Cookie Policy
Our website uses cookies to understand content and feature usage to drive site improvements over time. To learn more, review our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Globalization I: The Upside: Crash Course World History #41
Globalization I: The Upside: Crash Course World History #41
Globalization has allowed people to exchange goods, information, and culture at an unprecedented speed and scale. This video explores the benefits of this process.
- Download MP4unavailable
- Download English Transcript
- Download Spanish Transcript
Key Ideas
As this video progresses, key ideas will be introduced to invoke discussion.
Think about the following questions as you watch the video
- How does John Green define globalization?
- What are some factors that John Green points to in order to explain why the scale of global trade has increased?
- What does John Green list as some of the advantages of globalization?
- How does John Green say your t-shirt is an indication of how globalization has made your life better?
- John Green mentions some of the radical changes brought by globalization. What are they?
: Hi, I'm John Green, this is Crash Course World History,
: and today is the penultimate episode of Crash Course.
: We're going to talk about globalization.
: This was going to be the last episode,
: but I just can't quit you, world historians.
: So, today we're going to talk about globalization,
: and in doing so, we're going to talk about
: why we study history at all.
: Ooh, ooh, Mr. Green! - Yes, Me-from-the-Past?
: We study history to get a good grade
: to go to a good college to get a good job...
: So you can make more money than you would otherwise make
: and be a slightly larger cog among the seven billion gears
: that turn the planet's economic engine, right?
: And that's fine, but if that's why you really study history,
: then you need to understand all the ways
: that the t-shirt you're wearing is both the cause
: and result of your ambition.
: This t-shirt contains the global economy:
: its efficiency, its massive surplus,
: its hyper-connectedness, and its unsustainability.
: This t-shirt tells one story of globalization.
: So let's follow it.
: (music playing)
: So, globalization is a cultural phenomenon.
: It's reflected in contemporary artwork and population migration
: and linguistic changes, but we're going to focus--
: as we so often have during Crash Course-- on trade.
: So the world today, as symbolized
: by our international felt mélange,
: experiences widespread global economic interdependence.
: Now, of course economic interdependence
: and the accompanying cultural borrowing are nothing new.
: You'll remember that we found trade documents
: from the Indus Valley civilization
: all the way in Mesopotamia.
: But for a few reasons,
: the scale of this trade has increased dramatically.
: One, multinational corporations
: have global reach and increasing power.
: Two, travel and shipping are cheap and safe.
: It took about two months to cross the Atlantic in 1800.
: Today it takes about five hours by plane
: and less than a week by ship.
: Three, governments have decreased tariffs
: and regulations on international trade,
: leading to what is sometimes called--
: euphemistically-- "free trade."
: To which I say, if this trade is so free,
: how come BBC America is
: in the premium tier of my cable package?
: To understand the role that governments play
: in international trade, let's look again at this t-shirt.
: This t-shirt, like most t-shirts made in the world,
: contains 100% American cotton.
: And that's not because the U.S. makes the best cotton
: or the most efficient cotton,
: it's because the U.S. government
: subsidizes cotton production.
: And that's what makes this cotton cheaper
: than cotton of similar quality from Brazil or India.
: But in the last 30 years, the U.S.'s share of cotton exports
: has gone down as Brazil, India,
: and Africa's cotton exports go up.
: And that trend will likely continue as the U.S. moves away
: from its expensive cotton subsidies.
: In fact, these days it's already possible to find t-shirts
: with Brazilian, Indian, or Ugandan cotton,
: or a mixture of cottons from all around the world.
: But because the American government
: doesn't subsidize industry in the way
: it does agricultural production,
: the actual spinning and weaving of the cotton takes place
: in lower-wage countries: Mexico, Guatemala, Vietnam,
: China, India, China, China, sometimes even China.
: And then the finished shirts, called blanks,
: are usually sent to Europe or the United States
: for screen printing and then sold.
: You would think the most expensive part of this process
: is the part where we ship this across the Pacific Ocean,
: turn it into this,
: and then ship it back across the Pacific Ocean--
: but you'd be wrong.
: Wholesale t-shirt blanks can cost as little as three dollars.
: The expense is in the printing, the retail side of things,
: and paying the designer at Thought Bubble who was tasked
: with the difficult job of creating a Mongol
: who is at once cute and terrifying.
