Charm and Culture: The Old South with a New Global Modernity - Essay Example

?Client’s Charm and Culture: The Old South with a New Global Modernity Blog Listening to one television program withPaula Deen as she goes through the paces of cooking up a great meal reminds the viewer of the Southern charm that has been indicative of that region for centuries. Sweet tea, picnics outdoors, and deep fried foods have been the hallmarks of the Southern culture for decades, all the while fighting the image of slavery, poverty, and prejudice that marked the region because of the rise of the South during the American Civil War. The discussion about the South is a mixed discussion, a great many cultural beliefs from outside of the community imposed upon a people that is no longer situated in its past, but seeking towards its future just like the rest of the nation. The transformation of the South is taking place whether or not it is recognized and the future that is coming will include them in surprising and welcomed ways. The American South is currently one of the more globalized regions in the United States, despite a continued belief in the social positions of the Old South. Cobb reports that the South was found to be attractive to more than half of the foreign investors to build businesses within the United States, with one in eight workers in the South getting their paycheck from a foreign investor (1). It is understandable why this largely underdeveloped region previous to that time would be attractive to foreign industry as the weather, the local incentives, and the largely blank canvas of the South would make an ideal place to put a business. Industrial underdevelopment in the South included a lack of pesky unions thus providing for lower wages and while a detriment to workers, this was a boon for manufacturers and other resources for jobs. The primary problem was that because of the pressure of unemployment and poverty, the need for business outweighed the need to have fairly distributed equity between the advantages to the company, the civic need for taxes, and the needs of the workers who find some relief in earning some money, but when wages are so low that living is not met with enough resources, the continuation of poverty becomes engulfed with the working poor. Cobb gives the example of Mercedes Benz who positioned a plant in Alabama in 1993 and was given 253 million in subsidies to put their plant in that state. This provided a mere 1500 jobs for the state with 63,000 applicants who largely were turned away (1). With friends like these, foreign investors would be crazy not to participate. It is also proof that the hand of desperation is not a good one to play. Human development suffers for the cause of industrial development, a nonhuman concept taking precedence over the needs of human beings. As an example, 266 million dollars was cut from education in order to support subsidies to Hyundai and Honda in 2001 of 318 million dollars. This begs the question as to the real benefits of bringing in business at the expense of human development which would likely lead to American ingenuity over the dependence upon foreign investment. This is not the only problems in the South where human considerations are concerned. The textile industry has been depleted in the South in the sense that much of the clothing that is purchased in the United States is bought overseas from cheap labor to drive down costs. Even when workers were making clothes in the South they were paid a poverty wage, but now those jobs no longer exist further increasing rural poverty where many of these operations were based. The inequity that exists is driven by a lack of work in rural areas with a development of industry in urban centers. Cobb describes the situation when he writes that “East Alabama gleams with new auto factories while West Alabama hemorrhages apparel plants” (3). In order for the South to become the elevated region of industry that it has the potential for there is a need for social responsibility to play a part in the development of business and enterprise. Maunula ponders the question of the arrival of foreign corporations through an examination of Spartanburg, South Carolina. Spartanburg pursued foreign investors with earnest efforts in order to combat the social issues that were in that city. One of the unique transformations that occurred in this town is that a solid work ethic with farsighted leadership became a hallmark of their identity through the concerted efforts to pursue business towards attracting it to their city. One of the major differences that Maunula observes is that it was the leadership of the city that promoted the shift in success because they were not only concerned with the development of business in their town, but that it would be meaningful for its citizens. As well, they worked to maintain the integrity of the city in relationship to how the power was structured and in maintaining control over that power so that the efforts did not fall into waste so that the community suffered in the long term while the industry took over. Maunula writes that “In Spartanburg, southern cultural conservatism has merged with doses of outside talent and money, creating a community that has kept itself open to business but successfully maintained the social and political status quo” (166). Therefore, the picture painted by Cobb is very different than the one observed by Maunula about the town of Spartanburg because it has embraced foreign investors on its own terms, not bending to their will be merging with the success they bring so that the whole town finds benefits from blossoming business. As Mohl relates his observations about the development of ethnic communities, primarily Latin in origin, to fill labor pools with people willing to work at a low wage, the integrity of the culture of the South seems to still be set against racial lines, creating low paid ‘servants’ out of non-white inhabitants (66). Mohl portrays communities that are segregated and not in touch with each other, creating more distinctions about belonging and cultural adaptation for new comers in these regions. What exists at the esoteric global level which creates equity through treating everyone equally becomes base when brought back down into the community level. What is the moral of this story of foreign investments, sharp leadership on a local level, and the emergence of a new pool of cheap labor through Latin communities who are also sometimes seen as a threat to local communities? It means that in order to become the gleaming example of success, the South needs to take more time to consider its human development over that of the development of industry. Without an insistence upon the importance of the human element, the South will not emerge as a modern center for commerce, but as a representation of the ill effects of globalization and the devastation of the choice to support business over people. Where the demographic shifts have included the emergence of more than one new ethnic community in the South, the development of new communities that are welcomed for their resources and shunned because of their differences is not new to the American South. Without an ability to change the dynamic of cheap labor as an attractive factor the working poor will always be a represented class in the South that hearkens to earlier horrors of slavery and indentured servants. This is not only a Southern problem, but it is a problem for the South in relationship to its underlying dark history that needs to be shed to ever have the true advantages of globalization. Entry in to globalization is a given, where the Southern identity is very realistically at stake. Works Cited Cobb, James C. “Beyond the ‘Y’all Wall’ the American South goes Global” Globalization and the American South. Ed. James C. Cobb and William Stueck. Athens, GA: University of Cobb and William Stueck. Athens, GA: University of Georgia, 2005. 36-65. Print. Maunula, Marko. “Another Southern Paradox: The Arrival of Foreign Corporations – Change and Continuity in Spartanburg, South Carolina”. Global” Globalization and the American South. Ed. James C. Cobb and William Stueck. Athens, GA: University of Georgia, 2005. 164-184. Print. Mohl, Raymond A. “Globalization, Latinization, and the Nuevo New South”. Global” Globalization and the American South. Ed. James C. Cobb and William Stueck. Athens, GA: University of Georgia, 2005. 66-99. Print. Read More