Key concepts: specialty goods, Fordism, industrialized countries, Rostow’s stages of development, foreign investment, Gross National Product, Purchasing Power Parity, Gross Domestic Product, Net National Product, Human Development Index, World-system theory, Core-periphery model, Sustainable development, Anthropocentric, Export-processing zones, Offshore finanacial centers
Growth and diffusion of industrialization
The changing roles of energy and peripheries
The goods that were produced dominantly before the Industrial Revolution were specialty goods, which are assembled individually or in small quantities, and they were produced in small shops or out of the home. By the early 20th century, mass production and assembly lines had replaced many specialty goods. The perfection of standardized mass production, which is in part attributed to Ford, is called Fordism. With the uprising of technology, things could be mass produced and less labor-intensive.
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution is a profound technological and economic change in the mechanization of products. Modern factories, mass-produced goods, and modern forms of capital investment are all products of this period.
Evolution of economic cores and peripheries
The Industrial Revolution arose in England in the late 18th century and then rapidly spread to other parts of Europe and North America. For almost 200 years, heavy industry was mostly limited to northern Europe, East Asia, and North America. Britain, France, the United States, Russia, Germany, and Japan remained at the forefront of industrial production and innovation through the middle of the 20th centrury. These industrialized countries still account for a large protion of the world’s total industrial output. However, although the wealthiest countries, where most industrial goods are consumed, still house most major corporations, many firms have relocated their facilities to less-developed counties where it is cheaper to produce goods. By the 1970s the most highly developed countries had already started shifting to information and and service-based economies.
Geographic critiques of models of economic localization, industrial location, economic development, and world systems
Rostow’s stages of development
Rowstow argued that countries undergo five stages of economic development. During the first stage, the country’s economy is dominated by primary activities—productivity, technological innovation, and per capita incomes reamin low. In the second stage, preconditions for econimic development arise, including the commercialization of agriculture and increased exploitation of raw materials. In the third stage, foreign investment pours in, mainly foing to infrastructure improvements, jumpstarting an economy that was already prepped for growth. In the fourth stage, the country develops a broad manufacturing and commercial base. High per capita incomes and high levels of mass consumption characterize the fifth, the final stage.
Measurements of development: Gross National Product (GNP) is a measure of all the goods and services produced by a country in a year. Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) accounts for what money actually buys within the countires. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is similar to GNP except that it omits investments abroad. For a country like Japan, which has extensive investments abroad, the GNP would be significantly larger than the GDP. Net National Product (NNP) is a measure of all goods and services produced by a country in a year. The Human Development Index (HDI) calculates human development in terms of human welfare. The HDI evaluates human welfare based on three parameters: life expectancy, education, and income. Countries such as Greece, Portugal, and Spain are all rated highly in terms of human development but are slightly less high in terms of GNP.
World-system theory
The World-system theory describes the earth as an interdependent system of countries linked by political and economic competition.This network emerged in the late 15th century when European exporation of outside “worlds” began. Increased expeditions stemmed the development of ship-building and navigation techniques that began to bind certain places closer together in the 16th century. As these political and economic relations strengthened, the areas connected to each other became increasingly exposed to new technologies and innovations. Peripheral countries had little access to the technologies that would facilitate development, and semi-peripheral countries were allowed partial entrance into the system.
Core-periphery model
The core—which includes most of Europe, Japan, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—is made up of countries with relatively high per-capita incomes and high standards of living. On the semi-periphery are the newly industrialized countries with median standards of living, such as Chile, Brazil, Inda, China, and Indonesia. The periphery, the world’s less-developed countries, have low levels of economic productivity, low per capita incomes, and generally low standards of living.
Contemporary patterns and impacts of industrialization and development
Spatial organization of the world economy
Wealthy countries have extensive tertiary and quaternary sectors, while less-developed countries are dominated by tertiary and secondary activites, and the world’s least-developed countries’ economies are based almost entirely on primary activities. Switzerland’s economy relies on banking, research and development, touriesm, and other quaternary activities. Indonesia is extensively industrialized but far less developed than Switzerland; it is currently the site of a vast secondary activity economy, yet it has relatively few advanced quaternary activites. Madagascar, which is one of the world’s least-developed countries, has primary econmic activites dominating their economy.
Variations in levels of development (Refer to Spatial organization of the world economy and Rostow’s model.
Deindustrialization
When industrial facilities leave an area, taking that region’s economic base with them, it is referred to as deindustrialization. Deindustrialization has been particularly extreme in places like the American Midwest and central Britain, where entire regions’ economies had previously relied on heavy industry. Deindustrialization has highly regionalized effects. The entire US did not suffer directly as a result of the layoffs in Flint, but the Great Lakes region was debilitated.
Pollution, health, and quality of life
Manufacturing factories have polluted the air. When the population density is high in economically developed urban regions, the cars also pollute the air, litter becomes abundant, the water sytem and people’s lifestyles become less-sanitary.
Industrialization, environmental change, and sustainability
Industrialization causes environmental change resulting in the high use of raw materials. Sustainable development is an attempt to address the issues of social welfare and environmental protection within the context of capitalism and economic growth. Sustainable development is extremely anthropocentric, which means that it focuses specifically on the needs of people—not the needs of myriad other creatures with whom we share the planet or requirements of the ecosystems upon which we depend.
Local development initiatives: government policies
Leaders of economically developing countries have developed schemes to attract foreign investment. Export-processing zones officially designated for naunfacturing, often have accessible distribution facilities, lax environmental restrictions, and attractive tax exemptions for foreign corporations. Some governments have encouraged the establishment of offshore financial centers as another strategy for initiating economic growth. Offshore financial centers provide a low-profile way for companies and individuals to conduct financial transactions and to avoid high taxes.
