                                                        The Dense Web of Accelerating Global Interaction


            NB: Strayer explains "accelerating global interaction" in the 21st century as "an increasingly dense web of
political relationships, economic transactions, and cultural influences ... across the world's many peoples, countries,
and regions, binding them together more tightly, but also more contentiously". (1137-38) The chapter goes on to
analyze this dense web according to four global processes--economics, feminism, religion, and
environmentalism.

I. The Transformation of the World Economy

     1. In 1944 The United States convened the Bretton Woods Conference to plan post war economic growth and
stability. From the 1st through the 20th of July 1944, 730 delegates from 44 Allied nations got together and hammered
out an agreement to create three economic organizations:

            a. the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) known as the World Bank
            b. the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
            c. the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), which became the World Trade Organization (WTO)
in 1995.
     2. The Bretton Woods system of state led economics was very successful until 1971 when the US pulled out,
            opening the way to a market led economic system. However in 2013 economists and some politicians are
            calling for a Bretton Woods II the as a solution to current economic problems stemming from the 2008
            crash. Link

                                                        Mount Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire

     3. In Addition to Bretton Woods several other post war organizations contributed to Strayer's Dense Web. The European
Common Market 1957, know known as the European Union (EU) 1994, the United Nations, and the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) -- a military alliance but with political, social, and economic aims and committees. Link

     4. Strayer also credits technology and population growth as factors in the tightening of the Dense Web:
"Containerized shipping, huge oil tankers, and air express services dramatically lowered transportation costs, while
fiber-optic cables and later the Internet provided the communication infrastructure for global economic interaction." (1137)

     5.  Benefits of the post 1945 economic system have been free-trade, low taxes, low tariffs, and ready capitalization.
In 2003 MasterCard was accepted at some 32 million businesses in 210 countries or territories. (1141). On the downside, however there have been underfunded social programs, maldistribution of profits, unstable markets and employment, plus a brain drain from the Global South and a plethora of irresponsible Trans National Corporations (TNC). By 2000,
51 of the world's 100 largest economic units were in fact TNCs, not countries, "responsible only to stockholders, not to citizens or nations. In the late 1960's there were only 7,000 TNCs, but by 2001 the number had grown to 65,000. (1141)



     6. Accelerated globalization has led to "the most remarkable spurt of economic growth in world history ... from $7.1 trillion in 1950 to $55.9 trillion in 2003 [8 fold growth] and on a per capita basis from $2,835 to $8,753." And poverty
has fallen in the past 50 years more than it has in the previous 500 years. (1143) Yet the gap between the rich and the
poor has increased from 3 to 1 in 1820 to 86 to 1 by 1991. Similar gaps are see in medical care, availability of
drinking water, educational and employment opportunities. (1144).

     7. In 2001 alternative global activists in Brazil founded the World Social Forum with annual meetings for discussion, education, and protests. The WSF's motto is "Another World is possible", and in addition to a big annual meeting there are many regional forums throughout the world including the United States and Global North. Link





     8. The US share of world production has been dropping 50% in 1945, 20% in 1980, and 8.1% since 2008. Once
a creditor nation,the USA is now a debtor nation. Lee Iacocca, once President of Chrysler Corporation commented
on this shift by saying "We send Japan low-value soy beans, wheat, corn, coal, and cotton. They send us high-value
autos, motorcycles, TV sets, and oil well casings. It's 1776 and we are a colony again". (1144)

     9. In reaction to globalism and to the UN, the US Senate Republicans just (2012) defeated a UN Treaty on
Disability Rights, claiming that the treaty was just a trick to undermine US independence, introduce new abortion
rights, and prevent homeschooling. Not only are these claims unsubstantiated, but the UN treaty, which was negotiated
and signed by President George W. Bush, is in fact based on our own US Disabilities Act of 1990.

For an excellent visual understanding of global inequality go to Strayer's charts on pp. 1145 and 1148, and see below:

II. Feminism

    1. In 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft wrote Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in 1949 Simon de Beauvoir
published The Second Sex, in 1963 Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique, and fortunately, the world has
never been the same since. Feminism's liberation movement has become part of the 1960's liberation movements
inspired by Che Guevara and by the "liberation theology" of Latin American Catholic priests who sometimes even
joined communist rebels against Latin American, capitalist generals and their US allies. Link The papacy has never
agreed with "liberation theology", nor does the current pope Francis I. Link

     2. Issues of feminism or women's rights differed among people and countries, but some degree of reform became
part of countries as diverse as Morocco, Chile, and South Korea. The cry "Women's rights are human rights", the UN's declaration of 1975 as the start of the International Women's Year & decade, and the 2006 signing of a UN Convention
by 183 nations to eliminate discrimination against women were highlights in the global battle. (1153)

     3. Unfortunately the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the US constitution which passed both houses of congress
in 1972, got only 35 states' votes of the required 38, and so failed. "To Phyllis Schlafly, a prominent American opponent
of the Equal Rights Amendment, feminism was a 'disease' that brought in it's wake 'fear, sickness, pain, anger, hatred,
danger, violence, and all manner of ugliness'". (1154-55). But despite Schlafly and her ilk, feminism is still a major
force in the 21st century.   After all, "Gaea", the ancient Greek mother goddess is also the patroness of ecology and environmentalism.

