Deck 12: The Global Economy

Question 1

Robert Gordon's ethnography of the Bushmen challenges many stereotyped beliefs about foraging societies and notes their ethnic diversity and linguistic diversity. What is one of the surprising elements that Gordon's work reveals?

A) their willingness to cede land to the colonial powers
B) their involvement with copper mining and trade
C) their ability to retain the lands they occupied prior to the colonial invasion
D) that their food sources also included agricultural methods

Answer 1

their involvement with copper mining and trade

Question 2

Which of the following has the greatest carrying capacity?

A) small, local farms
B) groups of food foragers
C) industrial agriculture
D) pastoralists

Answer 2

industrial agriculture

Question 3

Groups of humans adapt to their environment in order to use the available resources to satisfy their needs and flourish. What do anthropologists call this cultural adaptation?

A) the economy
B) capitalism
C) environmental anthropology
D) civilization

Answer 3

the economy

Question 4

What is one of the changes that occurs with the transition to intensive agriculture that reflects a distinctly Marxist perspective?

A) Population sizes tend to decrease.
B) Surpluses generated through peasant labor are transferred to a small elite.
C) A more egalitarian lifestyle emerges.
D) Populations become more politically active.

Question 5

Generalized reciprocity-the exchange of goods and services among those of relatively equal status-provides a means to share resources. What other significant function does it serve?

A) It helps maintain social status.
B) It provides for the poor.
C) It counteracts the dangers of large-scale industrial agriculture.
D) It helps build social ties.

Question 6

Seven million Côte d'Ivoirians earn their living in the cocoa and coffee farming industry. How much of the profits reaped from this industry go to the farmers themselves?

A) Farmers in Côte d'Ivoire receive a significant part of the profits.
B) Farmers in Côte d'Ivoire are included in a profit-sharing plan with Archer Daniels Midland.
C) Farmers in Côte d'Ivoire receive only a tiny fraction of the profits.
D) Farmers in Côte d'Ivoire receive nearly all of the profits.

Question 7

Both horticulture and agriculture focus on the use of plants as a source of food. What is the difference between them?

A) the use of seeds to start the crops
B) a requirement of different systems of irrigation
C) the level of intensity needed in the process
D) neither includes any other source of foodstuffs

Question 8

Today fewer than 250,000 people make their primary living from food foraging. Where do the remaining food foragers often live?

A) in environments (cold places, forests, islands) where other strategies for food production are not sustainable
B) in remote regions where inhabitants have never had any contact with other societies or civilizations
C) in very poor countries where agriculture is too expensive
D) in regions where there is an abundance of food and a low population, making agriculture unnecessary

Question 9

Which group of humans employed adaptive strategies that included hunting, fishing, and gathering plants for food?

A) pastoral groups
B) primitive agricultural tribes
C) early industrial societies
D) early preagricultural groups

Question 10

In the United States, what form of economic system is taxation?

A) redistribution
B) balanced reciprocity
C) negative reciprocity
D) market exchange

Question 11

How is the carrying capacity of industrial agriculture different from simpler subsistence strategies such as hunter-gatherers, pastoralism, horticulture, and low-intensity agriculture?

A) Simpler subsistence strategies are locally limited.
B) Simpler subsistence strategies are cheaper to maintain.
C) Simpler subsistence strategies are more readily subject to environmental changes.
D) Industrial agriculture has a lower carrying capacity because it requires less energy.

Question 12

Pastoralism frequently includes the process of transhumance. What is this process?

A) herders moving livestock seasonally between different altitudes
B) herders moving livestock into shelter for the night
C) herders moving from one place to another seeking work
D) herders employing breeding techniques to produce new livestock species

Question 13

When you lived at home growing up as a child, you may have received a small allowance-a bit of money on a somewhat regular occasion that you could use as you wished. This typically comes from a parent who is also working at a regular job to support the family. What is this, in anthropological terms?

A) generalized reciprocity
B) redistribution
C) balanced reciprocity
D) gifting

Question 14

Did you get a tax refund last year? If you did, you have experienced redistribution. What would an anthropologist consider this to be?

A) reallocation
B) balanced reciprocity
C) a leveling mechanism
D) market exchange

Question 15

The process of "closing a deal" in business often has both parties trying to get the best deal they can. What kind of reciprocity would an anthropologist call this?

