PSC 101 Think Globally and Locally

Summary

In "Think Globally and Locally," Michael Hart delves into the complexities of globalization, the persistence of cultural identities, and the challenges demographics pose globally. While highlighting the book 'The World Is Flat' by Thomas Friedman, Hart suggests the world is only semi-flat due to prevailing economic, geographical, and cultural divisions. The discussion extends to the role of economic regional blocs and the demographic trends across continents, noting a decline in fertility rates outside Africa. The lecture emphasizes the need for a balanced perspective on global economic integration and national cultural identity.

Highlights

• Globalization brings countries closer but doesn't erase cultural and economic differences. 🌐
• Economic integration is seen in regional blocks such as the EU, ASEAN, and Mercosur. 📈
• Fertility rates are falling worldwide except in Africa, affecting global population dynamics. 👶
• Cultural conflicts arise from more than just identity; economic and historical factors play crucial roles. ⚔️
• Demographic trends show a potential decline in countries with aging populations like Japan. 📉

Key Takeaways

• Globalization doesn't flatten all cultural and economic barriers; it's a semi-flat world! 🌍
• Economic regional blocs like the EU and ASEAN illustrate global economic integration. 🤝
• Demographic trends highlight a global fertility decline, with Africa remaining above replacement rate. 👶
• Conflict arises not just from identity differences but historical, political, and economic divides. ⚔️
• Local identity and nationalism can drive significant political and demographic changes. 🌏

Overview

In "Think Globally and Locally," Michael Hart invites us to explore the nuanced landscape of globalization and cultural identity. While globalization strives to integrate economies and streamline exchanges, it doesn't completely erase cultural and economic divides. Hart emphasizes a 'semi-flat' world, contrasting with Thomas Friedman's notion of flatness, indicating that while international connections expand, they don't homogenize national and local identities.

Hart navigates the dynamic of economic and cultural forces with a spotlight on economic regional blocs. These alliances, like the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), showcase how regions have grown economically intertwined while retaining their distinct cultural identities. The lecture underlines the significance of understanding local identity amidst globalization as economies globally continue to integrate.

