Evaluate the Evolving Balance of Economic Power Shift form the West to the East

America can either flourish or fade in the new global economy. It all depends on what we do

The author very strongly believes that America’s civilization is in danger of social devastation in the near future. This is clear throughout the whole article, as the author gives many reasons why America is in line for a collapse. This is a valid assumption, and is very thoroughly explored and argumented. For example, the 6 “Killer Applications”: Competition, The Scientific Revolution, The Rule of Law and Representative Government, Modern Medicine, The Consumer Society, and The Work Ethic. These are 6 factors in the potential devastation of the United States of America. The author also states recent reasons as to why America would collapse, mainly revolving around the fact that the other countries are “catching up” to America, in these 6 areas, especially China and Japan. The author believes (and states) that Asians spend more time working and studying, and also have the majority of the world’s largest shopping malls. These countries are also making more money, and have become more competitive over the years. As the article states, “The United States’ average competitiveness score has fallen from 5.82 to 5.43, one of the steepest declines among the developed economies. China’s score, meanwhile, has leapt up from 4.29 to 4.90.” (page 3) While I do agree with the author that China and Japan are “catching up” to America, I think the author exaggerated a little while emphasizing this point. Just because America isn’t

China and India experienced similar economic effects and their reasons for going to war were somewhat the same. To start, in Doc 1 it states that “the economic development of India was stopped and the growth of new

In foreign relations, trade had a marginal value and foreign investment both inwards and outwards were essentially absent. One of the greatest failures of Mao’s notable project ‘Great Leap Forward’ in 1958 turned out to be one of the greatest failures as it was intended to collectivize all agricultural, industrial and service life under people's communes and militias’ control . The first consequence of this measure was an economic autarky that led to one of the worst famines of the twentieth century. Developments in international policy pushed China towards a gradual isolation and growing conflicts. Eventually China's international political and economic relations degenerated and led to a serious military confrontation with its main ally, the Soviet Union and fighting a border war with India in the 60s. Isolation, political and economic, reaches its highest levels with the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 until 1976 .

We are encountering problems that we started long ago and it's up to the American people to bring a change. Ehrenreich reminds us, “In the eighties, US companies began outsourcing the manufacturing of everything from garments to steel, leaving whole cities to die” (609). By outsourcing we are leaving people, towns and even cities out of business. If you take a main factory out of a town the whole town will likely crash. It's a chain reaction. Zakaria declares, “We are now living through the third great power shift of the modern era. It could be called The Rise of the Rest” (612). The concept is that as we are staying moderately the same while other countries are springing to higher levels all around us. Why is this happening? It’s because

For the world to grow and become a place not ruled by the overly wealthy and run by only those who can win a war, all of the nations around the world have to become independant and have the ability to produce items to ship to other nations. Ehrenreich talks about how an American reporter lost his job because he was “pretending to report from sites around the world while he was actually holed up in his Brooklyn apartment” She asks why this American lost his job for doing exactly what entire companies are doing. Zakaria talks about power shifts and how we are going “through a third power shift” which means that the shift of power is dissipating from America to the rest of the world. America used to be the top of many lists for holding records such as tallest building, richest man, and leading financial center; however, many of the records are now held by another county. This is a very good representation of the shift of power, and although companies are outsourcing jobs, they are not getting rid of them completely. An American can still get the job but it might not be in America, which again proves the power shift to include the rest of the world and make the global economy better, and not have just an American economy. The world of today is a place where a person can go from New York to Beijing in a little over 12 hours and because of this it can be said that a person has the ability to move with a job if it is a job they truly

There were many changes and continuities in East Asia, in the relationship of religion and politics from 1450-1750. One main change is the “kaozheng”, or research based on evidence; which led to much critisism of the Neo- Confucian orthodoxy. A main continuity was the system of Neo- Confuciasm, which continued during the Ming and Qing dynasties in China.

There are faults within Zakaria’s argument. Throughout the book, assumptions are made on the likelihood of the prosperous future of the U.S. and emerging powers. These predictions are based on assumptions, therefore lack solid evidence. Zakaria builds his argument based on the assumption that America “will remain a vital, vibrant economy at the forefront of the next revolutions in science, technology and industry” (Zakaria 182). Although there are some statistics that can support this assumption, the future remains unpredictable. Furthermore, Zakaria weakens his credibility by including personal opinions in the book. Particularly the claims made towards India give insight to his bias towards India over China. Zakaria has undermined the economic

China has always been renowned for being successful in the domains of science and arts, however in previous decades, China has been ravaged by famines, civil discomfort and foreign outsourcing. China was consumed by this injustice until well after the Second World War when Mao Zedong introduced Communism adapted from the U.S.S.R, and created an autocratic socialist system which imposes firm constraints upon the Chinese social, political and economic system. It wasn't until the 1980's China's following leader Deng Xiaoping who focused focused on developing China into a

Going back to the end of World War I the United States was the most flourishing country in the world with the highest standard of living. Almost everything consumed in the United States was produced in the country and also manufactured more goods than Britain, France, and Germany combined. The U.S was the number one in pioneering and fabricating capital of the world for about 90 years but it all ended in 2010. According to the United Nations China became the number one nation with manufacturing value reaching about 3 trillion in comparison to the United States 2.2 trillion. Most of the research and development funds in this country goes to manufacturing (American Manufacturing (2012, March 30)).

“Times are changing and things aren’t what they used to be. No longer are North Americans on top of the world with regard to business. The challenge from foreign parts is not to be taken lightly. Indeed, in the near future it may pose a grave threat to the livelihoods of countless people.

It seems inevitable that the United States has fallen from the peak of economic supremacy, and it is unable to change the trend of development of the world economy in this current century even if its economy could resurge (Green, 2008).

It is an honour to be writing to you, Mr. José Ángel Gurría. As the secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), you have defined your organization as being a “source of evidence-based advice for governments and a standard setter to address many global challenges” (Gurría). I wish to take this opportunity to provide my own evidence-based perspective on two particular trends within the global economy, and assist you in the process of giving advice on the global stage. Firstly, over the past few decades, there has been a common suggestion that some type of relative or absolute decline in the U.S.’s position of power exists. Amitav Acharya’s book, The End of American World Order, is one such example.

In the book The Post-American World, by Fareed Zakaria, he spoke of the three economical shifts in the world throughout history. Each one of these shifts has changed the world drastically, with political, culture, and of course, economical differences in every country in the world. What Zakaria had brought to my attention very early in the book was that we are currently living through the third economical shift right now. To be honest, I had never really thought about where the world was heading, and if I hadn’t read this book, I would’ve thought that the United States would remain the main superpower in the world and the rest of the world would sort of stay at their current status. Poor countries would remain poor, and every developed country

In the new global economy, the US may no longer easily dominate. As a result of the flat world, new parts of the world are beginning to successfully compete. Two of the more powerful ones are India and China. These emerging nations are now competing not just for low-wage manufacturing and information labor but, increasingly, for the highest-end research and design work as well. As Friedman mentions in his triple convergence, roughly 3 billion people from India, Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia are now joining this, "plug and play" world in which they can basically compete and collaborate equally. While these nations certainly pose a threat to historical U.S. and European prosperity and power, the proper response is not to fight it, but rather to embrace it, in order to thrive in the new world.