Wk #9 Economic Disparities

This week I wanted to write about economics. Last week we covered topics such as the Great Depression which hit not only America hard, but the world. The depression allowed us as a nation to see the immense impact that finance has in making our world function. Our textbook mentioned some very interesting information with regards to our global output. Our text mentioned that in about fifty years the global output increased from 7 trillion dollars to about 73 trillion dollars, that is an insane amount of money.

There would good and bad things that came with the increase in wealth. On the plus side, I think as a whole, people were seeing a greater progress in quality of life as there were declines in such things as infant mortality but an increase in such things as literacy. I was surprised to read that one of the positive outcomes was the reduction in poverty. I had to think about this, because I felt as it there are still large economic disparities in the world. Within our text there was a chart which outlined Global development and Inequality as of 2011. Obviously 2011 is now part of our history, yet this was not that long ago, these numbers are still relevant today. The column that caught my attention the most was the low income column which profiled countries like, Kenya, Ethiopia. As I looked back in our history I could not help to realize that the reason some of these nations find themselves to be in the low income category is due largely to the fact that for most of history Africa as a whole has been exploited. The nations that comprise Africa have often been exploited for the well being and financial gain of other nations. Countries , have taken their people as slaves, and taken their resources. Thankfully, slavery was eventually abolished, yet it still left these nations too far behind to catch up. Some of the numbers which are evidence of that are numbers that reflect technology use, years in education, and population growth. As I looked at this column I could not help but think that some of these items were a domino effect. I looked at the life expectancy number which was at most 60 years! Considering the longevity of life that is possible, this number is extremely low. As low as it may be I see it as a result of lack of education on our behalf, and education in health. I realized that life expectancy could also increase due to the type of employment one might have, yet how should people get great employment opportunities if they are not granted access to education. Another staggering number to me was the possession of cell phones. In our nation, cellphones are a daily commodity, and everyone needs one, yet in the low income nations, there was only a marginal amount of phones available. As we think about phones we think about technology, without technology, I do not think it is possible to carry out a strong economic populations. In the end, I could not help but think that wealthier nations, to a certain degree are responsible for the impoverished state of certain nations yet we do not take accountability. I just do not know what accountability would look like on our behalf.

Wk# 8 Causes & End of the Great Depression

I was wrong! I always remember hearing that the great depression was caused by the stock market crash of 1929, yet there were many other factors which led up to this moment. The 1920’s marked a time in history when people were gaudy, and enjoied the new luxuries of life. Material items were purchased on a system of credit which proved to be dangerous. Another important contribution was the agricultural sector. Due to the world war one, farming had expanded to many places across america in order to meet the high demands of food for soldiers overseas, hence at that time farms and factories were over producing goods, this increased availability of food meant that prices were low so low that some farms foreclosed due to lack of revenue. There was also other signs of economic weakness like the decline of car sales. Although these signs were most definitely contributors of our failing economy, I think that the real cause of the great depression was the weak banking system. At that time the the federal reserve was in existence although many banks were small individual banks which relied on their own resources. A wave of bank failures occurred when depositors came to withdraw their money before banks were in danger. As a result, banks needed to sell any assets and call in loans ultimately putting a pause on credit as there was less money in circulation. It seems to be that the real start of the great depression could be attributed to 1930 when unemployment began to skyrocket. In 1930s, unemployment continue to grow and grow reaching about 30% unemployment rate. People would travel across america looking for work, yet it still did not prevent the need of people asking for government assistance, standing in breadlines, or living in shantytowns.

The response to the great depression came from president roosevelt and his New Deal. Having won the presidential election in 1932, America was in desperate need of hope which is what President Roosevelt provided. The New Deal was basically a set of government programs which intended to ameliorate the damaging effects of the Great Depression and prevent future depressions from happening. There were three broad categories for these programs, Relief- which provided more immediate response through money for those in need,  Recovery- which tried to fix the economy in the short run while providing means of employment, Reform- which was created to prevent future depressions. Immediate programs created aimed to curtail unemployment such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, Agricultural Adjustment Act, Public Works Administration, Tennessee Valley Authority, Agricultural Adjustment Act; yet this was not enough for many Americans leading to the establishment of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration to give a means of welfare. While these things took place there was another effort to establish longer term reforms such as the social security administration, and the wagner act which allowed workers the right to unionize.

