressions, political instability, outbreaks of civil disorder, & more in core regions
	Social Breakdown Scenarios see chaos & random violence diverting significant levels of resources from econ growth to security
	Fortress World Scenarios result from the core regions recognizing that the crisis that is mounting & so create alliances among themselves to protect their own interests
	Dark Ages are predicted by some observers for the US b/c individual & institutional morality is in decline
	Great Transitions Scenarios see the world's regions evolve to a higher stage
	Global Governance Scenarios find individuals, instits, & states restrict certain activities & undertake others for the common global good
	New Sustainability Scenarios see an increase in tech & econ growth which are constrained in the core & dominated by transnat corps

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Outline on the Millennium Development Goals

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- Supplement: The Millennium Development Goals

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- Supplement: UN Ensures Env Sustainability

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- Supplement: The Millennium Development Goals Report, 2015

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- Supplement: UN Post 2015 Sustainable Development Agenda

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THE UN CREATED THEIR 'MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS' (MDGs) WHICH PRIMARILY ORGANIZE UN RESOURCES, CHARITIES, NGOs, & GOVTS TO ACHIEVE 8 GOALS TO END POV & IMPROVE QUAL OF LIFE

The UN Millennium Campaign, started in 2002, supports & inspires people from around the world to take action in support of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), range from halving extreme poverty rates to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS & providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015, are a blueprint agreed to by all the world's nations & all the world's leading development instits, such as the Gates Foundation & the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)

	THE MDGs WERE TO END POVERTY, ACHIEVE ED, ACHIEVE GENDER EQUALITY, REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY, COMBAT HIV, SUSTAIN THE ENV, CREATE GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS FOR DEVELOPMENT
	The MDGs galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world's poorest, & by 2015, they had achieved a strong measure of success
	The 8 MGDs include: 1. Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger 2. Achieve universal primary education 3. Promote gender equality & empower women 4. Reduce child mortality 5. Improve maternal health 6. Combat HIV / AIDS, malaria & other diseases 7. Ensure environmental sustainability 8. Create a global partnership for development
	In pursuit of the MDGs, the UN developed a number of initiatives against poverty, hunger & disease
	In a major push to accelerate progress on women's & children's health, a number of Heads of State & Govt from developed & developing nations, along w/ the private sector, foundations, intl orgs, civil society & research orgs, pledged resources to achieve the MDGs
	The UN brought together more than 170 Heads of State & Govt for a once in a generation opportunity to take bold decisions in the areas of development, security, human rights & reform of the UN

