Deck 18: The World-System Since 1945: Another Wave of Globalization, Hegemony, and Revolutions

Question 1

Examples of the existence of a transnational capitalist class are

A) the World Economic Forum
B) the World Bank
C) the International Monetary Fund
D) a, b, and c
E) none of the above

Answer 1

D

Question 2

The economist that most closely advocated most of the policies implemented by Franklin D.Roosevelt was

A) Von Hayek
B) Marx
C) Veblen
D) Keynes
E) none of the above

Answer 2

D

Question 3

A country that led the movement to refuse to align with either the West or the Soviet Union and tried to build socialism independently was

A) Denmark
B) the Netherlands
C) Sweden
D) Norway
E) Yugoslavia
F) none of the above

Answer 3

E

Question 4

For Britain cotton textiles were the main product that helped to expand the British hegemony. For the United States the corresponding product was

A) steel
B) cars
C) the telephone
D) coal
E) none of the above

Question 5

John Maynard Keynes advocated which of the following economic policies

A) full employment policies
B) no government spending
C) internationally created incentives for companies with trade surpluses to invest in countries with trade deficits
D) assisting experiments in work-place democracy
E) none of the above
F) a and c

Question 6

The neoconservative policy of U.S. unilateral military intervention is most similar to:

A) Japanese expansion in the late 19ᵗʰ and early 20ᵗʰ centuries
B) German expansion before World War I
C) North Korean threats since World War II
D) Dutch armed trade
E) British actions in Africa before World War I

Question 7

Imperial overreach refers to

A) the tendency of emperors to grab food from the plates of those seated next to them
B) efforts to colonize Mars
C) the proclivity of declining hegemons to sustain their global power by emphasizing the use of their military capabilities
D) the repeated efforts of European empire-builders to conquer Russia
E) none of the above

Question 8

The great U-turn refers to:

A) a tricky maneuver to perform when traffic is congested
B) the downturn of the Kondratiev Wave
C) the reversal of the trend toward greater household income equality in core countries since the 1970s
D) a and b
E) none of the above

Question 9

The neoliberal counterrevolution involved:

A) a renewed commitment to the values of the European Enlightenment
B) the privatization of former publicly-owned resources
C) an attack on labor unions
D) an effort to dismantle the welfare state
E) none of the above
F) b, c and d

Question 10

The main causes of the neoliberal counterrevolution were:

A) an upsurge of support for the poor
B) the rise of China
C) a reaction to the world revolution of 1968
D) a decline of the rate of profit in manufacturing
E) none of the above
F) c and d

Question 11

America's half century was characterized by:

A) relatively lower levels of interstate conflict compared with the first half of the 20ᵗʰ century
B) the rise of the multicentric car-based cities
C) the last great wave of decolonization
D) cessation of the growth of the human population
E) further increase in the percentage of the population living in cities
F) all of the above
G) a, b, c, and e

Question 12

In the second half of the 20ᵗʰ century the U.S. economy:

A) continually expanded manufacturing
B) increased and then decreased the proportion of middle-class jobs
C) expanded the financial services sector
D) exported manufacturing jobs to countries with lower wages
E) benefited from the position of the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency
F) b, c, d, and e
G) all of the above

Question 13

Franklin D.Roosevelt's New Deal was successful because it addressed the needs of industrial and agricultural workers.

Question 14

The development of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT and T) supports Marx's notion that the development of technology (the productive forces) has a life of its own, independent of the control of capitalists.

Question 15

Once Stalin came to power in the Soviet Union the influence of socialism in the United States began to decline.

Question 16

Because of all the deaths in World War II, after World War II nationalism declined and transnational organizations movements and organizations became more powerful than international organizations.

Question 17

Wallerstein's description of the movement of declining hegemons from production of consumer goods to production of capital goods to production of financial services applies fairly well to the trajectory of the United States

Question 18

Whether national independence movements were communist or not, the United States did not support them because their independence made them less likely to allow their resources to be exploited.

Question 19

There was a time in US history when a requirement for democratic participation was to own property.

Question 20

Before World War I women in the U.S. did not have the right to vote.

Question 21

Mass production of cheap standardized goods for working people was an expression of Henry Ford's support of labor unions.

Question 22

In the 1970's national currencies became unhinged from the Bretton Woods system of pegged values and were subjected to the actions of currency traders.

Question 23

The move away from mass production to "just in time" production following the Japanese model improved conditions for workers in the core.

Question 24

One of the fruits of the 20ᵗʰ century modern world-system is that countries in the non-core became more internally egalitarian than they had been before they were integrated into the Central System.

Question 25

The final wave of decolonization after World War II put an end to imperialism.

Question 26

As a result of reading this book you tell a friend that the United States is in decline and that the Dutch and the British were once hegemons and they too went into decline. You say this analysis is part of world-systems theory. You're friend accuses you of being unpatriotic. How would you answer them?

Question 27

In what ways is the neoliberalism that emerged in the 1980s different from the policies of the New Deal in the 1930s?

Question 28

Given the recent developments of the Occupy movement in the United States and the European reactions to austerity programs since 2008, discuss the plausibility of:

A) Fukuyama's claim that history is over and capitalism has won
B) Margaret Thatcher's claim that there is no alternative to capitalism

Question 29

Compare the similarities and especially the differences between neoconservatives and neoliberals.

Question 30

Discuss the factors behind the location of a steel plant in Fontana, California.

Question 31

Discuss the processes that strengthened nationalism after World War II.

Question 32

Discuss how the world revolution of 1917 shaped the nature of U.S. hegemony after World War II.

Question 33

How does the U.S. trajectory fit with Wallerstein's notion of stages of hegemony based on comparative advantages in the production of consumer goods, capital goods and financial services?

Question 34

Discuss the main structural developments that led to the huge expansion of finance capital beginning in the 1970s.

Question 35

Discuss the effects that the rise of mass privately-owned automobile transportation on the demographic structure of cities as shown in Figures 18.2 and 18.3 in the text.

Question 36

Discuss how the U.S. was able to build a global network of military bases after World War II.

Question 37

Discuss the rise and demise of the welfare state.

Question 38

Why is Japan not a competitor in the production of airplanes, and what does this tell us about the nature of the post-World War II global development model championed by the United States?

Question 39

Discuss the ways in which the developments that occurred in 1989 can be understood as another world revolution.

Question 40

Discuss the main causes of the "great U-turn" in the shape of income distributions within many core countries that occurred after the 1970s.