Demographics form a crucial part of Hart's analysis, as he discusses global trends. While Africa maintains a fertility rate above the replacement level, many parts of the world, including Europe and Japan, face aging populations that pose economic challenges. Hart stresses that understanding these demographic shifts is vital for anticipating future economic and cultural landscapes, highlighting the importance of balancing local identity with global participation.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Overview of Global and Local Thinking This chapter starts with the phrase 'think globally, act locally,' which is noted to be overused in the United States. The speaker clarifies that they are not urging anyone to act as an activist but instead engages from the perspective of an educator.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Comparison of Global Cities: Dubai and Las Vegas The chapter compares two global cities: Dubai and Las Vegas. The focus is on thinking both globally and locally. The left side of the screen displays Dubai, while the right side shows one of the newest properties in Las Vegas, Resort World Las Vegas. This property includes three different hotels: Hilton, Conrad, and Crockford's, with Hilton being the most basic option.
• 01:00 - 03:00: The World is Not Flat: Globalization and Its Challenges The chapter discusses the concept of 'The World is Not Flat,' emphasizing that globalization is drawing the world closer together, resulting in a semi-flat world. It references Thomas Friedman's book, 'The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century,' published in 2005, which delves into globalization's impacts and challenges. The title metaphorically illustrates global interconnectedness despite ongoing barriers and complexities.
• 03:00 - 06:30: Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces: Integration vs Division In this chapter, the author discusses the concept of centrifugal and centripetal forces in the context of global integration versus division. The chapter begins by referencing a statement from 2004, which the author describes as being somewhat premature in attempting to outline a brief history of the 21st century. The author critiques Friedman's viewpoint that the world is being drawn together, leading to increased globalization and uniformity. This viewpoint suggests that economic transactions are becoming more fluid on a global scale, providing a framework for analyzing the forces of integration and division in international contexts.
• 06:30 - 13:30: Causes of Cultural Conflict and Historical Examples This chapter delves into the causes of cultural conflicts and provides historical examples to illustrate these causes. It acknowledges the continuing relevance of historical, geographical, and economic divisions while recognizing the impacts of globalization, which has advanced unevenly across different regions and countries. The chapter suggests that globalization often proceeds in a non-linear fashion, with progress occurring sporadically across various parts of the world.
• 13:30 - 20:30: Economic Integration Through Regional Blocs The chapter discusses the concept of economic integration through regional blocs, highlighting how it brings countries closer together while also acknowledging the forces that create divisions among them. Centripetal forces drive countries towards integration, yet at the same time, there are divisive factors that threaten to pull them apart, leading to the risk of fragmentation.
• 20:30 - 31:00: Demographic Challenges and Population Trends The chapter "Demographic Challenges and Population Trends" explores the complexities of ethnocultural conflict and its role as a centrifugal force in society. It elaborates on how such forces drive divisions away from a cohesive center based on diverse cultural identities. Key determinants of these identities include gender, race, nationality, sexual orientation, tribe, religion, ideology, and language. The chapter conveys the notion that these factors lead to varied individual identifications, contributing to broader demographic challenges.
• 31:00 - 42:00: U.S. Demographic Trends: State Growth and Decline In the chapter titled 'U.S. Demographic Trends: State Growth and Decline,' the text appears to discuss the complexity of identity and conflict. It suggests that identity is shaped by how individuals see themselves and are perceived by others, and emphasizes that differences in identity do not inherently cause conflict. Instead, the chapter identifies causes of conflict as factors such as the breakup of empires, irredentism (a policy advocating the restoration to a country of any territory formerly belonging to it), pathological leadership, and group isolation. These causes are distinct from the determinants of identity.
• 42:00 - 47:00: Pandemic Impact on U.S. State Populations The chapter discusses the impact of pandemics on U.S. state populations, focusing on how pandemics can create or exacerbate physical and economic insecurities. These insecurities often reinforce existing societal divisions. It notes that such factors are not unique to the U.S. and are present globally. It draws parallels to post-Soviet conflicts, such as the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as other conflicts involving Russia.
• 47:00 - 51:00: Long-Term Population Growth Projections for the U.S. The chapter titled 'Long-Term Population Growth Projections for the U.S.' explores various geopolitical influences on population dynamics, including historical claims to territories post-World War II and the impact of events like the breakup of the Soviet Union. While not directly related to U.S. population projections, these historical events provide context for understanding current global influences on demographic changes.