	THE RESULTS OF THE MDGs SHOW CLEAR PROGRESS IN MANY IMPORTANT DIMENSIONS ACROSS THE GLOBE
	In many ways the MDGs produced the most successful anti pov mvmt in history
	MDG 1. Eradicate Extreme Pov & Hunger
	Extreme pov decline from nearly half of the pop in the dev world living on less that $1.25 a day to 14 % in 2005
	The number of people in extreme pov has decline by more than half, falling from 1.9 bb in 1990 to 836 mm in 2015, w/ most of the progress occurring since 2000
	The number of people in the wking mid class, ie living on more than $4 a day, has almost tripled btwn 1991 & 2015
	The wking mid class now makes up half the wkforce in the dev regions, up from 18 % in 1991
	The number of malnourished people in the dev regions has fallen by almost half since 1990, from 23.3 % to 12.9 %
	MDG 2. Achieve Universal Primary Education
	There were 100 mm children out of primary school in 2000, & 57 mm children out of primary school in 2015
	From 1990 to 2000, primary school enrollment rates increased from 52 % to 60 %, & rose to 80 % in 2015
	The literacy rate among youth aged 15 to 24 has increased globally from 83 % to 91 % btwn 1990 & 2015
	MDG 4. Reduce Child Mortality
	Under 5 mortality rate has declined by more than half, dropping from 90 to 43 deaths per 1000 live births btwn 1990 & 2015
	W/ a growing pop, death rates & absolute numbers of children under 5 declined from 12.7 mm in 1990 to under 6 mmm in 2015
	Since 1990, the rate of reduction of under 5 mortality has more that tripled
	Measles cases decline by 67 % btwn 2000 & 2015
	84 % of children received at least one dose of measles containing vaccine in 2013, up from 73 % in 2000
	MDG 5. Improve Maternal Health
	Since 1990 maternal mortality ration declined by 45 %
	In SE Asia, the maternal mortality ratio declined by 64 % btwn 1990 & 2013
	In sub Saharan Africa, the maternal mortality ratio declined by 49 % btwn 1990 & 2013
	More than 71 % of births were assisted by skilled health personnel in 2014, an crease fro 59 % in 1990
	In No Africa, the proportion of pregnant women who received four or more ante natal visits increased from 50 % to 89 % btwn 1990 & 2014
	Contraceptives prevalence among women aged 15 to 49, married or in a union, increased from 55 % in 1990 worldwide to 64 % in 2015
	MDG 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, & other Diseases
	New HIV infections fell by 40 % btwn 2000 & 2013 from 3.5 mm cases to 2.1 mm cases
	Over 6.2 mm malaria deaths have been averted btwn 2000 & 2015, primarily of children under 5 yrs in sub Saharan Africa
	The global malaria rate has fall by 37 % & the mortality rate by 58 %
	Btwn 2000 & 2013, tuberculosis prevention, diagnosis & treatment interventions saved 37 mm lives
	The tuberculosis mortality rate fell by 45 % & the prevalence rate by 41 % btwn 1990 & 2013
	MDG 7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability
	Ozone depleting substances have bee eliminated since 1990 & the ozone layer is expected to recover by the 2050s
	Terrestrial & marine protected areas in many regions have increased from 8.8 % to 23.4 % btwn 1990 & 2015
	In 2015, 91 % of the global pop is using an improved drinking water source, compare to 76 % in 1990
	147 nations have met drinking the water target, 95 nations have met the sanitation target, & 77 % have met both
	The proportion of urb pop living in slums fell from 39 % in 2000 to 30 % in 2014
	MDG 8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development
	Dev assistance increased by 66 % btwn 2000 % 2014, reaching $135 bb
	In 2014, 79 % of imports from dev to developed nations were admitted duty free, up from 65 % in 2000
	The proportion of external debt service to export rev in developing nations fell from 12 % in 2000 to 3 % in 2013
	As of 2015, 95 % of the world's population is covered by a mobile cellular signal
	Internet access grew from 6 % in 2000 to 43% of the world's pop in 2015
	3.2 bb people have access to the internet

	BUILDING ON THE SUCCESS OF THE MDGs, THE UN IS NOW CONTINUING THEIR PROCESS & CREATING THE 'SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS' (SDGs) FOR THE NEXT 15 YRS
	The members of the UN participating in the development & implementation of the MDGs have set their sights on a new set of goals for 20300 call the Sustainable Development goals (SDGs)
	In 2015, the UN has estb 17 SDGs, including:
	1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere 2. End hunger, achieve food security & improved nutrition, & promote sustainable agriculture 3. Ensure healthy lives & promote well being for all at all ages 4. Ensure inclusive & equitable quality education & promote lifelong learning opportunities for all 5. Achieve gender equality & empower all women & girls 6. Ensure availability & sustainable management of water & sanitation for all 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable & modern energy for all 8. Promote sustained, inclusive & sustainable econ growth, full & productive employment, & decent work for all 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive & sustainable industrialization, & foster innovation 10. Reduce inequality within & among countries 11. Make cities & human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient & sustainable 12. Ensure sustainable consumption & production patterns 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change & its impacts (taking note of agreements made by the UNFCCC forum) 14. Conserve & sustainably use the oceans, seas & marine resources for sustainable development 15. Protect, restore & promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification & halt & reverse land degradation, & halt biodiversity loss 16. Promote peaceful & inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all & build effective, accountable & inclusive institutions at all levels 17. Strengthen the means of implementation & revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development
	At the end of 2014, the UN Secretary General presented the synthesis report “The road to dignity by 2030” covering all the processes & reports related to post 2015, including the UN consultations.
	The UN members will develop, specific quantifiable targets for the SDGs, 2030

	SOME CRITICS WANT THE SDGs TO HAVE FEWER, SIMPLER GOALS
	Some critics argue that 17 the general SDGs are just too many & too complex
	A stronger course of actions would be fewer goals w/ more narrow, specific targets
	The MDG analysis also recognized several weaknesses & threats

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Outline on the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI)

