Societies and Identities Exam Review free essay sample

What is the basic argument of the Malthusians? What kinds of evidence fail to support their argument? The Malthusian perspective is that as the population increased so did the demand for resources such as food and with that came the prices of items going up since it was in such great demand and Malthus also said that there was no way that disaster could occur. What he failed to see was that as population increased the agricultural techniques would result in constant increasing food production, but that was the case. Why isn’t it straightforward to identify the Earth’s â€Å"carrying capacity†? The reason why it is hard to identify Earth’s carrying capacity is because our capacity for culture and symbolic thought enables us to constantly change and alter our diets and the way we exploit the environment for food. What, according to Robbins, is the ideology of Malthusian concerns? The ideology of Malthusian concerns is question why the poor existed and what their purpose was, and that poverty existed due to over population because people did not want to change their ways. What is â€Å"demographic transition theory,† and what, according to Robbins, do its theorists regard as an answer to high population growth in poor countries? What, according to Robbins, is wrong about demographic transition theory? The demographic transition theory is that the world population growth increased only very slowly from human beginnings to around 1750, and this was maintained due to high death rates. And in poor countries people fail to use birth control methods in order to control the population growth. How and why did the economic expansion of the world capitalist economy changed reproductive behaviors? It is determined by a number of factors which include the period of fertility and the cultural and society. What is â€Å"wealth flows theory†? How does it explain why the demand for children in poor countries remains high, and the circumstances under which such demand declines? The wealth flows theory says that there are only two decisions that can be made by families and they are to have no economic gain to restricting fertility or to have economic gain. This means that a family see children as assets and they would either make a family money or make them suffer economically. What problems might emerge or increase in poor countries if they become more oriented to the nuclear family structure? Chapter Six, â€Å"Hunger, Poverty, and Economic Development† Is world hunger the result of insufficient food production? Is famine the most common reason for hunger? Is famine caused by food insufficiency? Is hunger caused by overpopulation? There is enough food in the world to feed the population on a vegetarian diet but not in poor countries there is enough food for everyone, famine is not the most common reason for hunger daily efficiency. Famine isn’t cause by food insufficiency but by the lack of work and the fact that people had no money or land, and it is not caused by overpopulation people don’t have the resources that they need. Why is it possible to be malnourished or to starve in the world today? From massive unemployment and high food prices. Historically, why have people left the land on which they produced their own food to seek wage employment, which requires that they buy food from others? People have left the land,,,due to the emergence of cities. This shift was due to the cities and the higher standards of living that was being provided. Why, perhaps, did humans shift from gathering and hunting to domesticating plants and animals? Suggested increase in population density may have required people to forage over larger areas in search of food, but by having domesticating animals and plants was very Neolithic. What is the advantage of plow and irrigation agriculture? In what parts of the world did irrigation agriculture begin? What are the costs of irrigation agriculture? Where did plow agriculture begin? What is swidden agriculture? What are its advantages? Bangladesh or Mesopotamia. Swidden a plot of land is cleared by cutting down the vegetation spreading it over the area. To use for planting and then burned. Seeds are planted and the plants are cultivated and then harvested. What was the most important change in food production inspired by the transformation of food into a capitalist commodity? What are the changes advantages and disadvantages? Why is high agricultural productivity essential for the growth of cities, manufacturing, and services? Finally the role of food as a capitalist commodity resulted in the increase intervention of the state of the food production What is the â€Å"neocaloric revolution,† and what are its problems? What is the â€Å"green revolution,† and what are its problems? What is the â€Å"green revolution II,† and what are its problems? A system that is technologically intensive and substitutes nohuman energy for human energy. The intensification f the use of technology in agriculture is largely the result of what has been called the green revolution. The Green revolution soon ran into some problems. In the capitalist economy, what determines the production of food, including what kinds of food are produced? Under what circumstances is food production discouraged? For example food production is not determined necessarily by the global need for food-that is, how many people have the means to pay for it. From Amartya Sen’s perspective, hunger is a failure of what, and is based on what conditions? Hunger can be seen as a failure of entitlements, and is based on the socially defined rights to food sources. Was there insufficient food during the Irish potato famine of 1846-47? What were the causes of Malawi’s famine in 1949? What is the lesson of these famines? No it was sent to those who could afford to pay for it, and in Malawi the case was that entitlements were used but the famine was started by a drought. Why is more attention given