: So contemporary global trade is pretty anarchic and unregulated,
: at least by international institutions
: and national governments.
: Much of this has to do with academic economists,
: mostly in the U.S. and Europe,
: who have argued with great success
: that governmental regulation diminishes prosperity
: by limiting growth.
: Now, some nations--
: in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa--
: haven't been particularly keen to pursue free trade,
: but they've been bullied into it
: by larger economies with whom they desperately need to trade.
: So in the past 30 years, we've seen all these emerging markets
: lowering their tariffs, getting rid of regulation,
: and privatizing formerly state-run businesses.
: And they often do that to appease
: the International Monetary Fund,
: which offers low-interest loans to developing world economies
: with the motto: Many Strings Attached.
: Now, whether these decreased regulations
: have been a net positive for these developing world economies
: is a subject of much debate,
: and we will wade into it, but not until next week.
: First, we need to understand more
: about the nature of this trade.
: So you'll remember from the Industrial Revolution episode
: that industrial western powers produced most
: of the manufactured goods,
: which were then sold in international markets,
: but you'll also remember that
: domestic consumption was extremely important.
: I mean, almost all early Model Ts were built by Americans
: and bought by Americans.
: But since the 1960s, and especially today,
: former non-industrialized parts of the world
: had been manufacturing consumer goods--
: for domestic markets, yes, but primarily for foreign ones.
: This t-shirt, made in China and the Dominican Republic
: before being imported to Mexico and then to the United States,
: is a primary example of what I'm talking about,
: but so is the computer that you're watching me on.
: Your computer was probably manufactured in China,
: but with parts from all over the world,
: especially Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea.
: And this international manufacturing is always finding,
: like, new markets too.
: Like, Brazil, for instance, has a huge technology sector.
: They make iPads there, actually.
: Sorry, I'm trying to play Angry Birds.
: But what all these countries have in common
: is that while there is a domestic market
: for things like iPads and t-shirts,
: the foreign markets are much, much bigger.
: Oh, it's time for the Open Letter?
: (music playing)
: An open letter to Cookie Monster.
: But first, let's see what's in the secret compartment today.
: Oh, it's a cookie dough-flavored Balance Bar.
: For people who love cookies and pretending to be healthy.
: Dear Cookie Monster, Here's the thing, man,
: you don't have a stomach.
: That's why when you put a cookie in your mouth,
: it crumbles up, and then it just falls out of your mouth.
: But here's what fascinates me, Cookie Monster.
: I believe you when you say you love cookies.
: It doesn't matter that you can't actually eat cookies
: because where you would have a stomach,
: you instead have someone's arm.
: And that, Cookie Monster, is what makes you
: a beautiful symbol for contemporary consumption.
: You just keep eating, even though you can't eat.
: Cookie Monster, you are the best and the worst of us.
: Best wishes, John Green.
: So, although die-hard Marxists might still resist this,
: by 2012 it's become pretty obvious that global capitalism
: has been good for a lot of people.
: It's certainly increased worldwide economic output.
: And while American autoworkers may suffer job loss,
: moving manufacturing jobs
: from high-wage to lower-wage countries
: allows a greater number of people
: to live better than they did
: when the First and Second Worlds monopolized manufacturing.
: And while I don't want to conflate correlation
: and causation, some 600 million people have emerged
: from poverty in the last 30 years,
: at least according to the World Bank's definition of poverty,
: which is living on less than $1.25 a day.
: Americans can argue about
: whether absurdly inexpensive clothes, shoes, and televisions
: are worth the domestic economic and social dislocation,
: but for the Vietnamese worker stitching a pair of sneakers,
: that job represents an opportunity
: for a longer, healthier, and more secure life
: than she would have had if those shoes were made in the U.S.A.
: But, before we jump
: on the celebratory globalization bandwagon,
: let's acknowledge that this brave new world
: has some side effects.
: For instance, it maybe hasn't been so good for families,
: it definitely has not been good for the environment,
: and also there's a chance that globalization will spark,
: like, the end of the human species.
: But we're going to talk about all that next week.
: For today, let's bring on the bandwagon
: and ride straight for the Thought Bubble.
: So these days, people move more than they ever have.