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- Supplement: The Clinton Global Initiative Commitments

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- Supplement: The Clinton Global Initiative Meetings

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- Supplement: The Clinton Global Initiative Members

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FORMER PRES CLINTON FOUNDED A NON GOVT ORG (NGO) CALLED THE CLINTON GLOBAL INITIATIVE (CGI) WHICH IS A CHARITY, WHICH LARGELY USES THE SAME PROCESS AS THE UN MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS (MDGs), IN THAT THEY BOTH FOCUS ON COORDINATING EFFORTS AMONG NGOs & CHARITIES, GOVTS, GLOBAL CORPS, THE UN & OTHER GLOBAL INSTITS, & OTHER ACTORS

In 2005 former President Bill Clinton estb the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), an initiative of the Clinton Foundation, to convene a community of global leaders to forge solutions to the world's most pressing challenges

Every CGI commitment is a plan that presents a new idea or approach to a major challenge that is specific & measurable

The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) convenes leaders to drive action through its unique mode of inspiring solutions, networking, building knowledge, & collaboration

	THE CGI HAS GATHERED & COORDINATED RESOURCES FROM A VERY WIDE RANGE OF ACTORS NUMBERING IN THE THE THOUSANDS
	Revenue Watch is a non profit operating & grant making org focusing on promoting rev & budget transparency & accountability in resource rich dev & transition nations
	The goal of the Rev Watch program is to improve democratic accountability in nat resource rich nations by equipping citizens w/ the info, training, networks, & funding they need to become effective monitors of govt rev & expenditures
	The Center for Women & Land is committed to providing OJT for gender specific solutions to land access
	The Center for Women & Land is creating an e library on laws affecting women
	The Center for Women & Land is strengthening women's land rights, to 'make real' the rights that do exist for women & girls by helping to reform the legal framework
	Oxfam is breaking new ground in the field of climate change resiliency & micro insurance by addressing the needs of small holder producers through an unusual mix of risk reduction, drought insurance, & credit
	Maximizing Women's Reproductive Health in Supply Chain is identifying & providing solution to critical reproductive health needs of women working in global supply chains
	Advancing Women as Leaders in Latin America & the Caribbean is developing an ongoing Leadership Initiative for women in Latin America & the Caribbean in partnership w/ the University of Miami.
	Scaling up Women's Leadership in the former Soviet Union is conducting cutting edge leadership development & skills building programs for women social entrepreneurs in Eastern Europe
	The Pan African Leadership Summit for Women & Girls is bringing together women leaders & girls from over 30 African countries for a week long summit in Cape Town, So Africa
	The Friends of the World Food Program is increasing awareness about global hunger, mobilize support for hunger relief programs & activities, & generate resources for the World Food Programme (WFP) operations & other activities that alleviate hunger
	Doc to Dock collects medical supplies & pharmaceutical products from doctors, hospitals & health industry members, in order to be shipped to health care counterparts in developing nations
	Winrock International is pursuing efforts to design, finance & pilot pro poor community managed water systems
	Banking on Our Future in Harlem, NY, through the NYSE, committed $100,000 over 2 yrs, & a commitment of employees as the core group of volunteers to teach financial literacy to low wealth young people in NYC
	The US Green Building Council (USGBC), w/ support from Newland Communities, launched the first program in a comprehensive yearlong campaign to educate consumers about the benefits of green homes
	There are more than 50 additional efforts on going

	CGI MEMBERSHIP REPRESENTS A DIVERSE GROUP OF LOCAL & GLOBAL ACTORS
	CGI membership is comprised of 47 % businesses, 24 % NGOs, 11 % philanthropy, 10 % govts, & 8 % other
	The CGI holds annual meeting each September to advance its goals & initiatives
	CGI has several branches, including: CGI America, CGI University, CGI L Am, & CGI Asia

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Outline on the Gates Foundation

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- Supplement: The Gates Foundation Annual Letter

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- Supplement: The Gates Foundation: Commitment 1: Health: Child deaths will go down, & more diseases will be wiped out

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- Supplement: The Gates Foundation: Commitment 2: Farming: Africa will be able to feed itself

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- Supplement: The Gates Foundation: Commitment 3: Banking: Mobile banking will help the poor transform their lives

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- Supplement: The Gates Foundation: Commitment 4: Education: Better software will revolutionize learning