to famine than to endemic hunger? What have been the causes of endemic hunger in Brazil? Famine is more viewed because it doesn’t give the government a bad reputation like endemic hunger does. Also, endemic hunger makes the government look like they don’t care for their people enough. Brazil suffered endemic hunger because the government tried to change economically but they couldn’t keep up with the payments to the World Bank. In what ways is â€Å"health a political symbol subject to manipulation†? What are the consequences for the poor? The government can turn starvation into a medical issue, and instead of needing food they provide the people with medication. Why, according to Robbins, is â€Å"economic development† not a solution to poverty and hunger? What are the three features of economic development that lead it to cause, rather than solve, problems? How does James Scott describe these features and their consequences? Why is foreign aid not a solution to poverty and hunger? What are the good and not so good features of the Grameen Bank’s â€Å"microcredit† approach to reducing hunger and poverty? How are hunger and poverty based on the relations between consumer, laborer, capitalist, and nation-state? Hunger is not caused by a lack of food only by the lack of the ability to buy the food. Chapter 7, â€Å"Environment and Consumption† What countries have the highest per capita rates of energy usage and carbon emissions? The US and Canada How many hectares of land are required to maintain the consumption level of the average person in a high-consumption country? How do such countries make up for deficits in such land? At least 15 acres, and the deficit is made up through trade. How is the history of sugar tied to the emergence and growth of the capitalist world economy? How has it involved relations between consumer, laborer, capitalist, and nation-state? How did the diet of the English working class change in the 1800s? When it comes to â€Å"the case of sugar† there is a long historical past of xploitation as well as the interaction with the laborers, consumers and the economy its self. Sugar sold as a product that held health benefits to those who could afford to buy it and use it. During A. D 1000 Sugar was seen as a luxury and used as a spice and medicine. Since sugar was a commodity it soon was in great demand especially in the 18th and 19th centuries and the West Indies saw a great incr ease in their revenues, but since it was in great demand they needed to make more of it so that meant clearing out of forests and more man power which meant more slaves to do the dirty work. It was also sugar itself that helped many countries such as Spain and Portugal become big in the trading market because they had so much of what people needed but they needed workers and they would get these slaves from Africa to work on their plantations in the Canary Islands and Madeira. Sugar is basically a great example of how a nation-state who mediated the interaction between the capitalist the laborer and the consumer produces a long lasting global problem. Today during the modern times sugar is still greatly consumed and sold due to the â€Å"language† that is used by the marketers when it comes to advertising fast food to the public. Items with sugar are also more available to the lower classes because it is so cheap and the healthy food is more expensive. Sugar can be seen as the everyday fix that most Americans need, while at the same time generating vast amounts of wealth to those who sell their products. What are â€Å"drug foods,† and what have been their role since the industrial revolution? What is the impact of raising cattle for beef on the environment? How efficient is beef as a food source? How good is beef for our health? What has been the role of meat in the diet of most societies historically? Half of the water that we used is to feed cattle and grow grains. Issues include the amount of manure that the cattle leave behind as well as the methane gases that they release, as well as the slaughter transportation and the cooking of the beef itself. What was the role of cattle-beef production in the Irish Potato Famine? How did cattle-beef production affect Argentina and the U. S.? Regarding the U. S. how did cattle-beef production affect the Great Plains and American Indians? How has it influenced corn farming, and what are the consequences? How has cattle-beef production—past and present—involved relations between consumer, laborer, capitalist, and nation-state? What has been the impact of the modern â€Å"hamburger economy† on poor countries such as Costa Rica? During the famine the amount of cattle that was a vailable had increased greatly DUE TO THE FACT THAT most of the grains were being exported to other countries that could afford to pay for them, so they increased their profits. What is the difference between the â€Å"factory model† and the â€Å"agro-ecology model† of agricultural production? How have rich countries exported pollution? Chapter 8, â€Å"Disease† What have arguably been â€Å"signature† diseases of various periods of world history? What do signature diseases reveal about particular times and places in history? How do such revelations pertain to relations between laborer, capitalist, consumer, and nation-state? AIDS is a perfect example because it has become the signature disease for the culture of capitalism *smallpox **malaria **TB *polio **cholera Increases in population density and also the ways in which people took over the habitats of other animals when settling down. What four things are necessary for a pathogen to kill us? How do the four things pertain to relations between laborer, capitalist, consumer, and nation-state? *We must come into contact with the pathogen/vector *the pathogen must be virulent *if we come into contact with a deadly pathogen it must be able to evade our body’s immune system *the pathogen must be able to circumvent whatever measures our society has developed