PSC 101 Think Globally and Locally Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] think globally and locally the phrase think globally act locally has been kind of overused in the united states and also i'm not urging anyone to be an activist so it's not a matter of acting i'm i'm a professor i'm a teacher
• 00:30 - 01:00 so i have it as think globally and locally so on the left side of your screen you see dubai on the right side of your screen you see one of the newest properties in the las vegas area and that's resort resort world las vegas and they've got three different hotels in there hilton conrad and crockford's with hilton being the most basic one and
• 01:00 - 01:30 crockford's being the most luxury one so the world is being drawn closer together it is not flat but it's semi-flat in case you're wondering what the phrase the world is flat means it comes from a book called the world is flat a brief history of the 21st century it's a book written by thomas friedman was actually published in 2005 which means that he most likely finished
• 01:30 - 02:00 it in 2004 kind of early to write even a very brief history of the 21st century but friedman argues that the world is being drawn closer together to the point where it becomes increasingly connected and increasingly globalized and increasingly more uniform at least when it comes to the fluidity of economic transactions so i think that the book jumps the gun
• 02:00 - 02:30 in terms of the world's flatness because historical and geographical and economic divisions remain very relevant however he does have a point that there have been some advances in terms of globalization so what we see is globalization that proceeds in stops and starts and that has been more successful in some regions and in some countries than in others so we have a world that
• 02:30 - 03:00 is flatter than before but it is not flat so at the same time as countries are drawn closer together there are also forces of division so countries are drawn close together by centripetal forces of economic integration but they're torn they're divided they're being split apart some countries coming apart at the seams
• 03:00 - 03:30 by the centrifugal force of ethnocultural conflict so a centrifugal force is directed away from the center and determinants of as the cultural con of the cultural identity rather gender race nationality sexual orientation tribe religion ideology and language these are the main ones so this means that different people identify themselves differently and it
• 03:30 - 04:00 also means that people see others in different ways there are all these determinants of identity of how you see yourself and how others see you so differences do not necessarily produce conflict causes of conflict are different from causes of identity so causes of conflict include things like breakup of empires irredentism pathological leadership group isolation slash
• 04:00 - 04:30 physical or economic insecurity and reinforcing cleavages reinforcing divisions in a society so these factories are present in uh most regions of the world a breakup of the soviet empire led to a multiplicity of post-soviet wars for the for example conflict from the gorna karabakh between armenia and azerbaijan or a more current conflict between russia
• 04:30 - 05:00 and ukraine it was partly the result of the breakup of the soviet empire iridentism is when a country wants to reclaim uh a piece of territory which it believes for historical uh reasons to belong to it rather than to the country that currently occupies it so we see part of that with world war ii when hitler was claiming
• 05:00 - 05:30 that parts of europe were more german than non-german and therefore belong to germany annexation of austria in 1938 was conducted under this umbrella that austria is really german occupation of sudetenland under the same umbrella of sudan land being more german than it was czech etc and we see it again in the current conflict i think in ukraine from 2014 to the present well russia claimed that
• 05:30 - 06:00 crimea is much more russian than it is ukrainian because the majority of people are ethnically russian not ukrainian and because no almost no one in crimea spoke uh ukrainian and uh they just spoke for russia pastological leadership is another reason for us the cultural conflict where a leader may see his role usually his but it could be a woman too theoretically he usually sees his role as
• 06:00 - 06:30 world transformative and unique and really goes very hard for a particular goal disregarding the lives and property of other people again the current conflict between russia and ukraine is an example with russia's leader vladimir putin demonstrating such pathological leadership when group is isolated physically and experiences economic insecurity for example serbs in the
• 06:30 - 07:00 province of kosovo during the breakup of yugoslavia and reinforcing cleavages means that in addition to divisions of identity you have economic and or social divisions for example in indonesia the chinese minority which is about four percent of the population nevertheless uh has traditionally owned a very significant chunk of nationals wealth and his has been a target of resentment and even genocidal violence as happened
• 07:00 - 07:30 in the late 1960s the intensity of that's the cultural conflict differs conflict does not have to be violent there have been nonviolent instances of such conflict example would be canada the province of quebec tried for independence twice in 1980 and then again in 1995 and the referendum which uh in both cases went through
