Final Exam - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... It is also true that capitalism "has become increasingly global" (Ritzer, p.122).
Entrepreneurs under this capitalistic set up do not undertake those activities where profits are not available. For example preserving forests, keeping air and water clean and so on. In actuality, states bear the costs of all toxicity capitalists create. States also help them in creating quasi-monopolies. Such enterprises rarely create what they consume. Vanishing forests are the greatest examples of rampant exploitation of natural resources. States do not recover the true cost of raw materials from them rather make needed raw materials available to them from other sources when get depleted. Wallerstein is right in his argument that free markets are not free in true sense. On the contrary, patent laws help firms to create monopolies and accumulate capital (Allan).
In the new world scenario, a relationship exists between core and periphery economic states. Less profitable products are produced in periphery states by paying less to the workers. Thus, peripheral economies develop their own capitalist base. Over time, peripheral states attain a state of semi-peripheral state and begin following footsteps of the core economies. They also begin exploiting workers in the same sense as core economies are indulged into (Allan).
While state attempts to hold its dominant core status, it often ends up losing its grip to other emerging nations. That is why they indulge into developing military power to maintain its hold over the world nations. However, the act results into a further decline due to tax burden they need to impose on their own citizens. Wallersteins argues that the cost of hegemony weakens their status within the world-system. For example, the USA bore the brunt of not only Cold War with the erstwhile USSR but also wars in Korea, ...Download file to see next pagesRead More