World Wars And The Great Depression

The pivotal second chapter of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, "Of the Principle which gives occasion to the Division of Labour," opens with the oft-cited claim that the foundation of modern political economy is the human "propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another."1 This formulation plays both an analytical and normative role. It offers an anthropological microfoundation for Smith's understanding of how modern commercial societies function as social organizations, which, in turn, provide a venue for the expression and operation of these human proclivities. Together with the equally famous concept of the invisible hand, this sentence defines the central axis of a new science of political economy

Attaching great importance to individuality is the third characteristic of market society. For people living in market society, economic advantages are superior to other advantages; the first thing to protect is their individual wealth. This ideological change results from the material condition in market society that people all become single individuals in the factories producing goods for making more money for themselves. In this case, the economic relations rule the social relations (Rinehart 71). Under the structure of the previous social organization, however, “man’s economy... is submerged in his social relationships” (Polanyi 46). People were always concerned about their social relations within their communities (Polanyi 46). They acted so as to maintain their social values (Polanyi 46). The reason for this when it comes to the case of tribal society is that there is no need for people to care much about “individual’s economic interest” because working for the communities enables

Before the great transformation, no economy was subject to being a prisoner of the market (Polanyi 43). Polanyi discusses previous forms of economic organization that function effectively without the system of markets (43). It can be said that through the social being of man and his relationships, that he values material goods only as they serve to an end (Polanyi 46). Within Tribal communities, each member takes on the ideology towards noneconomic ends, that is, not connecting the means of production or distribution in significance with the ownership of goods (Polanyi 46). Members of the tribe place no desire upon economic interests of the individual, but rather on the collective. Reciprocity and redistribution are certain behaviours that communities maintain (Polanyi 47). Reciprocity, regards the sexual organization of society, and redistribution is functioning under a common chief representing domain and authority

As Canada was maturing, many currencies were circulating throughout the colonies. “It was not until the Province of Canada’s revised Currency Act of 1857 that dollars and cents were recognized as the only official units of Canadian currency” (Vardy, J., 2005, p 3) “Silver and bronze coins, denominated in cents and bearing the word “Canada” issued for the first time in 1858, were the first distinctive Canadian Currency”. This currency was referred to as Dominion Notes and could be issued by “commercial banks, private enterprises and governments” (Vardy, J. , 2005,p 3). These notes “became the official currency of Canada in 1876” (Vardy, J., 2005, p 3).

When considering time between 1865 and 1945, United States history evolved and differed from period to period. It began with times of slavery and reconstruction, and proceeded with transformation in the Gilded Age. This then led to the Progressive Era, World War I, the Great Depression and its aftermath, as well as World War II. As one can see, history seems to fluctuate from times of peace and order to times of chaos and turmoil. A process of trial and error explains both how and why the U.S. changed the way it did. In other words, these periods and events reveal that history in itself is a recurring process of learning from past mistakes.

Commerce is frequently thought of as the activity of buying or selling on a large scale, whether it be goods or not, but commerce can be thought of in a different manner, simply defining it as social dealings between people. If commerce is looked at as simply the social interactions between groups of people, it exists practically everywhere on nearly a daily basis. Whether it be the exchange of some sort of “good” on a mass scale from one group to another satirically seen in Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”, arranging marriages as seen in Moliere’s Tartuffe, or 3RD TEXT, it can all be considered some kind of commerce.

Before World War I, the United States was in a period of isolationism, and a determination to stay out of European wars and affairs, while trying to maintain its status as one of the world’s biggest superpowers, militarily and economically (“United States Before”). America was just exiting the Gilded Age, which was an important time of growth and prosperity. Despite this, the American economy was in a small recession when entering the war, which was reversed by a 44 month period of growth caused by production for the war (NBER). This 44 month period helped the economy expand, and furthered the strength of the country. It also furthered the confidence of American businesses and the government which contributed to the attitude that caused overconfidence and helped to spread the Great Depression.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the thirty-second U.S president, and the only president to be elected four times. He led American through the trials of the Great Depression and World War II. He was born on January 30, 1882 in New York. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s curiosity, persistence, and self- confidence served to be extremely helpful traits through his presidency. When he combines all of his super powers together it makes an amazing success story. Sadly Roosevelt’s life was brutally taken by the deadly disease called polio in Georgia in 1945 from polio, a highly infectious viral disease; he still managed to lead this country to providence without fail. His is a president worthy of reputation; He was the beacon of light that led America to

In America, the period between the Great Depression and World War II was rife with uncertainty. The struggles of the Great Depression were over, but their lasting effects shed doubt on America’s future. Persephone, was an attempt by Thomas Hart Benton in 1939 to cement regionalism as the official American art style during this era. However, despite his attempt to promote hope in America’s future, while still acknowledging the despair of the Great Depression, Persephone was regarded as obscene.

