Global Economy

Global trade is an ancient feature of humans. Humans are restless, nomadic creatures who travel often, trade goods and copy skills and tools they encounter in their journeys. Ships permit longer journeys and transport of larger, heavier cargo. European colonization and exploitation of the rest of the world relied on ship-based commerce that linked Europe with Asia, Africa and the Americas. African countries still struggle with food shortages and famine, in part because colonial world trade replaced indigenous food crops with monocultures for export. Africans cannot eat coffee and cocoa. The monocultures damaged local food production in many different ways – physical changes in the environment coupled with the loss of skills and motivation required for self-sufficiency. Cash crops for export obliterate regional autonomy.

In recent years, industries in the US have moved much of their production to poorer countries to avoid unionized labor, taxes, regulations and high infrastructure costs. The negative effects at home and abroad are fast accumulating. The US in 2008 is facing an economic crisis that reveals fundamental weaknesses in the economy that may never be repaired. China, the beneficiary of foreign investment, is facing the consequences of severe environmental degradation and the social consequences of about 100 million displaced migrant workers who left poor but reasonably stable agricultural communities to work in factories. Factories were built on agricultural land and polluted air, land and water supplies.

Even the most affluent humans are trapped in marketing networks that violate their basic instincts. City dwellers are vulnerable to even small disruptions of energy, water and food supplies. They are helpless when local utilities fail and stores run out of essential supplies.

Gray argued that: "Free marketers tell us that the unprecedented productivity of a rational economic system will remove the causes of social conflict and war. Through human history, wars have arisen from territorial and dynastic conflicts, from religious and ethnic enmities, and from the divergent economic interests pursued by sovereign states. The threat to peace has not disappeared with the end of the Cold War. The nature of war has merely mutated. One consequence of an anarchic global economy has proved to be a world awash with weapons. Sovereign states will be drawn into a struggle for control of the earth's dwindling natural resources. In the coming century ideological rivalries between states may well be succeeded by wars of scarcity." 

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Group Dynamics

Group Dynamics is part of the  Psychology & Philosophy series, developed by Persona Digital Books. We encourage readers to quote and paraphrase topics from Group Dynamics published online and expect proper citations to accompany all derivative writings. The author is Stephen Gislason and the publisher is Persona Digital Books. The most recent date of publication is 2010.  The URL to the book description is http://www.personadigital.net/Persona/groupdynamics/