The original and most famous exposition of this thesis was by Thomas Malthus in 1798 whose basic idea was that population increased exponentially but food supply only increased incrementaly, so population growth would always outstrip the ability of the population to feed itself. Malthus predicted that the world would run out of food by 1890.

Malthus of course failed to foresee the incredible increases in agricultural yields that were to be brought about by the green revolution after ww2 (nicely summarised in the video below) which trebled food production per acre in countries such as Mexico and India – allowing them to sustain increased population

However, such population increase lead Malthusianism to be revisited by Paul Erlich in his 1968 population bomb, who predicted that high birth rates would lead to mass famine and reduce the population by at least 1/5th by the end of the 1970s.

Again with hindsite Erlich also got it wrong, and clearly not because of any global reduction in population, which has grown significantly since Erlich’s day, so could it be that the Malthusian doomsayers are just wrong?

Criticisms of Malthusianism – Overpopulation is a myth (.com)

This web site offers (at time of writing) six video-based criticisms of the Malthusian view point – Some of these include

1. Going back to the graph at the top of this post, the average projection has it that the world population will peak at 9 billion in about 40 years from now and then start to go back down, although the overpopulation web site draws on even more optimistic figures of an 8 billion peak in 30 years.
2. Many developed countries, most noteably Japan, have very low fertility rates, far below the level necessary to replace the population. These countries face an increasing depenendency ratio as the number of people retiring relative to those of working age increases.
3. Overpopulation proponents suggest that there is not enough food for everyone, however, the FAO and WFP point out that there is enough food for everyone, but several hundreds of millions of people lack access to that food because of such things as poverty, conflict and poor agricultural infrastructure – In other words it’s not too many people that’s the problem, it’s the economic and political systems that block access to available food.

There are more criticisms of Malthusianism on the web site, with data and links!

Limits to growth – How many people can the earth support?

This video, hosted by David Attenborough,  lies somewhere between Malthusianism and the ‘overpopulation myth busters’ – It starts off with the point that we are approaching the Earth’s limits to growth, while holding open the possibility that we can prevent meltdown, but only if we make a concerted global effort…..

Some of the evidence being cited for us reaching the Limits to Growth include…

• Nasa’s satellite imagery showing us that we are already using nearly all of the earth’s surface to provide for our needs
• The fact that we appear to have reached the technological limits for increasing food yields per acre
• Extensive land grabs (mostly in Africa) suggest that developed countries are concerned about their ability to feed their populations in the future
• The reduction in capacity many of the earth’s water sources

Attenborough suggests three solutions to our reaching the limits to growth

Firstly we can rely on technological advances to produce more with less land

Secondly we could reduce our consumption

Thirdly we can control population growth in the developing world

None of these are necessarily going to happen of course, and I think I might deal with these in  a seperate post…

For Sociology students studying Global Development this is a good example that seems to offer broad support for the continued relevance of dependency theory.

One article highlights the following factors which contributed to the 1000+ death toll -

1. Bangladeshi factory workers cannot afford to not work when wages are only around the $50/ month mark.  Behind this, of course, lies Western demand for cheap and fast fashion – We only get £2 because of those low wages…..  
2. The lack of long-term commitment to suppliers on the part of Corporate buyers – which means that it is economically irrational for many factory developers to invest in health and safety measures in their factories. As I see it behind this lack of commitment lies transnational firms’ desire to take advantage of the ‘race to the bottom’ – short contracts means the parent company can move out of Bangladesh at short notice to take advantage of cheaper labour elsewhere….  
3. International Corporations effectively wash their hands of responsibility for monitoring health and safety through outsourcing – As a result, many of our high street shops have scant representation themselves in Bangladesh, leaving monitoring of health and safety to the Bangladeshi authorities, which basically means effective monitoring doesn’t take place.

However, The Ethical Trading Initiative takes a different approach, preferring to put responsibility on the Bangladeshi authorities, pointing out that…

‘A common reaction in the UK media and from NGOs has been to focus anger on brands sourcing from Bangladesh. But the view in Dhaka is rather different.  Newspapers here have concentrated almost exclusively on the failure by government agencies to implement the law on occupational safety and health (OSH) and the building code. This in turn is blamed on the nexus between garment factory owners and politicians – sometimes the same people.

According to the 2008 building law, any new structure, for any purpose, has to obtain an occupancy certificate from a government agency before it can be used; only six certificates have been issued since 2008, although it is estimated 4,000 – 5,000 new buildings come up every year.’

The ETI also aruges that the lack of unionisation of workers is an important contributory factor in these deaths – As the article above says, the workers could clearly see the cracks in the walls of the factory, but were forced to go in and work – Unionisation may have given them the sense of empowerment to stand up for their rights and stay alive.  