It has been argued that all marketplaces are complex social constructs based on meeting needs and creating desires. To firmly understand and to discuss the above statement, one needs to establish a sound understanding of what ‘complex’ is. The Oxford Dictionary defines the concept of ‘complex’ as something that consists of many different parts, and is difficult to grasp meaning or decipher from. (Oxford Dictionary, n.d.). Thus, something that is complex is considered intricate, complicated and not well defined. The ideology

There is no way to talk about an ideal society without mentioning the market, globalization, and international relations. Globalization of markets is a concept that affects even the poorest countries in the world. Being that globalization affects everyone, it is generally asked how a country should run its internal and external affairs to establish a good society. In class, we discussed multiple theories and ideas arguing what constitutes a good society and how this society can be achieved. I will argue that Karl Polanyi has the most convincing ideas when it comes to addressing the questions of “What is the good society?” and “How do we achieve it?” because he understood that a market economy is a form of social organization, that there are embedded markets, fictitious commodities, and the need for an economy based on sharing.

In the similar fashion as Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation, Mark Blyth’s Great Transformations provides an alternative argument for institutional changes in the advanced economies, namely the United States and Sweden, in the Twentieth Century. However, Blyth criticizes that Polanyi’s the double movement thesis have a problem. Notably, Polanyi concludes that the “embedded capitalism”, which control the scope and speed of the market, is the irrevocable form of institutional order. On the contrary, Blyth discusses that “…the political struggle between disembedding and reembedding the market continues today…” (p.4). The disembedding movement was finally given an upper hand in the struggle since the 1970s and early 1980s when the

price mechanisms that we have today, like the spice and silk trade routes, but they were peripheral. These markets were usually only used for luxury goods or things that could not be gotten from within the community and society could operate without them (Flomenhof 99). So without principals of supply and demand to dictate price points of goods, economic stability and unity was sustained through the three principals: reciprocity, redistribution, and householding. In his book he explains these principles based off the exchange systems in the Trobriand Islands of Western Melanesia (Polanyi 47). Reciprocity, Polanyi explains, was a system in which the exchange of goods is based on the social conventional that if you give to someone else they will eventually give back, thus the exchange is reciprocal (45). This required a certain degree of economic symmetry which Polanyi explains in terms of husband wife relations. There was a division of labour between the husband and wife in Trobriand Islands, “the male provides for his sister and family by delivering the finest specimen of his crop” (Polanyi, 48) thus in exchange he is rewarded by his wife in her support of the home and child rearing. In this exchange there is equal value placed on both relationships and they work in symmetry. On a macro level reciprocity works in that a community would work to produce something to then be gifted to other groups (Polanyi 55). In order for this to properly function however the principle of

There are many ways that groups of people allocate goods. The most common way to do this in modern culture is through a market. Markets, as Carruthers and Babb describe it in chapter 1, are the particular supply and demand of any given good or service that are exchanged for a value of money with certain given information. As Wright and Best describe in chapter 3, this way of organizing an economy allows for an effective way to step up an economy. Additionally, it gives the maximum freedom to buy and sell as one pleases. Such markets can take place in any number of forms and are influenced by society’s expectations, religious practices, politics, our relationships with those around us, and many other ways.

imagine living in a world in which there are infinite amounts of goods and resources to satisfy every human desire. People will not find need to budget their limited incomes, businesses will not worry about the cost of labor, and governments will not have reason to tax its citizens, or give importance to environmental issues. People living in this society will be equal to one another and everything would be free, like water in the ocean and sand in the desert. All prices would be zero and society will not find need for markets or financial institutions. Unfortunately we do not live in a utopia of limitless possibilities; we live in a scarce world of unlimited wants. Given unlimited wants, we must make the best use of our limited resources, a science our ancestors have developed and named economics. This study measures how societies use scarce resources to produce valuable commodities and distribute them efficiently among different people.