Although the New Deal helped to end the Great Depression, It seemed to be that the actual end of the depression was the incidence of World War II which then called for military goods to be produced at a rapid rate, providing jobs for many Americans.

Wk#7: Abolition of Slavery

I wrote about slavery last week in my blog and I am choosing to write about it again this week. The reason I continue to discuss this topic is because I feel strongly about the wrongdoings caused by slavery. In our past readings we were able to see how slavery was so common, people were traded freely as if they were cattle. Slave traders seemed to have no compassion for the people who were forced into slavery.

In this week’s reading I learned that there was a great push on behalf of enlightenment thinkers to end slavery. Enlightened thinkers felt that slavery was a violation of natural rights, and I agree. Whenever I think about natural rights, I think about John Locke’s theory which basically said that people have the right to liberty, life, and property.  It was later that the quakers also came about and also stressed the importance of eradicating slavery as they thought it went against their religion. As grateful as I am for the abolition of slavery, it did take about 100 years to get rid of it.

On the side of economics, I understand that many civilizations felt that they needed slaves to become economically prosperous, as having more bodies to assist in trade or tend to agriculture was essential. I was amazed to learn that England arrived on seen as an opponent of slavery as they had been economically successful without slaves. It was interesting to read that even the king of Africa was puzzled when England abolished slavery as they had once been proponents of slavery, he could not understand why it was acceptable at one time and all of a sudden unacceptable at another. There were many reasons which included the horrible testimonies of slaves,  that  eventually led to the abolition of slavery. I cannot begin to imagine the joy that former slaves must have experienced when they learned they were free. As happy as former slaves might have been, those who wanted to keep slaves found loopholes to continue the utilization of slaves. Given every nation, contingent on who they were ruled under had the choice to continue with the use of slaves or get rid of them. For example, in the United States we had a form of “legally free” labor, yet it was a type of labor that relied heavily on its workers , and provide low wages, which ultimately led to workers being in debt with their employers. This to me registered as the employers telling their workers, - well if you owe me money you will do what I say for as long as I say until you pay me the money you owe me. Geez this sounds a lot like slavery without having to use the word.

Regardless of the freedom that was granted to former slaves, I can only image how difficult life must have been and the decisions they would have to make. Would they stay in the land where they were once enslaved? Would they go back to their homeland? Whatever they opted for, it required money to which they probably did not have access to. If money was not an issue then being politically equal was, former slaves were not given the same rights as everyone else, they were ostracized and suffered extreme hate and racism. I loved a line within our text on page 800 which read, “for most former slaves, emancipation usually meant nothing but freedom”. They were truly prisoners of their situations.

Wk# 6 Slave Trading

Slavery as I have come to learn is a huge part of global history. Various civilizations have turned to the use of slaves as a means to economic gain. I have learned that many merchants used slaves to help transport goods and thus increasing profit if they could carry more goods in a given trip, however, goods was not the only thing being traded. I have never been able to fathom why people can be so inhumane to one another. Slave trading in my personal opinion is one of the worst part of our history.

The Atlantic slave trade took millions of people from Africa, labeled them as slaves and sold them to to various locations across the Atlantic. I often associate this image with the opening scene of the movie Amistad (which is the true story of a slave ship from the late 1800’s) which portrays a very dark dilapidated ship transporting thousands and thousands of slaves to the Americas. These slaves were changed to the walls as they sat in their own urine and feces, how awful, how heartbreaking. As I tied this back to our text, I could only imagine how many lives were torn apart for the economic gain of the Elite who could afford to purchase slaves. Beyond lives being torn, the treatment that slaves were subjugated to was awful. What is even more sickening to me is the fact that slave trade was very normal and some Africans were willing to willingly sell their people into slave trade sometimes for simple commodities such as textiles, tobacco and Alcohol. This really made me understand the lack of regard people had for human life at that time.