• 07:30 - 08:00 peacefully on the first try in 1980 lost very badly by roughly 60 to 40 percent but in 1995 the loss was very very small really the referendum could have gone either way the no vote the note to succession was 50.58 and the vote for succession was 49.42 that was in october of 1995.
• 08:00 - 08:30 so we came uh within the hair spreads of quebec separating from canada the result of such a separation could have been the rest of canadian provinces joining the united states it's not a certainty but it it would have been one of the possibilities so this illustrates that no matter how prosperous and stable a country may look which canada did look at the time and still does you can have a
• 08:30 - 09:00 forces of nationalism forces of ethnocultural identity almost splitting it apart examples of violent conflict include multiple conflicts in yugoslavia in the 1990s most of them involving serbs and non-serbs like serbs and versus croats serbs vs bosniaks which are bosnian muslims and serbs versus kosovars
• 09:00 - 09:30 in terms of the centripetal forces of economic integration which are very real one of the things to look at is economic regional blocs there are many of these so they geographically cluster proving that in the modern world proximity proximity of space geography because space is the central concept of geography geography matters it's not
• 09:30 - 10:00 simply about economic integration but also it's about regional connections so we see mercosur which is spanish from mercado comun del sur and includes many members of south america many countries argentina paraguay uruguay and venezuela its associated countries of bolivia chile peru colombia ecuador and suriname in asia you have association of south east asian nations an economic block
• 10:00 - 10:30 which was formed largely due to fear of china and this includes uh indonesia malaysia philippines singapore and thailand and then you as as the founding members since 1967 and then you had other countries joining in later countries like brunei vietnam laos myanmar and cambodia you also have united states mexico canada agreement
• 10:30 - 11:00 which is a revision and continuation of nafta north american free trade agreement so north american free trade agreement is an economic agreement uh between the united states mexico and canada which went into effect in january of 1994 but president trump a critic of economic arrangements was able to renegotiate this agreement to terms which according to him
• 11:00 - 11:30 are more conducive to american interests and of course you have the european union which is also an economic bloc like the others i have discussed but it's also a social and political block and for a while has been bringing european countries closer together to the point where they were almost becoming one country european union is a customs union which
• 11:30 - 12:00 means that if goods pass border in one country in one eu member country they're automatically in for all other member countries in other words you don't have to pass customs in all the in every single country so customs union is a very important term uh step toward creating a true economic union and not just a system of economic agreements 19 eu countries have adopted the euro as their currency
• 12:00 - 12:30 uh one country has recently left eu and that was the uk the united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland as a result of a popular referendum decided to lead the european union so it's down to 27 countries a number of countries want to join and have wanted for a long time but have been denied this opportunity examples would be turkey and ukraine
• 12:30 - 13:00 turkey has been actively seeking membership since 1988 and i mean we'll see what happens but a lot of people say well turkey is too different but you never know i think that the world is rapidly changing i would not be surprised if in the 2030s we actually see turkey joining the eu the capital of the european union is brussels in belgium the eu has its own political institutions such as the council of the
• 13:00 - 13:30 european union european commission european parliament european court of justice court of auditors european ombudsmen and i have here listed a source where you can go on the internet and read a lot about various european union institutions all right centripetal forces of economic integration are also reflected in the rise of the wto the world trade
• 13:30 - 14:00 organization the world trade organization is both an actual organization and a system of global economic agreements it officially started operations in january of 1995 pursuant to the 1994 burakrish agreement that replaced the general agreement on tariffs and trade so gath a general agreement on tariffs and trade was established in 1948
• 14:00 - 14:30 clearly in the aftermath of the second world war in order to make the world more flat economically speaking to bring it closer together and general agreement on tariffs and trade has gone through a series of negotiations known as rounds so there's been many rounds and the uruguay round i think was the last one and now we have an even tighter agreement in the world trade organization and we have an actual organization so it's the largest economic
• 14:30 - 15:00 organization with 164 member states representing over 98 percent of global trade and global gdp demographics and the common global debacle i don't know if i should have included a question mark here or not but does seem like the problem of demographics is at this time