Of course both of these perspectives – one blaming the TNCs, the other blaming the Bangladeshi elite – still offer broad support for the continued relevance of Marxist Theory – At the end of the day this is still a situation where the poor and powerless are dying so the powerful can maintain their profits.

Looking at the world’s 10 fastest growing economies there seems to be mixed evidence-

If we consider the GINI inequality rankings for each of these countries, which are as follows – there is mixed evidence

Brazil scores 54 – is no. 13 in the inequality league table, and by far the largest population country up that high – so Stiglitz theory seems correct here…

China scores 47 and so has relatively high inequality, possibly reflecting the differences between the huge wealth in the East and rural poverty in the West. Then again, does this matter for development because China has a very similar level of inequality to the USA ( not that that’s a good thing of course!)

Russia scoring 40 is in mid table obscurity – so no comment for now

India scoring 33 – has low inequality, making it more equal than Britain, then again it is the poorest in terms of current GNP per capita so these levels of inequality might just reflect the fact that there are masses of poor people. Given the rapid increase in billionaires recently i don’t hold out much hope for india staying low in the inequality stakes!

Click here to take the brief version of the survey – Once you’ve completed it you can click on the different classes to find out more about them

Key facts about the survey/ details of methods

• The survey measures three aspects of social class – economic capital, cultural capital and social capital
• 161 000 people completed the survey online in January 2011.
• To avoid the problem of a self selecting sample the same survey was conducted face to face with 1026 people. This was done using quota-sampling, so that the population was representative according to the NS-SEC classifications. The responses of the two were compared and the original sample re-weighted accordingly, which the results below reflect.

Key findings of the survey (friendly version taken from the BBC web site)

There are 7 new classes – Maybe I shouldn’t number them, but here we go anyway…

1. Elite (6% of the population) – The most privileged class in Great Britain who have high levels of all three capitals. Their high amount of economic capital sets them apart from everyone else.
2. Established Middle Class (25% of the population) Members of this class have high levels of all three capitals although not as high as the Elite. They are a gregarious and culturally engaged class.
3. Technical Middle Class (6%) - A new, small class with high economic capital but seem less culturally engaged. They have relatively few social contacts and so are less socially engaged.
4. New Affluent Workers (14%) - This class has medium levels of economic capital and higher levels of cultural and social capital. They are a young and active group.
5. Emergent Service Workers (15%) This new class has low economic capital but has high levels of ‘emerging’ cultural capital and high social capital. This group are young and often found in urban areas.
6. Traditional Working Class (19%) – This class scores low on all forms of the three capitals although they are not the poorest group. The average age of this class is older than the others.
7. Precariat (15%) –  The most deprived class of all with low levels of economic, cultural and social capital. The everyday lives of members of this class are precarious.

Other findings

• Twentieth-century middle-class and working-class stereotypes are out of date. Only 39% of participants fit into the Established Middle Class and Traditional Working Class categories.
• The traditional working class is changing. It’s smaller than it was in the past. The new generation are more likely to be Affluent Workers or Emergent Service Workers.
• People consume culture in a complicated way. The Technical Middle Class are less culturally engaged while emergent service workers participate in various activities.
• The extremes of our class system are very important. The Elite and Precariat often get forgotten with more focus on the middle and working classes. We’ve discovered detailed findings about them

I quite like this table taken from the findings article published in Sociology….

The column to the left gives the proportion of each group in the face to face survey, while the one to the right gives the proportions in the online survey – It’s worth noting how over-represented the ‘middle classes’ are 9whi obviously like doing surveys) compared to the precariat.  

I also quite like this – the wealth/ income stats

A quick note on how they measured cultural capital….

Interestingly the survey distinguished between what they call ‘highbrow’ cultural capital, which scores the extent of respondents’ engagement with classical music, attending stately homes, museums, art galleries, jazz, theatre and French restaurants, and ‘emerging’ cultural capital,which is based on the extent of a respondent’s engagement with video games, social network sites, the internet, playing sport, watching sport, spending time with friends, going to the gym, going to gigs and preferences for rap and rock.

How valid is the survey?

If you click on the first link above there’s quite a nice 8 minute radio slot where 2 people debate whether or not the new class survey reflects actual differences in contemporary British society. Personally I’ve got mixed feelings about it – If you look at either end of the survey, it seems to make sense – there are important differences at both ends of the class spectrum, and in the middle I think it is the case that age and class blur together, which the survey recognises. Then again, the fact that I’ve now done the survey twice and come out as technical middle class the first time and established middle class the second time doesn’t fill me with confidence….  