Equal Rights Amendment, Equal Rights Amendment march, Equal Rights Amendment supporters, Equal Rights Amendment banner, era march, era women's rights

III. Religion: Modernity and Fundamentalism

     1. Neither science, Darwinism, nor European Imperialism destroyed Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism.
Religion remained quiescent but powerful, and after WW I, became a catalyst for colonial revolt and independence movements. "The far more prominent trends of the last century have been those that involved the further spread of
major world religions, their resurrection in new forms, their opposition to elements of secular and global modernity,
and their political role as a source of community identity and conflict". (1155)

     2. In general from WW I through the 1990's Spanish, Italian, and French Catholicism was very conservative,
bordering on fundamentalist--as was much of the Protestantism of America and Europe. "After World War II,
American Protestantism came to oppose political liberalism and 'big government', the sexual revolution of the 1960's, homosexuality and abortion rights,and secular humanism generally". (1156) But the French congress passed a
same-sex marriage act on 18 May of 2013, and the first gay couple were married on the 29th of May.
[occasionally times change quickly, dpc].

     3. We tend to forget our own history of political/religious movements and social welfare when we condemn the
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in India or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Palestine, or
Hezbollah in Lebanon. In many cases these religious/political societies also offer medical and educational help for
their followers. And remember that in our religious wars of the 16th/17th centuries, unbelievers and so-called witches
were burned at the stake. Still, the 2012 power takeover in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood does seem to bode ill
for Egypt and the Middle East.

     3. Since 1950 the 37 Christian faith groups of the National Council of Churches in the United States has been
working fervently for peace and economic development throughout the world. The Roman Catholic church has also
long had special contacts and efforts at ecumenical cooperation among all faiths. If religion can cause problems,
surely religion can also solve them.

IV. The Global Environment Transformed -- "TheBiophilia Hypothesis"

     1. To recognize the earth in all its aspects as an organic entity is a philosophical or religious perception. In 1984,
Edward O. Wilson (1929-2009), a Harvard biologist, published Biophilia, a book about the love of life or living systems.
He defined biophilia as "'the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life', and suggested
that the deep affiliations humans have with nature are rooted in our biology.'" He came to see the "Epic of Evolution"
as a philosophical or even religious concept. Link    Eric Fromm (1900- 1980), the famous psychologist, first used the
term biophilia to describe " a psychological orientation of being attracted to all that is alive and vital. This principle
came to be known as the "biophilia hypothesis". Link

     2. Environmentalism, meaning concern about the life of the planet and all living things, began in the early
nineteenth century, just as the industrial revolution was only a few decades old, close to the time of Mary Wollstonecraft
and the birth of feminism. Poets William Blake and William Wordsworth decried the "dark satanic mills" as the death
of the "green" England they knew. A hundred years later Rachel Carson published her book Silent Springs (1963)
about the dangers of pollution, and in 1972 the Club of Rome think tank published its study, Limits to Growth.
In 2010 MCLA established an Environmental Studies Program.

     3. By the 1980's Green political parties had sprung up throughout Europe, with a presence in the EU parliament. Arguments went back and forth about "global warming", with scientists saying that warming was 90% true, and
conservative politicians and Christian fundamentalists denying it. Link   The USA has long been a denier but is
pro-active now.

File:Global Temperature Anomaly 1880-2010 (Fig.A).gif

Global mean land-ocean temperature change from 1880–2011, relative to the 1951–1980 mean. The black line is the annual mean and the red line is the 5-year running mean. The green bars show uncertainty estimates. Source: NASA GISS.

4. In 1992 the UN created the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) which came
up with the Kyoto Treaty binding countries to emissions reduction targets through 2020. 191 nations have signed on,
including the EU, but not the US. The treaty came into effect in 2005 despite the US, but since the US is the source for
25% of greenhouse gasses, UNFCCC has only achieved a partial solution so far. The US non-participation is supposedly
based on a concern for American jobs and workers, unnecessary restrictions on our economic growth, and the fact
that developing countries have no pollution limits placed on them. Of course they are not the world's major polluters.

Kyoto Protocol participation map as of December 2012 with targets for the period until 2012
Annex I & II countries with binding targets Developing countries without binding targets Countries that took no position or have an unknown position Countries with no intention to ratify the treaty

Countries that have withdrawn from the Protocol

V. Conclusions

    1. I wonder if LUCY would have stood up 3.5 million years ago, had she known what was coming. But she did,
and has in fact become our first feminist as well as our first hominid. She probably would have gotten along well
with Mary Wollstonecraft, Simon de Beauvoir, and Betty Friedan. After all our planet is not called "Mother Earth"
for nothing!

     2. The issues in this chapter--economics, feminism, religion, and environmentalism-- are not new. They are
fundamental issues of life which we have been reading and writing about and discussing throughout the course, with
only slight variations due to time periods, countries, and people. What you need to do now is to remember and apply
these issues as you move on through life.
     3. Neither this chapter, nor the book itself, is finished yet. The next few chapters are up to you. You will live
and write them during your lifetime. Good Luck.