Systemic Causes Flashcards
(87 cards)
The U.S. nation-state is an institution that embraces and advances which three institutional practices?
- Imperialism
- Environmental Racism
- Ecological Violence
Tell me about pluralism.
Pluralism is the idea that democratic politics is a process in which various associations (i.e. trade unions, business groups, faith-based organizations, and activist organizations) engage in a competition for access to state resources and governmental influence. In theory, this allows groups to share power with the state and avoid dominance by government or by any single interest group.
In practice, the U.S. political process is less pluralist than we hope.
Tell me about the Treadmill of Production.
Developed by Allan Schnaiberg and Kenneth Gould, the Treadmill of Production is a theoretical framework that explains how market forces and political institutions interact with each other to produce ecological disorganization, wealth disparities, and social inequality. In this system, we observe increasing accumulation of wealth and investments into capital-intensive technologies, rising social inequalities, and greater ecological “withdrawals” (extraction of ecosystem materials) and “additions” (pollution). These processes are deeply antiecological and antihumanist and are facilitated by the nation-state.
One of the ways to increase profits is to not only ignored polluting processes but to reduce labor costs. How do businesses accomplish this?
- Introducing computer automation
- Cutting wages
- Downsizing employment rolls
- Reducing workers’ benefits
What are some indicators of increasing levels of economic inequality and instability?
- The number of temporary workers has increased dramatically.
- The richest 85 people on the planet possess as much wealth as do the poorest 3.5 billion.
- 1% of the population in the United States possesses around 40% of the wealth in the country.
- Real wages have declined since the early 1970s.
Increased levels of economic inequality and instability lead to a workforce where a growing percentage of people… (4)
- Are non-unionized
- Hold temporary jobs
- Receive low wages
- Are at risk of experiencing high levels of under- and unemployment
A small elite class of white-collar “knowledge workers” enjoy what five benefits?
- Higher pay
- Higher education
- Higher social status
- Greater career mobility
- Safer jobs
Why does the state offer corporations billions of dollars in subsidies?
To convince corporations to remain operating within state borders
What are the two results of the prevailing ideology of “economic growth at all costs”?
- Less political will or sympathy for downsized workers
2. Declining public support for labor union demands for better working conditions
The post-1945 political economy can be defined as an implicit contract between what three entities?
Industry, labor unions, state
What are the three pillars of the post-1945 political economy?
- Industry needed reliable labor force, so trade unions were able to grow stronger and collectively bargain for wage increases and safer working conditions.
- Workers’ need for jobs and general satisfaction leads to a “no strike” pledge with management.
- The state strengthened public education to produce a high-quality labor force and expanded consumer credit to make sure that domestic demand for goods kept pace with increased production.
Increasing international competition via economic globalization of the 1960s pushed industry to cut costs. This was accomplished in what four ways?
- Weakening the labor movement
- Reducing workers’ wages
- Downsizing positions in firms
- Relocating to lower-cost regions of the country or to other nations
What were the three results of industry’s response to 1960-era economic globalization? What is the implication?
- Massive unemployment in urban areas
- Economic downturns during the 1970s and 1990s
- Increased use of chemicals and toxins in industrial production
Implication: This is why in many urban areas we now have extensive unemployment, abandoned factories, and toxic waste sites. Ecological disruption and social disruption co-exist and go hand-in-hand.
Tell me about the Risk Society.
Developed by Ulrich Beck, the Risk Society posits that at this point in history (“late modernity”), we have witnessed an exponential increase in the production and use of hazardous chemical substances. These practices emanate from the state and industry to civil society through production, consumption, and disposal.
This theory concludes that the very existence of the modern U.S. nation-state is made possible by the production of toxins (chemical poisons) that permeate every social institution, human body, and the nonhuman world. To be modern, then, must include the subjugation and control of otherized populations.
Race is the best predictor for where ___ ___ ___ are located in the United States.
hazardous waste sites
Tell me about dominionism.
Dominionism, coined by Jim Mason (a pioneering author within the animal liberation movement), is “the worldview of the human supremacist: the view or belief held by one species, Homo sapiens sapiens, that it has a divine right — a God-given license — to use animals and everything else in the living world for its own benefit.”
Geographer David Harvey extrapolates this concept to the domination of humans by other humans: the rich rule the poor, men control women, and powerful nations rule over weaker nations — all made possible by human exploitation of ecosystems.
What is imperialism?
A system of foreign power in which another culture, people, and way of life penetrate, transform, and come to define a colonized society
What is the unresolved tension in U.S. history and present-day politics?
The contradiction between our ideals of freedom and our predilection for conquest
The propensity for conquest is driven by a desire for what three things?
- consumer markets
- cheap labor
- access to ecological wealth in the global South
Tell me about the Monroe Doctrine.
The Monroe Doctrine, established in 1823, declared the Americas off-limits to any new European colonization, creating a U.S. sphere of influence.
Tell me about the Marshall Doctrine.
In 1823, Justice John Marshall reinterpreted the “doctrine of discovery” in Johnson v. McIntosh to assert that the sovereignty of “discoverers” was superior to that of indigenous peoples.
This signaled a shift from international law expectations of Europeans to engage in treaty making. The “Cherokee opinion” established that Native communities were nations because they were ruled by governments and able to engage in commerce and treaty making. However, they were special kinds of nations in which they were “domestic” and “dependent on” the United States, legally binding Native peoples to a subservient role.
What did the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 do? What was the outcome?
The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 registered and forced Native peoples to live on small, individual private property lots in an attempt to “civilize” natives. This liberated “surplus land” for white settlers, private companies, and the federal government.
Natives lost ⅔ of previously-held land and were left poor or extremely poor with land that the federal government deemed to be of little economic value with few natural resources.
What is one of the world’s greatest producers of pollution and one of the leading purveyors of institutional violence?
The U.S. military
What are the two core elements of the new global media corporate ideology?
- Markets allocate resource efficiently and should provide the means of organizing economic and perhaps all human life (privatization)
- Freedom is equated with the absence of any state business regulations, but in reality, economic freedom often does not lead to or guarantee political freedom.
