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Globalization Has Redefined Urban Life In The United States

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Just as the Industrial Revolution redefined urban life in the late eighteenth century in the United States by the build-up of cities around industrial centers where white-ethnic, blue-collar works lived, the deindustrialization during the 1970s saw a massive exodus of profit-driven corporations leave for developing countries where labor is cheap and profits are high. The impact that this had in the U.S. manufacturing fields was economic devastation, and to which many cities have not fully recovered. Not only were industries restructured, by social connections between workers and their former employers gone as well, along with the cities sizable tax base. The 1980s and 1990s a time where North American cities were forced to restructure away …show more content…

The peripheral countries have been more deeply impacted by this globalization and economic restructuring more negatively than positively. While there are a small, affluent segment living in these areas, most of the urban residents live in squalor and enjoy few amenities that these cities have to offer due to poverty. If anything, it appears that the major impact of globalization has been a significant increase in the income inequality and vulnerability of the people. It’s important to note that while these tiers are unequal, they are interdependent although on the other hand, the system operates in the interest of the core-tier. While there is a recent uprising in nonprofit agencies to combat this aspect of globalization, the task is …show more content…

He further states that he who controls the economy at the top levels, controls society. Marx calls this “means of production” which is defined as all physical elements, other than human beings, that go into producing goods and services. He goes further to describe “means of distribution”, such as stores and while this many change over time, it is elemental in any discussion on how wealth is created or maintained. The Bourgeoisie elite enjoy an affluent lifestyle on the backs of the Proletariat workers. Adam Smith (the Father of Economics) expressed this in 1776 in his book Wealth of Nations. Marx continues by saying that there is an inevitability of revolution within a capitalist society, and that in every philosophy are the seeds of our own destruction. If the Bourgeoisie elite own the land, the buildings, the markets, the transportation, the resources and the money, and the Proletariat workers are discontented with low wages, poor living conditions, poverty, pollution and exploitation there will be an inevitable alienation that sets in. When that occurs, class consciousness can change and revolution can happen. With this current globalization and economic restructuring happening now, are we witnessing the seeds of our own

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The growth of large, booming cities and increasing numbers of innovative ideas and technologies were characteristic of America entering the twentieth century. These cities, such as Detroit and New York City, were centers for industrial progress in which factories were mass producing goods at unprecedented rates. Along with this rapid progress, however, came issues for the wealth of Americans. Not only was the divide between the rich and the poor increasing, but immigrants influxing from Southern Europe chasing after the American Dream posed a threat. Factories wanted cheap laborers to increase their profit and productivity rate frightening Americans who didn’t want to be out of work.

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The dominant classes in society accumulate wealth off of expropriating the labor of society. One German economist Karl Marx has said, “The ideas of the ruling class are, the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class, which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas.” Karl Marx shows that when you are considered a higher class, which means you produce the resources need by society, you control what happens to society.

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The rise of mechanized manufacturing processes through innovations like interchangeable parts and assembly lines has transformed American industry. Their implementations increased productivity and efficiency, which served to mass-produce goods on a scale and at a cost that was unimaginable before. This opened the door for all manner of consumer goods to reach the masses in such a cheap, easy way that it, in turn, fueled the economy and raised the living standard for a great many Americans. A tide of factories and workers in the cities changed American social and economic structure and created a new, non-agrarian working class. Booming factories, therefore, gave birth to Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cleveland, and many other cities, as they managed to turn into dynamic industrial powerhouses that were luring tens of thousands of workers in pursuit of employment.

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They draw their conclusion from Karl Marx’s view of class and societies. Outside forces prevent groups or individuals from reaching certain goals or ways of living. That outside force is typically the upper class. The upper class have created an exclusive society for themselves that lock in their wealth at the expense of everyone else’s well-being. For example the CEO of Wal Mart, Michael Duke receives a $35 million yearly salary.

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Marx asserts that the economy is the most essential and important part of society, as everything is created and shaped around it. Economy is all about human survival and comes before everything else, including the superstructure. Economic organization is the main survival goal in which each society needs to strive towards. The elite personnel that control the economic base therefore control the superstructure. Our culture is entirely created by these economic elites.