All the aforementioned thoughts are true! I really despise the lack of value given to human life, however, after several history classes, I learned a few new things about slavery that I did not know before but it also made me wonder if it makes the situation any less severe. Something that I found very interesting was the type of people sold into slavery. As stated before some were willing to sell people into slavery but what mattered was the type of people sold into slavery. Our text mentioned that as demand increased, slaves sold were drawn from groups in Africa which included, “prisoners of war, criminals, debtors, people who had been sold during times of difficulty”. This to me translated to mean that, yes, people were sold into slavery, but they were the people who were not active contributing citizens. For a moment I thought well since they are the ones who fail to abide rules, maybe it could be ok, but as I thought about this I had to wonder what did it mean to be a criminal at that time, or what did it mean to be a debtor? There was just too many unanswered questions that I did not know about to feel comfortable with this justification.

It saddens me to think that for a large part of history, slaves were forcefully taken from Africa to better economies in other countries, yet Africa today still struggles in many of its countries to have basic living commodities. Today however we cannot deny the contributions reflected by the slave trade which include the variation in demographics not only of the Americas but many other countries who at one time or another participated in slave trading.

Wk #5: Interesting finds in Islam

I have heard so much about it, but honestly never took the time to look into it. In recent history there has been negative connotations with the Muslim community. I honestly enjoied reading chapter 9, The Worlds of Islam. I was able to learn some of the historical context associated with Islam and the many similarities to Christianity. Before reading this chapter all I knew about Islam is the very uninformed connection to Malcolm X and his association to the civil rights movement. What I took away from reading this chapter is the many connections Islam has with Christianity. Islam is associated with Muhammad Abdullah who was raised by his uncle after the death of his parents in a very humble background.This caught my attention as I thought that Jesus in the Christian faith was also born into a very humble way of life. Both eventually served in their own spheres to spread the message of their faith with others. Religion wise, I felt as if the 5 pillars of Islam could also be considered similarities. The first pillar stated allah is god, likewise christianity declares God as the only God making both religions monotheistic which served as a strong platform for both. The second pillar discussed prayer which both religions practice. The third pillar discussed giving the poor, actions to which both Muhammad and Jesus acted upon and urged its followers to do. The fourth pillar discussed fasting which demonstrates sacrifice of the flesh. The fifth pillar discussed pilgrimage, this particular one did not really connect for both groups however I felt as if Muslims have the goal to visit Mecca during their lifetime while Christians try to visit Israel during their lifetime.

Interesting finds...In this chapter I found a few things pretty interesting one of them being the conversion factor. Our text mentioned that there was some sort of tax imposed on those who did not identify as Muslim. This made me wonder if the increasing number in Muslim conversions were attributed to people trying to avoid fines. Additionally I learned about the division amongst two of the largest branches within the Islamic community which is the Sunni and the Shia. I had heard these names surface before this text, but I was now able to understand that the Sunni wanted to take a more democratic approach to selecting their leaders while the Shia wanted to take the path of lineage to select their leaders, (I am sure it’s more complicated than that, I just came to understand it this way). Lastly as we learn more about the concepts of trade, Islam did assist in fostering trade. The most obvious was the spread of its message in the vast EurAsian area but it was interesting to read that as members of islam made their way to Mecca they assisted in commerce which eventually lead Muslims to be some of the most dominant merchants in the region. This of course included their ability to exchange some of their products such as sugarcane, rice, watermelons (which seemed pretty interesting to me taking into account their climate),cotton, and artichokes. The crops that were interesting to me was sugarcane and cotton which were typically cultivated by slaves and surprisingly enough ended up sparking the Islamic Green Revolution which increased not only population and food, but the urbanization and industrialization of the islamic world as we know it.

Week #4: Fascination of Trade

Trade. Now that I think about it, I feel a bit silly to see how narrow minded my perceptions of trade were before reading our text. Before hand I thought about trade as a means of exchanging goods from different parts of the world. I realized that these exchanges were more than just exchanges of goods, it was also a means of exchanges of Ideas.

I found it interesting to read that trade diminished the economic self sufficiency of local societies. I figured that this was so due to the need to obtain new goods from neighbors. Once people settled, in order to survive  people would have to make the most of a small piece of land to cultivate what they needed to survive. However, even cultivating your own food was a milestone considering that people had to travel many times to continue surviving. I imagine that when trade emerged people got happy to see the convenience of trade, having people come to you with all these goods was great, not only could you stay near your home, but you could get things you once traveled for.