to prevent it from doing harm. Because human behavior is largely dictated by culture, these cultural patterns paly a major role in creating or inhibiting opportunities for pathogens to spread. How did the shift from gathering/hunting to early agriculture change the relationship between microbes and humans? How has the history of urbanization change this relationship? How have these shifts pertained to relations between laborer, capitalist, consumer, and nation-state? These animals were carrying the ticks on them and most likely came into contact with the hunters and came into the households since they were placed in the animal’s habitat. The best argument is that the kinds of lives that we lead as well as the cultures and patterns of social relations that we contact maintain and reproduce. We can make the comparison of the hunter and gatherers as well as the more sedentary communities that came after them. It was said that it was easier to care for the sick if a small population was sedentary rather than mo ving around so much, and that small scattered populations had less of a chance of encountering disease as did those that lived in large dense populated areas. So the living standards and how people took care of the environment and the way in which they interacted with it was a great component. Being a sedentary population had its advantages because you had fewer pathogens to deal with, but at the same time it became more favorable conditions for them and once they began to domesticate animals gave them additional pathogens that they had to deal with. How have the environmental diseases of the past fifty years or so influenced the spread of disease? How has this influenced pertained to relations between laborer, capitalist, consumer, and nation-state? How has the emergence and spread of AIDS reflected contemporary relations between laborer, capitalist, consumer, and nation-state? Hierarchical diffusion , the disease jumps from one living hub to another. When it comes to disease what needs to be noted is the fact that the relationship between human behavior and their culture greatly affects how we come into contact and deal with certain diseases. AIDS is a perfect example because it has become the signature disease for the culture of capitalism, and it is mostly predominant in poor countries and Africa. Africa alone is said to house 5% of the world’s population in AIDS. Another example can be Lyme disease, Lyme disease came about when people had decided that they would cut own the forests and this allowed for a great population of deer and mice to increase since their predators were eradicated. These animals were carrying the ticks on them and most likely came into contact with the hunters and came into the households since they were placed in the animal’s habitat. The best argument is that the kinds of lives that we lead as well as the cultures and patterns of social relations that we contact maintain and reproduce. We can make the comparison of the hunter and gatherers as well as the more sedentary communities that came after them. It was said that it was easier to care for the sick if a small population was sedentary rather than moving around so much, and that small scattered populations had less of a chance of encountering disease as did those that lived in large dense populated areas. So the living standards and how people took care of the environment and the way in which they interacted with it was a great component. Being a sedentary population had its advantages because you had fewer pathogens to deal with, but at the same time it became more favorable conditions for them and once they began to domesticate animals gave them additional pathogens that they had to deal with. Chapter 9, â€Å"Indigenous Groups and Ethnic Conflict† Why have indigenous cultures commonly been destroyed in the history of the nationstate and world capitalism? These cultures have been destroyed because the nation state wants to provide them with more standard methods of living and when they are destroyed it is because one ethnic group enjoys an economic advantage over the other, and because their way of life differs greatly from that of the culture of capitalism. What are the common characteristics of indigenous cultures? *they frequently move around and that makes them difficult to control, *they have ownership of land and resources that the state needs/wants, *as well as the kinship based culture social structure that they have, *plus most small scaled indigenous groups tend to be egalitarian (equal). What processes are involved in â€Å"ethnocide†? the establishment of a frontier situation and advancing through military intervention *the extension of government control *the global destruction of indigenous culture through land takeovers, cultural modification, economic development Why are capitalism and democracy â€Å"a volatile combination† when there is a marketdominant minority? Where there is a market dominant minority capitalism AND DEMOCRACY are a volatile combination. Genocide can be seen as an externality of the market because of the way that it target one group when the once stable economy in a country seems to go wrong. Most people seem to think that genocide arises solely based on ethnic issues when really economics is the leading reason as to why genocide occurs, when really he factors that need to be considered are the incompatibility between democracies, the markets, and a group’s reaction to sudden economic deprivation brought about by radical market reforms. Why is the case of Rwandan genocide â€Å"hardly a simple matter of tribal warfare or ancient hatreds? † Another example can be Rwanda where the colonial history as well as the global economic integration combined to produce genocide. Basically, genocide is when a group needs a scapegoat to put all of their problems. When the Tutsi were given the power they used it to take land from the hutu and the hutus were basically left to serve the tutsi.