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- Supplement: The Gates Foundation: Commitment 5: Conclusion: Global Citizen

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BILL & MELINDA GATES CREATED THE GATES FOUNDATION, USING THEIR FORTUNE & UNIQUE TECH & BUSINESS SKILLS TO ADDRESS GLOBAL POVERTY W/ DIRECT, EFFECTIVE METHODOLOGY

Bill Gates has lead Microsoft Corp since its inception, making him one of the richest people in the world

Bill & Melinda Gates donated seed money of $94 mm & officially launched the Gate Foundation in 2000, bringing their skills to improving health & ed around the world

In 2013 the Foundation had an endowment of $38 bb

The Gates' believe the next 15 yrs will produce major breakthroughs for most people in poor nations

The trustees of the Foundation include not only Bill & Melinda Gates, but also billionaire investor Warren Buffet

THE GATES FOUNDATION BROUGHT TECH SKILLS & THE MEASUREMENT OF PROGRAM'S SUCCESS OR FAILURE TO THE FIELD OF ADDRESSING GLOBAL PROBLEMS

The Gates Foundation leans toward technological fixes, accompanied w/ assessment procedures which measure the effectiveness of each initiative

Independent of the Foundation, Bill Gates is investing his own time & money in alternative energy sources that are cheaper, can deliver on demand, & emit zero CO2 b/c of his recognition of the threat of climate change

THE GATES FOUNDATION HAS 5 STRATEGIC GOALS AT PRESENT: HEALTH, FARMING, BANKING, EDUCATION, & A CALL FOR GLOBAL CITIZENS

The Gates Foundation has 5 strategic goals at present: health, farming, banking, education, & a call for Global Citizens

The Foundation's health goals are that child deaths will go down, & more diseases, up to 4, will be wiped out.

The Foundation's farming goals are that Africa will be able to feed itself

The Foundation's banking goals are to expand mobile banking to help the many people in the developing world who do not currently have any banking options

The Foundation's education goals are to create & disseminate software to revolutionize learning, making a high school level ed, as well as higher ed available to the many people in the developing world who do not currently have an ed sys

The Foundation's global citizens goals are to estb a network of global citizens who will spend time learning about global issues & doing something to address them

A concert has been organized for Sept 2015 around the principles of the Global Citizen

	THE FOUNDATION HAS INNUMERABLE OTHER INITIATIVES, SOME JUST BEGINNING, SOME ON GOING, SOME COMPLETE
	The Foundation assisted the Red Cross & other traditional NGOs w/ the Indian Ocean Earthquake relied in 2004
	US Libraries is assisted by the Foundation in its goal of ensuring that if you can get to a public library, you can reach the internet
	The Foundation help libraries recover from Hurricane Katrina
	The Dworkin Lab at Harvard, which is working to improve transportation, has Foundation support
	THE CRITICISMS OF THE FOUNDATION ARE THAT IT DOES NOT INVEST ITS ASSETS WISELY & IT CREATES TUNNEL VISION IN THE CHARITABLE SECTOR
	One criticism of the Foundation is that the investments that the Foundation makes in stocks & bonds to fund its projects are not screened for social responsibility & thus may worsen the problems the Foundation is trying to alleviate
	One criticism of the Foundation is that the Foundation's focus on any problem draws more money to that issue, sometimes to the detriment of other issues; this is a problem w/ all high profile social problem initiatives
	One criticism of the Foundation is that the Foundation's ed programs are developed to the detriment of public ed

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Outline on the Better Angels of our Nature
by Steven Pinker (2011)

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THE WORLD IS A BETTER, LESS VIOLENT PLACE THAN IT WAS BEFORE THE MODERN ERA

For Pinker the world of the past was much worse than it is today

Tribal warfare was 9 times as deadly as war & genocide in the 20th C

The murder rate of Medieval Europe was more than 30 times what it is today

Slavery, sadistic punishments, & frivolous executions were unexceptionable features of life for millennia, then suddenly were targeted for abolition

Wars btwn developed countries have vanished, & even in the developing world, wars kill a fraction of the people they did a few decades ago

In the modern era, there has been a significant decline in: rape, battering, hate crimes, deadly riots, child abuse, cruelty to animals, & other forms of violence