 I realized that trade also made a means for economic  opportunity for some. While some were making money producing the goods demanded by neighbors, others decided to be the ones to take the goods. I would like to believe that it was these people, the ones willing to spread the goods to new areas who are responsible for taking not only new products to unknown lands but also bits and pieces of cultures. One of the things that impressed me was reading about incense in the book and realizing that it was due to trade that it later made it into the bible. Disease was also spread through taking new products for trade. This reminded me of the later historical conquest of the americas where the spanish took diseases but I never made the connection to diseases being carried earlier in history. It makes sense to think that people of a given area are immune to certain diseases due to that being the area where they reside, but when new humans came into contact with it, they could not withstand the disease. I later noticed that our text mentioned that Europeans had an advantage when they confronted peoples of the Western Hemisphere due to the exposure they had gained over time due to Eurasian diseases. I realize that as aforementioned, this could be the reason that Europeans survived their later encounter with the peoples of the Americas.

Lastly, the idea of trading across the ocean. I was honestly impressed on how technological people were, they figured out ways to trade things from Italy to China. There was a whole system developed for transport as people imported goods from one area and resold them in another. Impressively enough people also learned the patterns of the sea, developing new technologies  such as ways to calculate latitude (which by the way with our current technology I don’t think I would be able to do), a compass (which we still use today) sails and ships that were more conducive to trade. As I read this second I was just dumbfounded by how quickly all these events took place and was impressed by the immense impact that this would have on later historical events.

Chapter 3, 4, 5, 6

   

            I have to admit that the opening paragraph caught my attention. I never thought I'd the United States as the once great Roman Empire; I am sure it's due to my limited knowledge in the subject matter. In any case I found it interesting to think of the U.S as a modern Rome, we do try to dominate/ be the first in everything we do. I did begin to wonder if this nation would one day see a time of chaos. By reading this chapter I learned things that I thought I knew, but didn't. One of the things I learned was the definition of empire: " states, political systems that exercise coercive power...[encompassing] variety of peoples and culture." As I began to think of civilizations associated with the word empire, I was able to make some connections with its definition like that of the Persian Empire. The political system they had in place was a system where in one person made all the decisions. In comparison, enjoyed reading about the Greek and their rag to riches story as they shifted from city states to a republic. It was interesting to think that a republic system dates that long ago.

The chapter on religion was very interesting. I found it fascinating that some of the major religions that continued to exist emerged during the same time. As I read on I began to see that there are certain connections in the various religions that emerged such as Christianity and Islam. Although these religions occurred around the same time there were distinctions such as the connection between a divine power and human rationality. One thing I did notice is that women were not given positions of power within most denominations. 

In chapter 5, I noticed that it covered the complexity of civilizations. What do I mean by complexity? I mean to say that as civilizations began to grow and develop they begin to pick up different Ideals as aforementioned in the previous chapters such as  politics and religion, which leads us to this current chapter discussing inequality. I found that this chapter discussed the differences in the composition of societies, social status, religious beliefs, and power or politics. I found it interesting to read about the differences in classes. Although the landowners seemed to become wealthy due to the exploitation of the peasants, the landlord class which to me registered as the property owners considering that they were wealthy which gave them the power to become officials since they had the money to become educated. Peasants were the working class, they had to work very hard to have little to nothing. It reminded me of today’s middle class where in one works so diligently to accumulate the necessary to survive yet are still required to pay the same price to live as those who have more resources. It is due to the slow rate of progress that there was eventual rebellion due to the constant oppression faced by the poor. However, it seemed to be that being a merchant was the lowest possible ranking in society. I understood being a merchant as someone who is unable to produce their own work and therefore has to sell the work of others, they were the untouchables of society.

From the last chapter. I found it specifically interesting to read about the Mesoamericans. I have heard so much about the culture and their organization but never have taken the time to look into them. The book spoke about the Mayans and the great attention they obtained due to inventions like mathematics, which included the concept of zero. They also created a very intricate writing system which reminded me of the Mayan calendar that is seen so often. Of course we cannot fail to mention their architecture which included enormous temples to their gods, and public plazas for their citizens. I was also surprised to read that they were a peaceful group, for some reason I always considered them to be violent. It was sad to think that although this group had so many triumphs, it eventually fell into demise .