: 21% of people living in Canada were born somewhere else,
: as was an astonishing 69% of Kuwait's current population.
: Migration has become easier because, one,
: air travel is pretty cheap, especially
: if you only take a few plane trips in your life;
: and, two, it's relatively easy and inexpensive
: to stay in touch with relatives living far away
: thanks to Skype, mobile phones, and inexpensive calling cards;
: also, three, even with increased industrialization
: in the developing world, economic opportunities are often
: much better in wealthy countries.
: Remittances-- money sent home by people working abroad--
: are now a huge driver of economic growth
: in the developing world.
: Like, in Tajikistan, for instance,
: remittances are 35%
: of the country's total gross domestic product.
: With all these people moving around the world,
: it's not surprising that globalization
: also means cultural blending.
: When people move, they don't just give up their literary,
: culinary, artistic, and musical traditions.
: Globalized culture is a bit of a paradox, though,
: because some people see culture today
: as increasingly Americanized, right?
: Like, "Friends" is currently broadcast in over 100 countries;
: you can find Diet Coke for sale
: deep in the jungles of Madagascar;
: the NBA is huge in China.
: There are fewer languages spoken today,
: and probably less cultural diversity.
: But on the other hand, an individual's access
: to diverse cultural experience has never been greater.
: Bollywood movies, Swedish hip-hop, Brazilian soap operas,
: highlights from Congolese football matches--
: these are all available to us.
: Culinary cultural fusion is all the rage;
: more novels are translated from languages than ever before--
: although few are actually read;
: and in the surest sign of cultural globalization,
: football, the world's game, has finally reached America,
: where broadcasts of the greatest collective enterprise
: humanity has ever known-- Liverpool Football Club--
: got record ratings in 2012.
: Thanks, Thought Bubble.
: Hey, one last request:
: could you put me in a Liverpool jersey?
: On the pitch at Anfield?
: Raising the Premier League trophy?
: With Steven Gerrard hugging me?
: Yes, just like that!
: Oh, Thought Bubble, I love you so much.
: Okay, so this all brings us to how globalization
: has changed us and whether it's for the better.
: Assuming you make the minimum wage here in the United States,
: this t-shirt, purchased at
: your friendly neighborhood e-tailer dftba.com,
: will cost you about three hours' worth of work--
: and yes, that does include shipping.
: By the time it arrives at your door,
: the cotton within that t-shirt will have traveled by truck,
: train, ship, possibly even airplane
: if you opt for priority shipping.
: And it will probably have traveled
: further than Magellan did
: during his famous circumnavigation of the globe.
: You get all that for three hours of work.
: By contrast, a far less comfortable garment
: several hundred years ago
: would have cost you ten times as much work.
: But these improvements have been accompanied
: by change so radical that we struggle to contextualize it.
: Like, the human population of our planet over time
: looks like this-- dang.
: Like, in 1800, there were
: a billion human beings on this planet,
: and that was more than had ever been seen before.
: And we live more than twice as long on average
: as humans did just two centuries ago,
: largely due to improved health care
: for women in childbirth and their infants,
: but also thanks to antibiotics
: and the second agricultural revolution
: that began in the 1950s, the so-called Green Revolution
: that saw increased use of chemical fertilizers
: lead to dramatically higher crop yields.
: Of course, these gains haven't been evenly distributed
: around the world, but chances are, if you're watching this,
: you, A, survived childbirth,
: and, B, feel reasonably confident
: that your children will as well.
: That's a new feeling for humans.
: And as a parent, I can assure you,
: it's a miracle and one to be celebrated.
: We study history so that we can understand these changes,
: and so that we can remember
: both what we've gained and lost
: in getting to where we are.
: Next week, our last week,
: we'll look at the many facets of globalization
: that aren't causes for celebration.
: But for today, let's just pause to consider
: how we got from here to here,
: how the relentless and unquenchable ambition of humans
: led to a world where the entire contents
: of the Library of Alexandria would fit on my iPhone,
: along with recordings of everything Mozart ever composed.
: In such a world, it's easy to feel
: that we are big and powerful, maybe even invincible.
: It's easy to feel that-- and also dangerous.
: Thanks for watching, I'll see you next week.
: Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller.
: Our script supervisor is Meredith Danko.