A) balanced
B) forced
C) negative
D) generalized

Question 16

The problems with industrialized agriculture are discussed in the book and include dangerous chemicals, weather susceptibility, large amounts of energy, and health risks. Taken all together, what might we note about the sorts of global problems that industrialized agriculture helps create?

A) It leads to dramatic increases in poverty worldwide.
B) It is significantly reducing the pollution caused by preindustrialized agriculture.
C) The problems inherent in industrialized agriculture are increasing the human ecological footprint.
D) The growth of industrial agriculture has created a severe shortage of capital around the world.

Question 17

What is the primary difference, from an anthropological perspective, between balanced reciprocity and generalized reciprocity?

A) Generalized reciprocity occurs between those with close ties.
B) Balanced reciprocity occurs only between immediate family members.
C) Generalized reciprocity is a political act.
D) Balanced reciprocity serves to keep families together.

Question 18

According to the text, what is the country of Côte d'Ivoire best known for?

A) extensive tropical forests
B) banana exports
C) political corruption
D) cocoa exports

Question 19

Agriculture is an intensive farming strategy involving permanent cultivation of the land. What is an important characteristic of this process?

A) Agriculture rarely produces a surplus that can be sold.
B) Agriculture uses labor and technology such as irrigation systems and plows.
C) Agriculture is an environmentally low-impact practice.
D) Agriculture uses a slash-and-burn method to clear land.

Question 20

Which of the following distinguishes agriculture in nonindustrial states from agriculture in egalitarian societies?

A) swidden farming
B) tending livestock
C) gathering of nuts, fruits, and root crops
D) landless tenants as wage laborers

Question 21

In its critique of modernization, modern world systems analysis argues that the source of raw materials today is ________ nations, the same as it was during the height of colonial expansion.

A) core
B) developed
C) peripheral
D) impoverished

Question 22

What is the commodity most closely associated with early Chinese trade routes?

A) slavery
B) sugar
C) gold
D) silk

Question 23

Henry Ford is known for the introduction of the assembly line and the Model T. As his manufacturing effort expanded, however, he also adopted an attitude that came to be known as Fordism. What was one of the central tenets in his system?

A) Workers should earn higher wages and work shorter hours, creating a new pool of consumers with the income and leisure to purchase a car.
B) Workers should earn lower wages and work shorter hours, since they were easily replaced on the assembly line.
C) Workers should be drawn from a pool of immigrant labor, which was cheaper and willing to tolerate the grueling work of an assembly line.
D) Workers could easily tolerate working on an assembly line, so they should be paid lower wages and work longer hours.

Question 24

What is one caveat of world systems theory?

A) There is not always geographical isolation between core and peripheral nations.
B) Globalization creates geographical isolation between core and peripheral nations.
C) Both core and peripheral nations are developing more rapidly.
D) Semiperipheral nations are major contributors to continued poverty.

Question 25

As a result of the China-Europe trade imbalance, European nations sought to acquire needed resources in order to participate fully in the world economy of that time. The major advantage they had-advanced weaponry and strong military strategies-resulted in what lasting legacy?

A) slavery
B) colonialism
C) disease
D) religious domination

Question 26

The concept of flexible accumulation describes an overall strategy of multinational corporations to increase profitability. What is one of the keys to the success of this strategy?

A) offshoring
B) local transportation systems
C) a high-cost labor force
D) increasingly expensive manufacturing techniques

Question 27

The origins of the current global economic system are found in the late 1400s, when China was the world leader in the production and export of goods such as silk. The result of this position created what problem that fostered European exploration of the Americas?

A) There was a currency surplus, with vast reserves held by the ruling elite.
B) It created a trade deficit, with exports vastly exceeding imports.
C) There was a severe gold shortage, with an inability to pay off international debts.
D) It fostered a labor shortage, leading to a strong demand for slave labor.

Question 28

According to the author, what conditions led to the emergence of dependency theory?

A) African scholars argued that industrialized countries were using the land and rain in East Africa to grow crops for export.
B) Anthropologists observed that inadequate natural resources made former colonies across the globe dependent on help from industrialized nations.
C) Latin American scholars observed that the global economy was structured to extract resources from less developed nations and transfer them to industrialized nations.
D) European scholars argued that flows of migrants from the global north to the global south made Europe dependent on immigrants as a labor source.