The key to explaining the decline of violence is to understand both the inner demons that incline us toward violence, such as revenge, sadism, tribalism, racism, sexism, & more, as well as the better angels that steer us away

Thanks to the spread of govt, literacy, trade, & cosmopolitanism, we increasingly control our impulses, empathize w/ others, bargain rather than plunder, debunk toxic ideologies, & deploy our powers of reason to reduce the temptations of violence

	STUDIES OF PRE MODERN SOCIETIES SHOW MUCH HIGHER RATES OF DEATH FROM PERSONAL VIOLENCE AS WELL AS ORGANIZED VIOLENCE, IE WAR
	Our era is less violent, less cruel & more peaceful than any previous period of human existence
	The decline in violence holds for violence in the family, in neighborhoods, btwn tribes & btwn states
	People living now are less likely to meet a violent death, or to suffer from violence or cruelty at the hands of others, than people living in any previous century
	Some studies are based on skeletons found at archaeological sites; averaging their results suggests that 15 & of prehistoric humans met a violent death at the hands of another person
	Research into contemporary or recent hunter gatherer societies yields a remarkably similarly average, while another cluster of studies of pre state societies that include some horticulture has an even higher rate of violent death
	In contrast, among state societies, the most violent appears to have been in Aztec society in Mexico, in which 5 % of people were killed by others
	In Europe, even during the bloodiest periods, the 17th C & the 1st half of the 20th C, deaths in war were around 3 %
	The data on pre modern societies vindicates Hobbes' basic insight, that w/o a state, life is likely to be 'nasty, brutish & short'
	In contrast, a state monopoly on the legitimate use of force reduces violence & makes everyone living under that monopoly better off than they would otherwise have been in what Pinker calls the 'pacification process'

	BOTH DEATHS FROM WAR & FROM MURDER ARE DECLINING OVER THE LONG TERM
	Even those tribal peoples extolled by anthropologists as especially gentle, like the Semai of Malaysia, the Kung of the Kalahari & the Central Arctic Inuit, turn out to have murder rates that are, relative to population, comparable to those of Detroit today
	In Europe, your chance of being murdered is now less than 1/10th, & in some countries only 1/50th, of what it would have been if you had lived 500 yrs ago
	American rates, too, have fallen steeply over the past 2 or 3 centuries
	Pinker sees the decline in violence as part of the 'civilizing process,' a term he borrows from the sociologist Norbert Elias, who attributes it to the consolidation of the power of the state above feudal loyalties, & to the effect of the spread of commerce
	Consistent w/ this view, Pinker argues that at least part of the reason for the regional differences in American homicide rates is that people in the South are less likely to accept the state's monopoly on force
	In the South, a tradition of self help justice & a 'culture of honor' justifies retaliation when one is insulted or mistreated
	Statistics demonstrate that the higher homicide rate in the South is due to quarrels that turn lethal, not to more killings during armed robberies
	Experiments show that even today Southerners respond more strongly to insults than Northerners

	THE ENLIGHTENMENT FOSTERED A MOVE AWAY FROM VIOLENCE TOWARD WHAT PINKER CALLS THE 'HUMANITARIAN REVOLUTION'
	During the Enlightenment, in 17th & 18th c Euro & countries under Euro influence, people began to question the violence practices that had previously been taken for granted: slavery, torture, despotism, dueling, extreme forms of cruel punishment, & others
	During the Enlightenment, voices even began to be raised against cruelty to animals
	Pinker refers to this shift toward a less violent outlook on life as the 'humanitarian revolution.'

	WW 2 WAS A PERIOD OF HIGHER VIOLENCE, BUT EVEN SO, THIS ERA WAS LESS VIOLENT THAN OTHER WAR TORN ERAS
	Against the bkgrd of Euro's relatively peaceful period after 1815, the 1st half of the 20th C was very violent, until one compares it to earlier periods of widespread war
	In the 13th C, the brutal Mongol conquests caused the deaths of an estm 40 mm people, not so far from the 55 mm who died in WW 2, in a world w/ only 1/7th the population of the mid 20th C
	The Mongols rounded up & massacred their victims in cold blood, just as the Nazis did, though they had only battle axes instead of guns & gas chambers
	A longer perspective enables us to see that the crimes of Hitler & Stalin were, sadly, less novel than we thought