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Across America cities buzzed all day and through all hours of the night. People flocked to these cities from farms and halfway around the world for one main reason: work. Manufacturing was booming in cities all over America, and Chicago especially, was a model for western industrialization. As Taft described before this, our progress is met not only with success, but with major roadblocks. America's progress during the Gilded Age in industrialization led to downfalls such as economic, social and political instability, which forced action to be taken to lift these burdens.

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One major difference between the Middle Ages and The Renaissance was the attitude towered ancient classical works by the Greeks and the Romans. The Middle ages saw a suppression of classical works and thinking, regarding it as dangerous to the moral and spiritual health of the society. While the Renaissance witnessed a resurgence in the popularity and critical analysis of the ideas put down by Greek and Roman writers and thinkers. The second difference is in the organizational structures of political power and kingdoms.

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On the contrary, the capitalist society that Marx describes has only become greater in the global society. The disparity between the elite and the populace grows continuously, and the wealth of the first group surpasses the wealth of the second one. The elite has made the working-class into a class of consumption who nourishes its capital gain. This leads on to the global issue of social hierarchy. It establishes inequalities within economy, education and health that the poorest try to outdo, becoming unconsciously even more depended on the capitalist system, because they

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He argues that with all the pressures of class conflict and the imbalance of capitalism there is no way that this pattern can continue without a major revolution. Marx compares capitalism to anarchy, in the sense that there is no organization within which only causes chaos. The common pattern of capitalism is a boom followed by a bust, and that bust leads to recession and social unrest. This sort of fickle economy, Marx believes, will furthermore contribute to the downfall of capitalism. This socialist revolution would, “abolish private ownership of key elements of economy and change nature of relationships from ones based on marriage and property.”

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Marx and Engels look at capitalism with seriously negative opinions. They regard the system as extremely unsuitable, and are deeply concerned with getting rid of it. In a capitalist society, capitalists own and control the main resources of production - machinery, factories, mines, capital, etc. The modern working classes, or proletariats, own only their labor. Proletariats work for the capitalists, who own the product that was produced and then sell it for a profit.

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He sees power as a corrupting force and further sees capitalism as the root cause of the corruption. The economic system can never produce a fair power dynamic, as it relies on private property and when the means of production is wielded by the few, members of society can be sorted into two groups, the employer, and the labourer. Marx used the phrases capitalist mode of production to refer to the systems of organizing production and distribution within societies. He highlights wage-labour and private ownership as two means of

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It has also shown light on the differences and issues triggered between the wealthy and the poor in society. The wealthy is classified as the persons who owned large portions of land and industries: hence, they control sources of revenue, employment and the lower working class in general. Marx sought to understand the reason behind the popularity of poverty when there is an abundance of riches. He came to a conclusion that the reason was capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system where the means of production is owned by private individuals.

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According to Edwards et al. (2006) Marx thought that within capitalism there would be an increased divide between the bourgeoisie class and the proletariat class in the future. The proletariats are lower of the two classes, the people who have to work for wages in order to survive. The bourgeoisie are the people in society who controlled and owned the means of production in a capitalist system.

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Bourgeoisie, which gains the power, defines superstructure “including all social and legal institution, all political and educational systems, all religions and all art” (Bressler, 162), and articulate the ideology which is based on profits of bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie ideology leads to alienation of individuals, especially proletariats. This bourgeoisie ideology creates the clash between the two classes. Marx supported the working class and their victory over dominant class. Marxism believes in providing equal opportunity to the working class as that are available to the

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Capitalism, according to Karl Marx is divided into two major social classes: the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. The Bourgeoisie, which is the minority of the class system, own the means of production such as land, machinery, factories and raw materials whereas the Proletariat, which is the majority of the class system, having no means of their own production and have to work to earn wage for a living. Karl Marx has his own theory that history is made up by class struggle which he mentioned in his book – Manifesto of the Communist Party: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” (Marx and Engels, 1848) and had predicted that the Proletariat would lead a revolution to overthrow the Bourgeoisie. Karl Marx believed that there will be intrinsic conflict like exploitation, alienation of labour and commodity fetishism between both of the classes.

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