In the five minute video below, U.C. Santa Barbara sociologist Richard Appelbaum discusses the global changes that are driving our uncertain economic future. While economists have rightly focused on many proximate factors, he says, sociologists have emphasized “changing nature of the economy in the world today.” He offers a quick history of economic transformations throughout human history and then focuses on the ongoing changes that we call “globalization.” This includes lightning speed communication and extremely fast movement of goods from one part of the world to another.
Globalization, he goes on, has caused a migration of work out of wealthy and into poor countries. Meanwhile, businesses that have no national boundaries are increasingly independent. Not beholden to any given country, it has become more difficult to regulate industries in ways that benefit any given state and its citizens.
Appelbaum finishes with a quick discussion of what all this means for young people who are educating themselves today with the hopes of a bright future tomorrow.
Video by Norton Sociology.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 3
MK — November 19, 2012
This video is so statistically illiterate. I can't believe you would endorse it on your site. It ignores basic statistics that are easily available to anyone willing to do a Google search.
Globalization has NOT lead to "loss of jobs from once wealthy countries to poorer countries". Some types of jobs sure have moved, but there are not fewer jobs IN TOTAL because of globalization. Until the financial crisis, the employment rate in the US was stable around 72 percent and had been so since the early 1990s, according to the OECD statistics database.Moreover, poverty has NOT increased, with about the same rates of poverty according to the OECD statistics since the 1980s.Finally, globalization has NOT hollowed out government. The standard measure of government size, spending over GDP, has been increasing steadily throughout all of the 20th century.
Shameful.
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James Jordan — August 23, 2023
I think globalization is a complex and controversial phenomenon that has both positive and negative consequences. On one hand, globalization can foster innovation, diversity, and cooperation among different countries and cultures.
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