Question 29

Prior to the European exploration of the Americas, how were trade routes between China and Europe accomplished?

A) Traders used long-distance overland routes via Siberia and northern Europe.
B) Traders used long-distance ship routes around the southern coast of South America.
C) Traders used long-distance overland routes through Asia and eastern Europe.
D) Traders used long-distance ship routes around the southern coast of Africa.

Question 30

The Triangle Trade that emerged in the early 1500s resulted in an unprecedented level of economic, social, and military activity between Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The European effort to expand their own economic power in the Caribbean quickly proved unsustainable due to a shortage of what essential commodity?

A) water
B) sugar
C) ships
D) people

Question 31

What major event set the stage for the end of European colonialism?

A) the Haitian revolution
B) World War I
C) the Battle of Algiers
D) World War II

Question 32

Critics of modernization suggest that underdevelopment is the result of postcolonialism, and that poor countries today cannot participate in the global economy because it is structured to extract and transfer what to developed nations?

A) money
B) people
C) resources
D) energy

Question 33

The position that the free market and free trade rather than the state are the main mechanisms for ensuring economic growth is associated with which theorist?

A) John Keynes
B) Adam Smith
C) Karl Marx
D) Henry Ford

Question 34

How are today's privatization programs, often associated with neoliberalism, an unsurprising result of Adam Smith's perspective on economic growth?

A) Smith's belief in increased governmental control of the market is in opposition to privatization.
B) Smith argued for unfettered competition in the market and called for government assistance to ensure this result.
C) Smith's belief in laissez-faire-"leave it alone"-economics calls for a free market.
D) Smith supported the idea of colonialism and felt that governments were best suited to implement privatization.

Question 35

Why is Haiti considered a significant former colony?

A) It was the first nation to gain independence from a colonial power.
B) It was the first independent former colony to be ruled by people of African descent.
C) It was an example of a highly profitable colony.
D) Widespread migration from Haiti to Britain occurred after independence.

Question 36

What argument did Keynes advance about how capitalism works best?

A) Government must reign in the excesses of capitalism.
B) Government must be able to control the free market completely.
C) Free markets must be able to implement the legal structures needed to succeed.
D) All citizens must be able to decide what the free market can and cannot do.

Question 37

Development is frequently considered to be a way to spur economic growth and a path toward what?

A) balanced trade
B) environmental sustainability
C) progress
D) financial stability in the global economy

Question 38

The European drive to enter the world economy of the 1500s led to a frenzied effort to procure what commodity?

A) silk
B) spices
C) gold
D) slaves

Question 39

Why did some critics question the economic development strategies used by Western nations after World War II to address structural imbalances in the global economy?

A) Former colonies did not experience the expected levels of growth.
B) Nations that had smaller populations continued to experience serious poverty.
C) Former colonial powers had never exploited other countries.
D) The cost of restoring the war-torn nations of Europe proved far higher than originally thought.

Question 40

Immanuel Wallerstein's modern world systems analysis sees nations and regions as divided into different groups in terms of economic dominance. These include core, semiperiphery, and periphery groups. What is one defining characteristic of the periphery group?

A) tax shelter opportunities
B) cheap labor
C) industrial development
D) military development

Question 41

Why is understanding the foraging lifestyle so important to economic anthropologists? When did humans first use this adaptive strategy, and how many humans rely on this practice today? What are the primary locations where it is practiced today? Think specifically of the resources and means of obtaining them, settlement patterns, and division of labor.

Question 42

In the past several decades, many companies have made effective use of flexible accumulation-the strategy used by transnational corporations to maximize profits. What is one of the reasons that a company like Walmart has grown in both size and profit?

A) It has established itself as a fair employer around the world.
B) It has avoided offshoring until just recently.
C) It has more than 7,000 factories overseas that manufacture products for the company.
D) It has built stores in every nation on the planet.

Question 43

In 2016, reports appeared in the media detailing the struggles of nail salon workers, who are often immigrants. Many work long hours under difficult conditions in order to meet the demand in the United States for the perfect pedicure. This example closely resembles accounts in your text by showing us what side of the complex global economy?