• 15:00 - 15:30 a problem that cannot be solved it's a problem in search of a solution what we have with demographics is the ability to predict more or less precisely uh population trends for decades to come we cannot do it for centuries to come but we can project very accurately decades ahead three four five decades ahead what we have seen is a rapid
• 15:30 - 16:00 fall of fertility rate for example in the united states fertility rate has been below the replacement rate since 1973 meaning that fewer people were born each year than were dying and in the united states and in canada as well the problem of low fertility rate has been solved so far by ever increasing immigration so these two countries in
• 16:00 - 16:30 north america canada and the united states have actually grown significantly in in recent decades over the last 50 years because of immigration but eventually the world will run out of immigrants too what we see is that if you take a continent-wide approach to it which i think is is a good approach to take uh to see the big picture you see that africa is the only
• 16:30 - 17:00 continent with the fertility rate is clearly appreciably greater than the replacement rate the replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman so if you have a country or a continent and you don't have genocide or you don't have significant emigration then 2.1 percent is the replacement rate the replacement rate is the rate that is required to maintain steady population so africa is way above
• 17:00 - 17:30 the replacement rate in the population in africa continues to grow quite rapidly other continents the situation is quite different oceania about 2.3 percent i'm sorry 2.3 children born per woman that's just above the replacement rate in asia two children are born per woman that's just below the replacement rate south america two children born per woman below the replacement rate in north america which
• 17:30 - 18:00 in this statistic includes canada united states and mexico 1.8 children per woman and in europe 1.6 children per woman so you might have noticed that in recent years the countries of western and central europe have accepted a lot of uh new immigrants and one of the reasons for that is because they want to prop up their
• 18:00 - 18:30 demographics so germany sweden france uh great britain over the last 40 years have accepted a lot of immigrants and uh you know the expectation was that as as you do so you keep the population sufficiently young to generate the tax revenue necessary to support the elderly and the government services and all the things that come with a modern functioning
• 18:30 - 19:00 economy okay now there's a number of countries where things do not look quite as stable and quite as promising so these countries include japan russia ukraine hungary bulgaria romania albania moldova
• 19:00 - 19:30 croatia bosnia and herzegovina serbia latvia lithuania and estonia countries have been losing people japan has dramatically lost over a million people between 2010 and 2021 its population declined from 128 million to 127 million the population of russia has declined by a few million in recent
• 19:30 - 20:00 decades the population of ukraine has catastrophically collapsed when ukraine became independent in 1992 following the breakup of the soviet union the population of ukraine was just over 52 million people by 2021 it was probably in the neighborhood of 43 44 million people so a gigantic collapse of population and things have gotten much worse
• 20:00 - 20:30 uh after russia's invasion of ukraine of course uh other countries like bulgaria which really really is in trouble and then you have countries of the baltic states latvia lithuania and estonia all of which have a small population particularly estonia and all of which have seen the younger generation living in droves
• 20:30 - 21:00 for countries like sweden and ireland because of job opportunities in those countries and lack of opportunities in latvia lithuania and estonia so while a country can be almost arbitrarily small it cannot be arbitrarily old the average age is a very important indicator the age pyramid as we say is a very important thing so in
• 21:00 - 21:30 terms of smallness smallness does not lead to demise we have vatican city which is officially the smallest country in the world san marino liechtenstein monaco same kids and navis and these countries they're small but most of them are prosperous if you look at vatican san marino liechtenstein and monaco these are very prosperous countries some of the most prosperous countries on earth but if you have a country
• 21:30 - 22:00 that is small but is also very old it's like having a small demographic black hole being formed so bulgaria is one such terrifying example around 2060 roughly 50 percent of the population of bulgaria will consist of senior citizens unless the demographics change and no nobody knows how to change the demographics a very low fertility rate in combination
• 22:00 - 22:30 with a very high immigration rates by young people has created the situation for example in 1987 on the eve of the collapse of communist regime in bulgaria which would collapse two years later in 89 so on the eve of the collapse of the communist regime excuse me the population of bulgaria stood at almost 9 million by 2022 it stood at 6.8 million and by 2080 it is expected to be roughly 4.9
• 22:30 - 23:00 million so um capitalism hasn't brought prosperity to the bulgarian people because they have they have been leaving in droves there's a dark joke that there are two solutions to any problem in bulgaria terminal uh 1 and terminal 2 referring to international airports in sofia bulgaria meaning just leave the country and you'll solve your all your
