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  • Hi, I’m John Green.

  • This is Crash Course World History.

  • And today is the penultimate episode of Crash Course.

  • Were gonna talk about globalization.

  • This was going to be the last episode, but I just can’t quit you, World Historians.

  • So, today were going to talk about globalization,

  • and in doing so, were going to talk about why we study history at all.

  • [Jobs program for the Harris Tweed set?]

  • 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 youre wearing is

  • both the cause and result of your ambition.

  • This t-shirt contains the global economy:

  • Its efficiency; its massive surplus; its hyperconnectedness;

  • and its unsustainability.

  • This t-shirt tells one story of globalization.

  • So let’s follow it.

  • [BEST]

  • [intro music]

  • [intro music]

  • [intro music]

  • [intro music]

  • [EVAR]

  • So, globalization is a cultural phenomenon.

  • It’s reflected in contemporary artwork

  • and population migration and linguistic changes,

  • but were going to focus, as we so often have during Crash Course, on trade.

  • So the world today, as symbolized by our international felt melange,

  • [how's your SAT vocab retention doing?]

  • experiences widespread global economic interdependence.

  • Now, of course economic interdependence

  • and the accompanying cultural borrowing are nothing new, youll remember that

  • we found trade documents from the Indus Valley civilization

  • all the way in Mesopotamia. [home of the Mesopotamians]

  • But for a few reasons, the scale of this trade has increased dramatically.

  • 1. Multinational corporations have global reach and increasing power.

  • 2. 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.

  • [nothing beats a TARDIS, however. TARDISes (TARDI?) are cool.]

  • 3. Governments have decreased tariffs and regulations on international trade,

  • leading to what is sometimes called euphemisticallyfree 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. [which is exceptional, you'll agree]

  • 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 US’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 US 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 screenprinting, 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 $3; 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 theyve been bullied into it by larger economies

  • with whom they desperately need to trade.

  • So in the past 30 years,

  • weve 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,

  • we we will wade into it. But not until next week.

  • First, we need to understand more about the nature of this trade.

  • So youll remember from the Industrial Revolution episode

  • that industrial western powers produced most of the manufactured goods,

  • which were then sold in international markets,

  • but youll also remember that domestic consumption was extremely important.

  • I mean, almost all early Model T’s 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 youre 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. [way to set an example for the kids, John]

  • 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?

  • An Open Letter to Cookie Monster. [from Sesame St. or death metal vocalists?]

  • 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.

  • [awesome. John Green just ruined Cookie Monster for me. like, forever.]

  • And that, Cookie Monster,

  • is what makes you a beautiful symbol for contemporary consumption.

  • You just keep eating. Even though you can’t eat.

  • [profundity FTW]

  • 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 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. [roughly the cost of a Clif Bar]

  • 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. [thanks for the doomy reminder, Sandy]

  • But,

  • were gonna 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

  • 1. air travel is pretty cheap,

  • especially if you only take a few plane trips in your life,

  • and 2. 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 3. 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, [oh you, Petey Van Houten…]

  • 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, futbol, 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. [oh you, John Green]

  • 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. [who knew ThoughtBubblers were streakers?]

  • 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, [way to Lastufka a plug in there]

  • will cost you about three hoursworth of work--

  • and yes, that does include shipping. [zing]

  • 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 travelled further than Magellan did during

  • his famous circumnavigation of the globe.

  • You get all of 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-calledgreen revolutionthat 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 youre 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 weve gained and lost in getting to where we are.

  • Next week, our last week, [i know, right? tear.]

  • well 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 VOTE. SRSLY. Participating in your democracy is important + awesome.

  • [outro]

Hi, I’m John Green.

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