Saturday, January 17, 2009

The Populist Vision or Global Shift

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     xvii
Preface 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

No comments:

Post a Comment