content analysis

“What will happen if the next decade is not one of world growth but of world recession? If a rising tide didn’t lift all boats, how will they be affected by an ebbing tide?” –  Oxford University economist Anthony Atkinson

A new study shows the gap between the rich and poor worldwide is growing — not a surprising revelation to sociologists.  On the other hand, many sociologists have stubbornly clung to the dependency theory of globalization, which suggests that powerful countries extract wealth from poor countries (or in the language of World Systems, core and periphery countries), despite several books (including Milanovic’s Worlds Apart and Firebaugh’s The New Geography of Global Income Inequality) that have shown the action is not between countries, but within countries.  Yes, neo-liberals (see: Tony Blair) are correct when they point out that U.S. economic interventions and the influx of western multi-nationals corporations into developing nations creates wealth in those countries.  And, yes, the Naomi Kleins among us are also correct in noting how it creates new forms of poverty via sweatshops and by placing poor people on the consumer consumption treadmill.

But the trends described in Atkinson’s report are not only present in developing nations.  As we know the distribution of wealth in the U.S. is incredible … and, let’s say it, immoral.  Given the vast wealth in the U.S., solving many of America’s problems with inequality is as simple as forming the political will.  But I guess that’s hard when the poor don’t believe the progressive Senator who wants to help them.  Consider Barbie Snodgrass (“She was forty-two, single, overweight, and suffering from stomach pains”), a member of the working poor in Ohio.  She spoke to George Packer of The New Yorker about Barack Obama’s proposal to implement a more progressive tax policy.

His promise to rescind the Bush tax cuts for wealthier Americans struck her as incredible: “How many people do you know who make two hundred and fifty thousand dollars? What is that, five per cent of the United States? That’s a joke! If he starts at a hundred thousand, I might listen. Two hundred fifty—that’s to me like people who hit the lottery.” In fact, only two per cent of Americans make more than a quarter of a million dollars a year, but that group earns twelve per cent of the national income. Nonetheless, the circumstances of Snodgrass’s life made it impossible for her to imagine that there could possibly be enough taxable money in Obama’s upper-income category—which meant that he was being dishonest, and that she would eventually be the one to pay. “He’ll keep going down, and when it’s to people who make forty-five or fifty thousand it’s going to hit me,” she said. “I’d have to sell my home and live in a five-hundred-dollar-a-month apartment with gang bangers out in my yard, and I’d be scared to death to leave my house.”

Sometimes, I think solving “$1 a day poverty” globally would be considerably easier than garnering the political coalition to solve American inequality.

On a wholly unrelated note, this bit from the Onion, sent to me by a Hall-of-Fame doorframe tapper, speaks to me.

Greetings after a long absence!  I thought of telling you all that I had fallen victim to an experience closely paralleling Tom Hanks’ in Castaway.  But alas, the truth is much more mundane.  Summer was simply too packed for me to post.  I was delightfully somewhat removed from the Internet during the summer months.

I had hatched a glorious return during the first week of classes, but those of you who are employed by liberal arts colleges know too well of the extensive faculty workshops that accompany the beginning of a new year.  For those of you who are less familiar, let me describe a few of the key features of these events:

The Liberal Arts: our faculty workshop is rife with panel discussions and small workgroups that consider pedagogy and the mission of the liberal arts.  While I know well that this would be misery for many, I view it as gift that I work for an institution and have colleagues that eagerly engage in serious conversations about pedagogy.  Or more simply people who believe that discussion of the liberal arts should be a living one.

Curricular Theme: Our current curricular theme involves the increasingly globalized society and encouraging our students to think about the many questions and challenges that reality presents.  To kick-start a conversation on this topic (rather than resorting to cliches), we were treated to two truly excellent speakers in professional positions with global relevance, each of whom spoke for 45 minutes.  We then had another hour to just ask them questions and have a dialogue.  What a pleasure to engage in an interdisciplinary, intellectual conversation!

Pondering: To paraphrase Weber, all the most intellectually productive times I have enjoyed were spent laying in a hammock just thinking.  The informal tradition at my institution is that faculty take nearly a full week just before the beginning of classes to prepare their syllabi — even if they’ve taught the same classes for twenty years.  It’s a wonderful time when we think carefully about the process of education, chat about assignments, and swap readings.

Though I personally cherish the community and intellectualism that this programming encourages, it’s also damn time consuming.  Of course, the semester only gets busier.  But somehow, I’m now re-acclimated to the pace.  So, it’s my sincere hope that I’m back now — like for real.