• 23:00 - 23:30 problems now if we take it back if we pivot back to the united states we can break this down by by states and what we see in 2022 the most recent data i have available is that among the states that have grown fastest you see states that started with a small statistical basis that's one
• 23:30 - 24:00 but also states where real estate is relatively cheap and where state income taxes are either small or non-existent so these are states like idaho nevada arizona utah texas so what is growing here we see is western and southwestern states also among these you have south carolina and also you have washington state which is on the west coast
• 24:00 - 24:30 and there's is pacific northwest real estate is relatively expensive but there is no state income tax you also have colorado and you have florida and north carolina so that's for 2022 the states that have shrunk in 2022 uh west virginia alaska illinois new york hawaii louisiana connecticut mississippi and vermont vermont and new
• 24:30 - 25:00 jersey in that order but what you see here is no state has lost anywhere close to even one percent of the population and only one state west virginia lost more than half of a percentage point okay now long-term it gives us a similar picture so between 2010 and 2020
• 25:00 - 25:30 where we have solid data available from the u.s census bureau we see that the states that have grown fastest are again the states that started with a small statistical basis had a lot of empty land relatively cheap real estate and had low to no state income taxes these states are utah which was the fastest growing state followed by idaho followed by texas
• 25:30 - 26:00 north dakota nevada colorado washington florida arizona south carolina now in terms of population losses only three states lost population between 2010 and 2020. these states are illinois mississippi and west virginia and we also have a territory that lost population and that's puerto rico
• 26:00 - 26:30 so only three states losing population that's not that's not too bad in terms of uh pandemic the pandemic we had which started in 2019 coveted 19 but really began in the united states in 2020 we see that between mid 2020 and 2021 the states that have lost a population
• 26:30 - 27:00 tend to be states that are blue states in all states but except for massachusetts of the five that lost population have had a democratic governor so new york california illinois massachusetts and louisiana have experienced the greatest loss of people in this time period in terms of the sheer numbers not the percentage-wise but in terms of the sheer numbers of people
• 27:00 - 27:30 that the state has lost we see new york california illinois massachusetts and louisiana in that order in terms of states that gain population we have texas followed by florida arizona north carolina and georgia these are states with republican governors and states that have dropped their mask mandates relatively
• 27:30 - 28:00 quickly most of them dropped relatively quickly and didn't have the kind of severe restrictions that blue states had now long-term trends are more important than these short trends short-term demographic trends may turn out to be just statistical noise a reaction to a singular event like a pandemic so the pandemic of 2019-2020-2021
• 28:00 - 28:30 should not be taken as the definitive word on what is happening to the states in the united states and should not be taken as the definitive word word on the long-term prospect economically and politically of each state long-term population growth in the united states as a country is assured barring some unexpected events like a nuclear war which vladimir putin can start at any time
• 28:30 - 29:00 but barring any or the yellowstone volcano you know going off but barring any catastrophic events the long-term growth for the country as a whole is assured and even if you look at a at a state by state and territory by territory basis the only territory first of all there are no states that are facing a demographic collapse in the coming decades the only territory that is facing the demographic
• 29:00 - 29:30 collapse is puerto rico so the puerto rico is really its own case it's an island which is located halfway between north and south america it's an island that the united states controlled since 1898 there have been multiple referenda on the future of puerto rico and the people of puerto rico have been given a choice between continuing their status as a territory becoming a state or petitioning congress to become a state or
• 29:30 - 30:00 petitioning congress of the united states for full independence and every time most puerto ricans have voted to maintain their current status as a territory within the united states now the economically the problem is that there are many tropical islands in the world and puerto rico's economy is not particularly diversified so young people have been leaving for decades unless something changes the island
• 30:00 - 30:30 might face really demographic collapse in the second half of the 21st century its population has already been rapidly declining and the collapse may come so uh back to the country as a whole by 2030 the united states census bureau in 2017 projected that by 2030 the population of the united states would rise to 355 million by 2040 to 373.5 million by 2050 to 389 million and
• 30:30 - 31:00 by 2060 to 404.5 million this is probably a conservative estimate i have seen uh different estimates i have seen an estimate where by 2050 the population already reaches uh 400 million people so in terms of population growth and therefore economic growth uh the united states really is uh well positioned for for the
• 31:00 - 31:30 common decades