One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism

1. One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism Chapter 1 – The Storm Upon Us William Greider

2. Key Issues • The Machine • Seeing the Machine • The Concept of ‘One World’ • The Nature of the Storm • The Global System

3. The Machine • The Subject of the Book: ‘modern capitalism driven by the imperatives of global industrial revolution.’p11 • A free running economic system is reordering the world p11

4. The Machine • The Purpose of the Book: ‘explore and explain the underlying dynamics of the revolution, the imperatives driving enterprise and finance and leading to great social revolution.’p12

5. Seeing the Machine • Knowing the peoplep12 • Thailand – elephants vs. cars p13 • Poland – white collar vs. blue color p13 • China – cabbage vs. McDonald’s p13 • Indonesia – mobile phenomenon p14 • Japan – Sony Corporation p15 • USA – Boeing 777 p15

6. ‘One World’ Organization of the Book p12 • The industrial system of multinational production • The global market of finance capital • The altered social reality of rich and poor

7. ‘One World’ Travel Experiences p20 • “The most powerful moments, however, were the recurring experience of witnessing poor people who dwell in the backwaters doing industrial work of the most advanced order.” • “The confident presumption that certain high-caliber work can be done only by certain people (mainly it is assumed, by well-educated white people in a few chosen countries) is mistaken,…”

8. The Nature of the Storm Warning by Jack Welch Jr.p21 “ ‘Things are going to get tougher,’ he predicted in mid-1994. ‘The shakeouts will be more brutal. The pace of change more rapid.’ What lies ahead, Welch said, ‘is a hurricane.’”

9. The Nature of the Storm • Immense growth in the world’s largest multinational companiesp21 • Basic Mechanisms of Globalization -companies investing in foreign countries -has acceleratedp21-22 • Finance Capital - the trading of stocks, bonds, currencies, and more exotic forms of commercial paper - has acceleratedp23

10. Competing Power Blocks • Labor p24 • National Governments p24 • Multinational Corporations p25 • Finance Capital p26

11. Competing Power Blocks • Labor p24 • “The biggest, most obvious loser is in terms of labor, both the organized union workers and wage earners in general.” • National Governments p24 • “The more subtle evidence of the dilemma of leading governments is their deteriorating fiscal condition: most are threatened by rising, seemingly permanent budget deficits and accumulating debt.”

12. Competing Power Blocks • Multinational Corporations p25 • “The multinational corporations are, collectively, the muscle and brains of this new system, the engineers who are designing the brilliant networks of new relationships.” • Finance Capital p25 • “Its [finance capital] principles are transparent and pure: maximizing the return on capital without regard to national identity or political or social consequences.”

13. Questions From a team perspective, what issues raised in “The Storm Upon Us” do you find to be the most compelling? If you were to pick an issue to study right now, what would it be? What part of the world do you want to study?

14. Notes • Far Eastern Economic Review • Warsaw Voice • Wendell Willkie • Representations of the Intellectual • Head to Head : Coming Economic Battles Among Japan, Europe, and America • New York Times • Financial Times • Wall Street Journal • Global 500 • Financial Times • Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy • International Monetary Fund • The Virtual Corporation: Structuring and Revitalizing the corporation for the 21st Century.