	SINCE THE END OF WW 2, 'THE LONG PEACE' HAS REIGNED, FOR 70 YRS & COUNTING
	Since 1945, we have seen a new phenomenon which Pinker calls 'the long peace,' during which: for 70 yrs & counting, the great powers, & developed nations in general, have not fought wars against one another
	More recently, since the end of the Cold War, a broader 'new peace' appears to have taken hold
	It is not, of course, an absolute peace, but there has been a decline in all kinds of organized conflicts, including civil wars, genocides, repression, terrorism, & other forms of violence
	Pinker admits that followers of our news media will have difficulty in believing there is more peace b/c the media sensationalizes any violence, but violence is declining

	THE RIGHTS REVOLUTION HERALDS AN INCREASE IN FREEDOM & A DECLINE IN VIOLENCE FOR ALL PEOPLE, ANIMALS, PLANTS, THE PLANET, & MORE
	More recently, Pinker sees a 'rights revolution,' where a revulsion against violence inflicted on ethnic minorities, women, children, homosexuals, animals, & others has developed over the past 1/2 C
	Pinker is not arguing that soc mvmts have achieved their goals, but there has been a significant decline in: - apartheid, ie segregation - lynchings in the South - domestic violence in intimate relationships - harassment of the LGBT community - physical, sexual, emotional, & negligent child abuse - physical, emotional, & negligent animal abuse - degradation of the env - & more

	PINKER BELIEVES THAT IN LIGHT OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, HUMANITY HAS THE CAPABILITY FOR BOTH ABSOLUTE VIOLENCE, VIA OUR INNER DEMONS, AS WELL AS ULTIMATE PEACE, VIA OUR BETTER ANGELS
	B/c of the relatively short time period of the modern Era during which violence has declined, there has not been time for any changes to have a basis in genetic evolution, thus our non violent turn must be the result of our culture than our biology
	But in explaining the move to non violence, one cannot assume a simplistic nature nurture dichotomy
	Pinker argues that evolution shaped the basic design of our brain, & hence our cognitive & emotional faculties, & thus Pinker believes we have the internal capabilities for both violent & non violent living
	This process of evolution has given us both the propensities to violence, our 'inner demons,' as well as, as Pinker uses Abraham Lincoln's words, 'the better angels of our nature, that incline us to be peaceful & cooperative
	Our material circumstances, along w/ cultural inputs, determine whether the demons or the angels have the upper hand

	SUPPORT FOR OUR BETTER ANGELS INCLUDES: THE STATE, THE SPREAD OF COMMERCE, THE EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN, & THE 'REPUBLIC OF LETTERS'
	The state has a monopoly on violence, allowing it to displace individual & tribal implementations of violence
	The state monopoly on force is important, & the spread of commerce creates incentives for cooperation & against violent conflict
	Durkheim & many others have noted that commerce, which creates mutual interdependence, makes people & societies less inclined toward violence since it would mean losing a trading partner
	The empowerment of women does, Pinker argues, exercise a pacifying influence, & the world would be more peaceful if women were in charge
	The invention of printing, & the development of a cosmopolitan 'Republic of Letters' in the 17th & 18th Cs helped to spread ideas that led to the humanitarian rev
	The Republic of Letters was pushed further in the 19th C by popular novels like Uncle Tom's Cabin & Oliver Twist that, by encouraging readers to put themselves in the position of someone very different from themselves, expanded the sphere of our moral concern

	THE POWER OF REASON, THE CIVILIZING EFFECT, COMMERCE, THE REPUBLIC OF LETTERS, & MORE, ALL INCREASE THE ADVANTAGES OF PEACE & DECREASE THE ADVANTAGES OF VIOLENCE
	Pinker's account of the rise of a more civil society is that the most influential of his 'better angels' is the power of reason
	Pinker draws on a metaphor Singer used in his 1981 book The Expanding Circle which holds that reason can take us to places that we might not expect to reach via an 'escalator of reason'
	The escalator of reason can take us to a vantage pt from which we see that our own interests are similar to, & from the point of view of the universe do not matter more than, the interests of others
	As we become more reason oriented, people oriented, relationships oriented, society oriented, Earth oriented, universe oriented, more of life & understanding is available to us
	Many social scientists have hailed reason, rationality, etc as the only way forward for humanity, esp Hegel, Marx, Weber, & Habermas

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