: Associate producer, Danica Johnson, and
: the show is written by my high school history teacher,
: Raoul Meyer, and myself.
: Our graphics team is Thought Bubble.
: Last week's Phrase of the Week was "Crush Those Rebels."
: If you want to suggest future Phrases of the Week
: or guess at this week's, you can do so in comments,
: where you can also ask questions about today's video
: that will be answered by our team of historians.
: Thanks for watching Crash Course,
: and as we say in my hometown,
: don't forget to be awesome.
: and today is the penultimate episode of Crash Course.
: We're going to talk about globalization.
: This was going to be the last episode,
: but I just can't quit you, world historians.
: So, today we're going to talk about globalization,
: and in doing so, we're going to talk about
: why we study history at all.
: Ooh, ooh, Mr. Green! - Yes, Me-from-the-Past?
: We study history to get a good grade
: to go to a good college to get a good job...
: So you can make more money than you would otherwise make
: and be a slightly larger cog among the seven billion gears
: that turn the planet's economic engine, right?
: And that's fine, but if that's why you really study history,
: then you need to understand all the ways
: that the t-shirt you're wearing is both the cause
: and result of your ambition.
: This t-shirt contains the global economy:
: its efficiency, its massive surplus,
: its hyper-connectedness, and its unsustainability.
: This t-shirt tells one story of globalization.
: So let's follow it.
: (music playing)
: So, globalization is a cultural phenomenon.
: It's reflected in contemporary artwork and population migration
: and linguistic changes, but we're going to focus--
: as we so often have during Crash Course-- on trade.
: So the world today, as symbolized
: by our international felt mélange,
: experiences widespread global economic interdependence.
: Now, of course economic interdependence
: and the accompanying cultural borrowing are nothing new.
: You'll remember that we found trade documents
: from the Indus Valley civilization
: all the way in Mesopotamia.
: But for a few reasons,
: the scale of this trade has increased dramatically.
: One, multinational corporations
: have global reach and increasing power.
: Two, travel and shipping are cheap and safe.
: It took about two months to cross the Atlantic in 1800.
: Today it takes about five hours by plane
: and less than a week by ship.
: Three, governments have decreased tariffs
: and regulations on international trade,
: leading to what is sometimes called--
: euphemistically-- "free trade."
: To which I say, if this trade is so free,
: how come BBC America is
: in the premium tier of my cable package?
: To understand the role that governments play
: in international trade, let's look again at this t-shirt.
: This t-shirt, like most t-shirts made in the world,
: contains 100% American cotton.
: And that's not because the U.S. makes the best cotton
: or the most efficient cotton,
: it's because the U.S. government
: subsidizes cotton production.
: And that's what makes this cotton cheaper
: than cotton of similar quality from Brazil or India.
: But in the last 30 years, the U.S.'s share of cotton exports
: has gone down as Brazil, India,
: and Africa's cotton exports go up.
: And that trend will likely continue as the U.S. moves away
: from its expensive cotton subsidies.
: In fact, these days it's already possible to find t-shirts
: with Brazilian, Indian, or Ugandan cotton,
: or a mixture of cottons from all around the world.
: But because the American government
: doesn't subsidize industry in the way
: it does agricultural production,
: the actual spinning and weaving of the cotton takes place
: in lower-wage countries: Mexico, Guatemala, Vietnam,
: China, India, China, China, sometimes even China.
: And then the finished shirts, called blanks,
: are usually sent to Europe or the United States
: for screen printing and then sold.
: You would think the most expensive part of this process
: is the part where we ship this across the Pacific Ocean,
: turn it into this,
: and then ship it back across the Pacific Ocean--
: but you'd be wrong.
: Wholesale t-shirt blanks can cost as little as three dollars.
: The expense is in the printing, the retail side of things,
: and paying the designer at Thought Bubble who was tasked
: with the difficult job of creating a Mongol
: who is at once cute and terrifying.
: So contemporary global trade is pretty anarchic and unregulated,
: at least by international institutions
: and national governments.
: Much of this has to do with academic economists,
: mostly in the U.S. and Europe,
: who have argued with great success
: that governmental regulation diminishes prosperity
: by limiting growth.
: Now, some nations--
: in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa--
: haven't been particularly keen to pursue free trade,
: but they've been bullied into it
: by larger economies with whom they desperately need to trade.
