One World, Ready or Not:

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 people p12
• Thailand elephants vs. cars p13
• Poland white collar vs. blue color p13
• China cabbage vs. McDonalds 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 worlds largest
  multinational companies p21
• Basic Mechanisms of Globalization -companies
  investing in foreign countries -has accelerated
  p21-22
• Finance Capital - the trading of stocks, bonds,
  currencies, and more exotic forms of commercial
  paper - has accelerated p23

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

1. Far Eastern Economic Review
2. Warsaw Voice
3. Wendell Willkie
4. Representations of the Intellectual
5. Head to Head Coming Economic Battles Among
   Japan, Europe, and America
6. New York Times
7. Financial Times
8. Wall Street Journal
9. Global 500
10. Financial Times
11. Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy
12. International Monetary Fund
13. The Virtual Corporation Structuring and
    Revitalizing the corporation for the 21st
    Century.