The Populist Vision
Author: Charles Postel
In the late nineteenth century, monumental technological innovations like the telegraph and steam power made America and the world a much smaller place. New technologies also made possible large-scale organization and centralization. Corporations grew exponentially and the rich amassed great fortunes. Those on the short end of these wrenching changes responded in the Populist revolt, one of the most effective challenges to corporate power in American history.
But what did Populism represent? Half a century ago, scholars such as Richard Hofstadter portrayed the Populist movement as an irrational response of backward-looking farmers to the challenges of modernity. Since then, the romantic notion of Populism as the resistance movement of tradition-based and pre-modern communities to a modern and commercial society has prevailed. In a broad, innovative reassessment, based on a deep reading of archival sources, The Populist Vision argues that the Populists understood themselves as--and were in fact--modern people, who pursued an alternate vision for modern America.
Taking into account both the leaders and the led, The Populist Vision uses a wide lens, focusing on the farmers, both black and white, men and women, while also looking at wager workers and bohemian urbanites. From Texas to the Dakotas, from Georgia to California, farmer Populists strove to use the new innovations for their own ends. They sought scientific and technical knowledge, formed highly centralized organizations, launched large-scale cooperative businesses, and pressed for reforms on the model of the nation's most elaborate bureaucracy - the Postal Service. Hundreds of thousands of Populist farm women soughteducation, employment in schools and offices, and a more modern life. Miners, railroad workers, and other labor Populists joined with farmers to give impetus to the regulatory state. Activists from Chicago, San Francisco, and other new cities provided Populism with a dynamic urban dimension
This major reassessment of the Populist experience is essential reading for anyone interested in the politics, society, and culture of modern America.
Interesting textbook: Berufsemissionen in der mit der Rede sprachigen Pathologie und Audiology
Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy
Author: Peter Dicken
Now in a substantially revised and updated fifth edition, this bestselling work is the definitive text on globalization. Peter Dicken provides a comprehensive, balanced yet critical account of globalization processes and their sweeping, highly uneven effects on people's lives. Each timely chapter has been extensively rewritten to reflect current globalization and antiglobalization debates, the latest empirical developments, and new ideas about the shaping and reshaping of production, distribution, and consumption in the world economy.
New in the Fifth Edition
*An entirely new case study on the agro-foods industries
*A substantially expanded discussion of problems of global governance (involving such institutions as the WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF) and the increasing role of global civil society organizations
*All statistical materials have been updated and are presented in nearly 250 specially designed figures and tables
Table of Contents:
List of Abbreviations xviiPreface to the Fifth Edition xix
The Shifting Contours of the Global Economy 1
Questioning 'Globalization' 3
What in the world is going on? 3
Conflicting perspectives on 'globalization' 5
Unravelling the complexity of the new geo-economy: economies as networks 8
Production circuits; production networks 13
Even in a globalizing world, economic activities are geographically localized 21
Networks of networks 23
The geo-economy and the environment 25
Conclusion 29
Notes 30
Global Shift: The Changing Global Economic Map 32
What's new?: The imprint of past geographies 32
Roller-coasters and interconnections 35
The changing contours of the global economic map: global shifts in production, trade and direct investment 38
Conclusion 67
Notes 68
Processes of Global Shift 71
Technological Change: 'Gales of Creative Destruction' 73
Technology and economic transformation 73
Processes of technological change: an evolutionary perspective 74
The time-spaceshrinking technologies 78
Technological changes in products and processes 93
Geographies of innovation 98
Conclusion 103
Notes 104
Transnational Corporations: The Primary 'Movers and Shapers' of the Global Economy 106
The significance of the transnational corporation 106
Why firms transnationalize 107
How firms transnationalize 114
'Placing' firms: the myth of the 'global' corporation 124
Conclusion 135
Notes 135
'Webs of Enterprise': The Geography of Transnational Production Networks 137
The 'global-local' question: an oversimplified view of the TNC's dilemma 137
Configuring the firm's production network: the complex internal geographies of the TNC 140
TNCs within networks of externalized relationships 153
Regionalizing transnational production networks 168
Conclusion 171
Notes 171
'The State Is Dead...Long Live the State' 173