: So in the past 30 years, we've seen all these emerging markets
: lowering their tariffs, getting rid of regulation,
: and privatizing formerly state-run businesses.
: And they often do that to appease
: the International Monetary Fund,
: which offers low-interest loans to developing world economies
: with the motto: Many Strings Attached.
: Now, whether these decreased regulations
: have been a net positive for these developing world economies
: is a subject of much debate,
: and we will wade into it, but not until next week.
: First, we need to understand more
: about the nature of this trade.
: So you'll remember from the Industrial Revolution episode
: that industrial western powers produced most
: of the manufactured goods,
: which were then sold in international markets,
: but you'll also remember that
: domestic consumption was extremely important.
: I mean, almost all early Model Ts were built by Americans
: and bought by Americans.
: But since the 1960s, and especially today,
: former non-industrialized parts of the world
: had been manufacturing consumer goods--
: for domestic markets, yes, but primarily for foreign ones.
: This t-shirt, made in China and the Dominican Republic
: before being imported to Mexico and then to the United States,
: is a primary example of what I'm talking about,
: but so is the computer that you're watching me on.
: Your computer was probably manufactured in China,
: but with parts from all over the world,
: especially Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea.
: And this international manufacturing is always finding,
: like, new markets too.
: Like, Brazil, for instance, has a huge technology sector.
: They make iPads there, actually.
: Sorry, I'm trying to play Angry Birds.
: But what all these countries have in common
: is that while there is a domestic market
: for things like iPads and t-shirts,
: the foreign markets are much, much bigger.
: Oh, it's time for the Open Letter?
: (music playing)
: An open letter to Cookie Monster.
: But first, let's see what's in the secret compartment today.
: Oh, it's a cookie dough-flavored Balance Bar.
: For people who love cookies and pretending to be healthy.
: Dear Cookie Monster, Here's the thing, man,
: you don't have a stomach.
: That's why when you put a cookie in your mouth,
: it crumbles up, and then it just falls out of your mouth.
: But here's what fascinates me, Cookie Monster.
: I believe you when you say you love cookies.
: It doesn't matter that you can't actually eat cookies
: because where you would have a stomach,
: you instead have someone's arm.
: And that, Cookie Monster, is what makes you
: a beautiful symbol for contemporary consumption.
: You just keep eating, even though you can't eat.
: Cookie Monster, you are the best and the worst of us.
: Best wishes, John Green.
: So, although die-hard Marxists might still resist this,
: by 2012 it's become pretty obvious that global capitalism
: has been good for a lot of people.
: It's certainly increased worldwide economic output.
: And while American autoworkers may suffer job loss,
: moving manufacturing jobs
: from high-wage to lower-wage countries
: allows a greater number of people
: to live better than they did
: when the First and Second Worlds monopolized manufacturing.
: And while I don't want to conflate correlation
: and causation, some 600 million people have emerged
: from poverty in the last 30 years,
: at least according to the World Bank's definition of poverty,
: which is living on less than $1.25 a day.
: Americans can argue about
: whether absurdly inexpensive clothes, shoes, and televisions
: are worth the domestic economic and social dislocation,
: but for the Vietnamese worker stitching a pair of sneakers,
: that job represents an opportunity
: for a longer, healthier, and more secure life
: than she would have had if those shoes were made in the U.S.A.
: But, before we jump
: on the celebratory globalization bandwagon,
: let's acknowledge that this brave new world
: has some side effects.
: For instance, it maybe hasn't been so good for families,
: it definitely has not been good for the environment,
: and also there's a chance that globalization will spark,
: like, the end of the human species.
: But we're going to talk about all that next week.
: For today, let's bring on the bandwagon
: and ride straight for the Thought Bubble.
: So these days, people move more than they ever have.
: 21% of people living in Canada were born somewhere else,
: as was an astonishing 69% of Kuwait's current population.
: Migration has become easier because, one,
: air travel is pretty cheap, especially
: if you only take a few plane trips in your life;
: and, two, it's relatively easy and inexpensive
: to stay in touch with relatives living far away
: thanks to Skype, mobile phones, and inexpensive calling cards;
: also, three, even with increased industrialization
: in the developing world, economic opportunities are often
: much better in wealthy countries.
