fair trade: social movement – improve conditions of direct producers in third world (raw...
TRANSCRIPT
• Fair Trade:• Social Movement – improve conditions of
direct producers in Third World (raw materials, agricultural goods) 1960s Europe
• Less that 1/100 of 1% of world trade• Critique – a form of subsidy?• does not challenge structure of trading
system
• Structure of International Trade
• Between Developed Countries
• Prices of manufactures goods higher than prices of agricultural goods
• Structural asymmetry between North and South
Transnational Production
• International Division of Labor
• Core, Periphery, Semi periphery
• Skilled/Unskilled
• New International Division of Labor
• Post-Fordist, flexible accumulation
• Service economy
• Manufacturing – offshore
• Raymond-Vernon, Product Life Cycle
• Innovation, high cost, R and D, technology
• Innovate in capital/knowledge intensive area - monopoly
• Technological diffusion- importing countries produce product cheaply
• Competition increase
• Cost of production – Variable Cost - labor
• Move production off shore
• Economies of scale
• Cheaper wages
• Transnational Corporation – 500 largest in the world in the world 170-US 70 Japan, 38 France, 38 UK
• Automobiles, computers
• Wal-Mart Retail 1.8 million employees
• Portfolio investment (only financial resources)
• Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)
• 1950s and 1960s
• Horizontal integration of TNC – produce same product in many different countries
• Toyota produces cars in US and Japan
• Vertical integration – British Petroleum
Critical theory
• Susan Strange - costs of transportation, communication, new financial instruments, new technologies
• Oligopolistic structure of global capital
• Effects of TNCs on Host Countries?
• Entrepreneurship
• New management styles
• Work cultures , competition
• Critique;
• Local business culture
• Market concentration
• HIGH VALUE ADDED IMPORTED
• Low-skill manufacture in offshore
• Multiplier effect not possible in host country