A) modern-day slavery
B) friction
C) commodity chains
D) migration

Question 44

Colonialism had a long-lasting effect on world politics. While the development of the slave trade meant that the coastal regions of Africa were heavily colonized, the interior was not affected until the Berlin Conference in 1884. How did the colonial powers choose to divide the interior region among themselves?

A) Boundaries were allocated according to which colonial power was then the most powerful.
B) Boundaries were negotiated with the local leaders.
C) Boundaries were drawn along existing ethnic and cultural lines.
D) Boundaries were drawn along geographical lines such as rivers and mountains.

Question 45

What is one way the U.S. government engaged in a Keynesian intervention following the 2008 financial collapse?

A) moving to guarantee bank deposits threatened by economic collapse
B) keeping interest rates high
C) temporarily increasing Social Security taxes
D) deregulating financial markets

Question 46

After World War II, the United States was strongly influenced by Fordism. There was unprecedented industrial growth, with government stepping in to regulate some aspects of corporate behavior. What was the tax structure imposed on the country at that time and what side effect did it have?

A) A high marginal rate was imposed on the very wealthy, which helped moderate inequality.
B) A low marginal rate was imposed on the very wealthy, which helped moderate inequality.
C) The very wealthy were given tax exemptions that allowed employment to flourish.
D) The very wealthy were given tax exemptions that created high unemployment.

Question 47

In July 2016, the U.S. stock market opened higher after the Labor Department reported substantial national job growth. If an anthropologist were to study this phenomenon, what might he or she look into?

A) the way in which stocks could continue to grow unfettered
B) the accuracy of the jobs report
C) the cultural assumptions underlying the association between job growth and the stock market
D) how employment trends have changed over the past one hundred years

Question 48

The text suggests that "ecological overshoot" is a likely consequence of our current global economy. What exactly does this mean?

A) We have damaged the environment beyond its ability to repair itself.
B) We have exceeded the ability of the planet to provide for our needs.
C) Development planners have not properly accounted for the ecological costs of growth.
D) The free market must pull back from the environmental practices that destroy the planet.

Question 49

What is the term for contracts based on (derived from) some other asset-commodities, interest rates, credit, foreign exchange rates, equities, and mortgages?

A) long-term yields
B) financial derivatives
C) bank bailouts
D) insider swaps

Question 50

Bangladesh's costal floodplain has been repeatedly inundated with monsoons, flooding, and devastating erosion. How does the nation of Bangladesh illustrate the problems of development and how it relates to environmental challenges?

A) Governments alone cannot change the pattern of environmental destruction.
B) Past programs designed to help poor nations have been failures.
C) Poorer nations suffer the consequences of climate change in ways that developed nations do not.
D) Poor nations are not well equipped to manage economic growth.

Question 51

Currently, the world is consuming natural resources at double the rate required to maintain sustainable levels. What problem does this illustrate about the sustainability of the current global economy?

A) The global population is not evenly distributed.
B) The human ecological footprint is too large.
C) Capitalism must be perfected.
D) Technology is not advancing quick enough.

Question 52

Consider the data in Table 12.1 on Energy Consumption. Looking at the table, the United States is behind China for total energy consumption. However, the per capita energy consumption is far higher in the United States than it is for China, and higher still for Canada. What might this suggest as one crucial aspect of how we approach a solution to the global environmental crisis?

A) Individuals must be part of the effort to reduce the ecological footprint.
B) China must reduce its population in order to avert a worldwide environmental collapse.
C) Russia, Canada, and the United States are the worst offenders for environmental abuses.
D) European countries need to reduce individual energy consumption.

Question 53

Which of these are requirements faced by governments receiving structural adjustment loans under neoliberal economic policies?

A) maintain price supports on essential commodities
B) increase spending on health and educational services
C) implement regulations on banks and financial institutions
D) privatize state-owned enterprises

Question 54

Industrialized agriculture is noted in the text as having yielded dramatic increases in the overall food supply of the planet. At the same time, poverty and starvation have also gotten worse. What is the primary reason for this discrepancy?

A) Food surpluses often go to wealthy industrialized nations.
B) The types of food produced are not what people in poor regions will consume.
C) Poor people live in very remote regions with no transportation systems to receive food.
D) Poverty and starvation are caused by political strife and war.