: Remittances-- money sent home by people working abroad--
: are now a huge driver of economic growth
: in the developing world.
: Like, in Tajikistan, for instance,
: remittances are 35%
: of the country's total gross domestic product.
: With all these people moving around the world,
: it's not surprising that globalization
: also means cultural blending.
: When people move, they don't just give up their literary,
: culinary, artistic, and musical traditions.
: Globalized culture is a bit of a paradox, though,
: because some people see culture today
: as increasingly Americanized, right?
: Like, "Friends" is currently broadcast in over 100 countries;
: you can find Diet Coke for sale
: deep in the jungles of Madagascar;
: the NBA is huge in China.
: There are fewer languages spoken today,
: and probably less cultural diversity.
: But on the other hand, an individual's access
: to diverse cultural experience has never been greater.
: Bollywood movies, Swedish hip-hop, Brazilian soap operas,
: highlights from Congolese football matches--
: these are all available to us.
: Culinary cultural fusion is all the rage;
: more novels are translated from languages than ever before--
: although few are actually read;
: and in the surest sign of cultural globalization,
: football, the world's game, has finally reached America,
: where broadcasts of the greatest collective enterprise
: humanity has ever known-- Liverpool Football Club--
: got record ratings in 2012.
: Thanks, Thought Bubble.
: Hey, one last request:
: could you put me in a Liverpool jersey?
: On the pitch at Anfield?
: Raising the Premier League trophy?
: With Steven Gerrard hugging me?
: Yes, just like that!
: Oh, Thought Bubble, I love you so much.
: Okay, so this all brings us to how globalization
: has changed us and whether it's for the better.
: Assuming you make the minimum wage here in the United States,
: this t-shirt, purchased at
: your friendly neighborhood e-tailer dftba.com,
: will cost you about three hours' worth of work--
: and yes, that does include shipping.
: By the time it arrives at your door,
: the cotton within that t-shirt will have traveled by truck,
: train, ship, possibly even airplane
: if you opt for priority shipping.
: And it will probably have traveled
: further than Magellan did
: during his famous circumnavigation of the globe.
: You get all that for three hours of work.
: By contrast, a far less comfortable garment
: several hundred years ago
: would have cost you ten times as much work.
: But these improvements have been accompanied
: by change so radical that we struggle to contextualize it.
: Like, the human population of our planet over time
: looks like this-- dang.
: Like, in 1800, there were
: a billion human beings on this planet,
: and that was more than had ever been seen before.
: And we live more than twice as long on average
: as humans did just two centuries ago,
: largely due to improved health care
: for women in childbirth and their infants,
: but also thanks to antibiotics
: and the second agricultural revolution
: that began in the 1950s, the so-called Green Revolution
: that saw increased use of chemical fertilizers
: lead to dramatically higher crop yields.
: Of course, these gains haven't been evenly distributed
: around the world, but chances are, if you're watching this,
: you, A, survived childbirth,
: and, B, feel reasonably confident
: that your children will as well.
: That's a new feeling for humans.
: And as a parent, I can assure you,
: it's a miracle and one to be celebrated.
: We study history so that we can understand these changes,
: and so that we can remember
: both what we've gained and lost
: in getting to where we are.
: Next week, our last week,
: we'll look at the many facets of globalization
: that aren't causes for celebration.
: But for today, let's just pause to consider
: how we got from here to here,
: how the relentless and unquenchable ambition of humans
: led to a world where the entire contents
: of the Library of Alexandria would fit on my iPhone,
: along with recordings of everything Mozart ever composed.
: In such a world, it's easy to feel
: that we are big and powerful, maybe even invincible.
: It's easy to feel that-- and also dangerous.
: Thanks for watching, I'll see you next week.
: Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller.
: Our script supervisor is Meredith Danko.
: Associate producer, Danica Johnson, and
: the show is written by my high school history teacher,
: Raoul Meyer, and myself.
: Our graphics team is Thought Bubble.
: Last week's Phrase of the Week was "Crush Those Rebels."
: If you want to suggest future Phrases of the Week
: or guess at this week's, you can do so in comments,
: where you can also ask questions about today's video
: that will be answered by our team of historians.
: Thanks for watching Crash Course,
: and as we say in my hometown,
: don't forget to be awesome.