'Contested territory': the state in a globalizing economy 173
States as containers of distinctive cultures, practices and institutions 175
States as regulators of trade, foreign investment and industry 179
States as competitors 184
States as collaborators: the proliferation of regional integration agreements 187
Conclusion 204
Notes 205
'Doing It Their Way': Variations in State Economic Policies 207
From the general to the specific 207
A degree of convergence 207
The older industrialized economies: the United States and Europe 210
Japan 214
Newly industrializing economies 216
Conclusion 230
Notes 230
Dynamics of Conflict and Collaboration: The Uneasy Relationship between TNCs and States 232
The ties that bind 232
Bargaining processes between TNCs and states 236
Conclusion 245
Notes 246
The Picture in Different Sectors 247
'Fabric-ating Fashion': The Clothing Industries 249
The clothing production circuit 249
Global shifts in the clothing industries 250
Changing patterns of consumption 254
Production costs and technology 255
The role of the state and the Multi-Fibre Arrangement 260
Corporate strategies in the clothing industries 262
Regionalizing production networks in the clothing industries 267
Conclusion 276
Notes 276
'Wheels of Change': The Automobile Industry 278
The automobile production circuit 278
Global shifts in the automobile industry 280
Changing patterns of consumption 283
From mass production to lean production: technological change in the automobile industry 284
The role of the state 286
Corporate strategies in the automobile industry 289
Regionalizing production networks in the automobile industry 304
Conclusion 315
Notes 315
'Chips with Everything': The Semiconductor Industry 317
The semiconductor production circuit 317
Global shifts in the semiconductor industry 319
Changing patterns of consumption 321
Production costs and technology 323
The role of the state 326
Corporate strategies in the semiconductor industry 333
Regionalizing production networks in the semiconductor industry: the case of East Asia 343
Conclusion 345
Notes 345
'We Are What We Eat': The Agro-Food Industries 347
Transformation of the food economy: the 'local' becomes 'global' 347
Agro-food production circuits 349
Global shifts in the agro-food industries 352
Consumer choices - and consumer resistances 358
Transforming technologies in agro-food production 360
The role of the state 363
Corporate strategies in the agro-food industries 367
Conclusion 376
Notes 376
'Making the World Go Round': Financial Services 379
Money counts 379
The structure of the financial services industries 381
The dynamics of the market for financial services 383
Technological innovation and the financial services industries 384
The role of the state: regulation and deregulation in financial services 387
Corporate strategies in financial services 390
Geographical structures of financial services activities 397
Conclusion 407
Notes 408
'Making the Connections, Moving the Goods': The Logistics and Distribution Industries 410
'Whatever happened to distribution in the globalization debate?' 410
The structure of the logistics and distribution industries 411
The dynamics of the market 414
Technological innovation and the logistics and distribution industries 414
The role of the state: regulation and deregulation in the logistics and distribution industries 420
Corporate strategies in the logistics and distribution industries 423
Logistics 'places': key geographical nodes on the global logistics map 430
Conclusion 432
Notes 432
Winning and Losing in the Global Economy 435
Winning and Losing: An Introduction 437
From processes to impacts 437
The contours of economic development 440
Making a living in the global economy 449
The 'double exposure' problem 450
Conclusion 452
Notes 452
Good or Bad?: Evaluating the Impact of TNCs on Home and Host Economies 454
A counterfactual dilemma 454
TNCs and 'home' economies: potential impacts of outward investment 456
TNCs and 'host' economies: potential impacts of inward investment 459
Conclusion 473
Notes 474
Making a Living in Developed Countries: Where Will the Jobs Come From? 475
Increasing affluence - but not everybody is a winner 475
What is happening to jobs and to incomes? 476
Why is it happening? 486
What is being done? 492
Conclusion 499
Notes 499
Making a Living in Developing Countries: Sustaining Growth, Enhancing Equity, Ensuring Survival 501
Some winners - but mostly losers 501
Heterogeneity of the developing world 502
Sustaining growth and ensuring equity in newly industrializing economies 511
Ensuring survival and reducing poverty in the least developed countries 518
Conclusion 522
Notes 522
Making the World a Better Place 524
'The best of all possible worlds'? 524
Globalization and its 'discontents': emergence of a global civil society? 525
Global governance structures 528
Two key concerns: labour standards and environmental regulation 540
To be 'globalized' or not to be 'globalized': that is the question 545
What might the future be? What should the future be? 546
Notes 553
Bibliography 555
Index 585
About the Author 600
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