Question 55

How does tracing the links in the commodity chain originating in Côte d'Ivoire inform us of the complex dynamics in the global economy? After defining the term commodity chain and identifying the commodities produced and exported from this nation, discuss how the recent history of this former colony illustrates three important dimensions of the global economy.

Question 56

What is one result of the globalization of finance?

A) Banking processes have remained surprisingly stable over the past thirty years in the United States.
B) Wall Street limits the time that world trading occurs, typically between 9 AM and 5 PM Eastern Standard Time.
C) Fluctuations of interest rates set by the European Central Bank are separate from local prices of food and gas.
D) The ability of the nation-state to regulate what occurs within its borders is being steadily eroded.

Question 57

Which of the following does the author identify as a success the global economy has achieved in the past sixty years?

A) School enrollments have more than doubled across the globe.
B) Infant mortality rates have dropped by more than 60 percent.
C) A reduction in poverty has meant fewer than one million people across the globe go hungry each day.
D) Life expectancy in the past century has risen by 50 percent to 78 years.

Question 58

Are structural adjustment loans as provided by organizations such as the World Bank consistent with the goals of neoliberalism?

A) no, because organizations such as the World Bank are not promoting free trade
B) no, because organizations such as the World Bank are actually making poverty worse
C) yes, because organizations such as the World Bank are nongovernmental organizations
D) yes, because organizations such as the World Bank are government-controlled organizations

Question 59

How does the author describe the Chinese immigrants who enter the United States through New York as restaurant workers?

A) They have typically learned English before arriving in the United States, so they do not need English classes.
B) They tend to come from larger cities such as Beijing and have experience working in restaurants.
C) They save up for years before making the journey so that they have no debts on arrival.
D) They frequently suffer physical and emotional stress as underpaid employees working long hours.

Question 60

How does the Tsukiji fish market demonstrate the nature of a global commodity chain?

A) One can trace the hands through which fish pass in a network that connects previously unconnected people and locations.
B) Merchants in Tokyo opted to sell only local produce to make the market more sustainable.
C) The market has become the largest tourism attraction in Tokyo.
D) It is a shifting of core and periphery because goods and money are flowing from the periphery to the core.

Question 61

How were the Old World long-distance trade routes a precursor to the global economy? Provide two examples of the commodities exchanged by Arab and Chinese traders, discussing how these products circulated from Asia to Europe. How and when did the movement of slaves occur in the eighth and ninth centuries?

Question 62

Discuss where and when agricultural production is first seen in the historical record. What technologies does this subsistence strategy entail? Identify and explain changes that occur with the transition to the agricultural subsistence strategy. Provide three examples of social, political, and demographic changes in societies practicing agriculture with food production that are not seen in horticultural, pastoral, or foraging lifestyles.

Question 63

Why was European colonialism such an important component in the development of the global economic system? Why was Columbus's voyage to the New World tied to the trade network occurring in the Old World? Explain how the discovery of gold and silver in the New World and colonization facilitated Europe's participation in the Old World trade network.

Question 64

Explain the controversies associated with neoliberal policies. What is the reasoning behind structural adjustment policies? Use two examples from Jamaica to discuss problems associated with structural adjustment.

Question 65

What distinguishes Wallerstein's notions of core, peripheral, and semiperipheral nations? Define each, and explain how they correlate to the concepts of colonial and postcolonial nations. After explaining the role of each in production or exchange networks, explain-using the example of Appalachia from the text-how a peripheral area can exist within a core. Provide a second example of how a core can exist within a periphery. How does the author account for this phenomenon?

Question 66

Contrast the perspectives of modernization and dependency theories. First, define modernization theory and explain two objectives of economic development projects. Then discuss the criticisms of this approach that have emerged in Latin America. Why did Latin American theorists argue that Latin American nations could not be competitive in the global economic system? What did they suggest that underdeveloped nations do?

Question 67

Explain where and when the so-called Triangle Trade occurred, identifying the three primary commodities the text discusses in this exchange network. Contrast the production and exchanges that occurred in the Caribbean plantation economy with the exchanges occurring between European trappers and Native American populations in North America.

Question 68

Why are anthropologists interested in the anticolonial and independence movements? When did the majority occur? Summarize reasons for this. Identify three strategies commonly used to gain independence and explain how external forces often contributed to the quest for independence.