Twenty-Three: Capitalism and Culture

The Transformation of the World Economy-

The aftermath of World War II was very different. The capitalists were in conflict, led by the United States, were determined to avoid any return to such depression-era conditions. Technology also contributed to the acceleration of economic globalization. Containerized shipping, huge oil tanks, and air express services lowered transportation costs, while fiber-optic cables and later the internet provided the infrastructure for communication and global interaction. While, in the developing countries, population growth, especially when tied to growing economies and modernizing societies, further fueled globalization as dozens of new nations entered into he world economy.
The kind of economic globalization taking shape in the 1970s and after was widely known as neoliberalism. Major capitalist countries i.e. the United States and Great Britain abandoned many earlier political controls on economic activity as their leaders approach to the world economy favored the reduction of tariffs, the free global movement of capital, a mobile and temporary workforce, the privatization of many state run enterprises , and the governmental efforts to help regulate the economy.

Growth, Instability, and Inequality-

The impact of the economic links has prompted enormous debate and controversy. In the swirl of things, one thing that seemed reasonably clear: economic globalization accompanied, and arguably helped generate, the most remarkable spurt of economic growth in world history. What's far more problematic have been the instability of this emerging world economy and the distribution of the wealth it has generated.
Overall, the economic growth, periodic crisis, and setbacks have shaped world history. The Great Depression clearly illustrated the consequences of global connectedness in the absence of global regulation than the worldwide economic contradiction that began in 2008.

Globalization and the American Empire-

The U.S. global presence might be seen as an "informal empire," similar to the ones that Europeans exercised in China and the Middle East during the nineteenth century. In both cases, economic penetration, political pressure, and periodic military action sought to create societies and governments compatible with the values and interests of the dominant power, but without directly governing large populations for long periods.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war by the early 1990s, U.S. military dominance was unchecked by any equivalent power. When the United States was attacked by Islamic militants on September 11, 2001, that power was unleashed first against Afghanistan (2001), which had sheltered the al-Queda instigators of that attack, and then against Iraq (2003), where Saddam Hussein allegedly had been developing weapons of mass destruction.