Just one more thought: Like many, I was saddened to hear of the death of gifted writer, fellow liberal arts educator, and thoughtful human being, David Foster Wallace.  Others, with more expertise or greater poetry of language, have already offered insightful commentary on the man.  But I just wanted to post quote of his that speaks volumes about his personal biography, but also resonates for its honesty about our historical era:

There’s something particularly sad about [living in America around the millennium], something that doesn’t have very much to do with physical circumstances, or the economy, or any of the stuff that gets talked about in the news. It’s more like a stomach-level sadness. I see it in myself and my friends in different ways. It manifests itself as a kind of lostness. Whether it’s unique to our generation I really don’t know.

One of the most informative articles I’ve read recently appeared in the New York Times magazine and focused on the work of Jan Chipchase. Chipchase is a sort of applied anthropologist for cell phone maker Nokia (he calls himself a “human-behavior researcher” or “user anthropologist”). He travels the world studying cell phone usage in an effort to give designers better information on how to improve the product. However, unlike most market researchers, Chipchase’s findings can tell us a lot about global inequalities and how the world is changing.Below, I will give three examples of his findings:

1. A cell phone is the first phone many people will use. As people in a society where the telephone (landline and otherwise) is such an importance part of commerce, personal relationships, and nearly every aspect of everyday life, it seems like a stunning revelation that until very recently, much of the world could not communicate instantaneously.  In the rest of the world, there has been little way (and often little reason) to quickly communicate over great distances. The introduction of cell phone, which requires much less infrastructure than landlines and which offers affordable modes of communicating like the text message, now allows people in undeveloped nations to communicate in new ways.  Doctors can send reminders to patients to take medications.  Or as the article says, “farmers would bring their vegetables to a local person with a mobile phone, who then acted as a commissioned sales agent, using the phone to check market prices and arranging for the most profitable sale.” The potential to advance commerce, health, and relief efforts after natural disasters are tremendous.  At the same time, the great potential for drug cartels, gun-runners, and warlords to exploit the technology for destructive ends is quite troubling.

2. In the Dharavi slum of Mumbai, people keep their cell phones in plastic bags to protect from “pummeling rains.” People who do not have the basics of modern life as we know it – electricity, shelter protected from the weather, running water – now own cell phones (Chipchase uses this information to suggest remedies such as water-proof features). What astonishes me about this is the capacity for change if westerners are motivated. Because there is a commercial incentive for western cell phone makers to sell to people in developing nations, we see 3.3 billion cell phone users worldwide. At the same time, since there is little incentive to improve housing for these people, the people with cell phones in the Dharavi slum have pools of water in their homes.

3. In Bangladesh, people have found informal ways to transfer money using phones. In many small towns, a “phone lady” will have a cell phone which she lets people use for the cost of the minutes plus a small fee. If someone working in the city wants to transfer money to his mother in a small village, s/he would buy cell minutes give the “phone lady” the access code and then the “phone lady” would give the mother cash (minus a small fee). We are living through a moment when our technologies have greater potential than our minds can currently envision. For quite some time to come, we will sudden bursts of creativity as people discover ways to change facets of society using existing technology. These “backdoor” money transfers will almost certainly give way to official, regulated money transfers. More automated text messaging will become available. Soon farmers will not call or text grocers to give prices, but will simply maintain live data (on something like a cell phone web page) that a variety of grocers can check.

These advancements will come from developing nations and be refined and institutionalized in western nations. And on all these advancements, Americans will be the last to know (see part 2 tomorrow). That’s because only in places with no alternatives will people find ways to make do. In a country gluttonous with landlines, cell phones, radios, satellite radio, BlackBerrys, WiFi, television, a trillion web sites, we can choose to ignore the potential of each technology. In places without this communicative wealth, they need to get the most of out what they have.

CA continues to follow the globalization of basketball.  Here’s a Times story on soccer’s influence on basketball.

slow news – May 12, 2008

It’s the End of the World as the Knicks Know It

By Harvey Araton

In one of the recent signs that (Ladies and Gentlemen) your New York Knickerbockers might return to the world of the living, recently hired GM Donnie Walsh hired Seven Seconds or Less ex-Suns coach Mike D’Antoni.  D’Antoni, a former star player and coach in the Italian League, has innovated a run-and-gun system of beautiful basketball in Phoenix over the past several seasons.  In this article, Araton discuss how the Knicks, located in the world’s most cosmopolitan city, have resisted the globalization of the NBA in recent years.  As foreign-born players — like Dirk Nowitzki, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Steve Nash, Andres Nocioni, Mehmet Okur, and many others — have come to dominate (often with big men who can actually shoot), the Knicks have been a provincial backwater.  D’Antoni’s arrival might just change that.

Of course, ca desperately hopes that D’Antoni and Walsh will be able to bring one of the best homegrown players to NY in 2010: LeBron James.