Find out more…

Findings of the British Class Survey - Original journal article published in the journal Sociology

BBC News – summary of the findings of the survey - also allows you to take the survey for yourself

Nice post from the BBC of how they avoided selection bias

A Thinking Allowed podcast on the British Class Survey

This summary is designed for A level students studying the SCLY3 module in Global Development and outlines four persepectives on globalisation.

Optimist Globalism – Globalisation is mostly positive

1. More international trade, especially since the 1950s = Increasing wealth, health, education for most countries. Evidence below

• This Hans Rosling Video illustrates the relationship between increasing wealth (brought about by trade) and health
• The case of China’s economic growth – Use this ‘trading ecnomics’ web site to check out how China’s GDP growth over the last ten years (from 2001) appears to be directly correlated with its growth in exports (use the links to the right to change between graphs – you might need to change the years selection around too).
• China is not the only country benefitting from increasing trade (imports and exports) – China is just one of four nations known as the BRIC Nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) – 4 up and coming economies that are predicted to be wealthier than Britain by 2050. More recently, the CIVET nations are also benefitting from increasing trade. As an illustration of how these countries are increasingly integrated you might want to find out more about Brazil’s ‘Highway to China’ – which is talked about in this video- ‘The Chinese are Coming.’

2. Optimists argue that Tansnational Corporations are a force for good. Companies such as Apple, Sony, etc bring investment and jobs to developing countries.

• This video clip (approx first 15 mins) from Blood Sweat and Luxuries illustrates high tech manufacturing in the Philippines. The Optimist arguement here is that workers in such factories benefit from the wages – http://estream.reigate.ac.uk/View.aspx?ID=6092~4r~SEdwPGeV

3.    Patterns of consumption are becoming globalised – More people around the world are consumers rather than living subsistence lifestyles. Also people increasingly consume similar foods and brands (and shop for them in similar ways). Increasing global tourism is another feature of this. Evidence below…

• The first ten minutes from this Inside Out show illusrates the increasing number of Chinese people coming to Britain to shop http://estream.reigate.ac.uk/view.aspx?id=10237~5a~RR8KCyzLt4
• These photos of ‘what the world eats’ – Suggest similar consumption patterns.
• Coke’s advertising supports the optimist view of cultural globalisation – Advert 1 (I’d like t teach the world to sing…) and advert 2 – The Happiness Bus

4.  Sporting events such as the world cup and the Olympics have become more popular.

5. The spread of Democracy and respect for human rights since the end of WW2 – E.G. The end of colonial rule in Africa, the collapse of communism and the Arab Spring. This is also evidenced in the establishment of the United Nations and the growth of global social movements such as green peace.

6. The growth of social media (Facebook and Twitter) have lead more freedom around the world.

7. Globalistion increasingly means global cities urban centres which have highly educated, politically engaged middle classes.

Global Pessimism – Globalisation is mostly negative

1. Increased trade has had unequal benefits. Mainly Europe and America, lately Asia have benefitted, but most of Sub Saharan Africa is largely left behind.

• The graph otlining economic growth since 1800 in different continents on page 1 of the intro to GD document illustrates this point very well..
• For a good example of the pessimist view of globalisation read KT’s summary of ‘liquid times’ by Zygmunt Bauman – You only need read the sections entitled ‘surplus people’ and ‘the experience of inequality’. I suggest you read selectively and look for three examples that illustrate Bauman’s point: ‘when the rich pursue their goals, the poor pay the price’.   

2. TNCs pollute, extract resources from and exploit cheap labour in the developing world. E.G.s include Shell in Nigeria, Coke in India and of course the Bhopal incident in India.

• A case study of sweat shops – Apple in China - from the Daily Mail.
• a list of examples of Corporations accussed of doing environmental damages (just from KT’s Blog – focussing on the case of Union Carbide in India and Shell in Nigeria – you have probably looked at these as part of the Crime and Deviance Module)
• Mark Thomas’ documentary on Coca Cola illustrates how naughty this corporation is – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH0r84W3LgU

Also see the following video sources (you can search for both on estream)

• The Age of Stupid (section on Shell in Nigeria)
• Crude – The Real Cost of Oil (outlines Chevron’s pollution of the Amazon

3. Culture may be increasing global, but this mainly means Americanisation according to Pessimists. This takes the form of Cocacolonisation, and Dysnification – where American forms of popular culture and the shallow materialism this promotes erode local traditions. Another aspect of this is Mcdonaldisation

• this and this suggest possibly suggest one of the downsides of the spread of consumer culture…
• This illustrates the threat of Americanisation and Cocacolonisation very well – how some French people view Coca Cola as undermining their national identity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxjMqrZ6psw
• This site does a very good job of explaning what Mcdonaldisation is – http://www.mcdonaldization.com/

4.    Sport may be increasingly globalised, but just as with trade there are winners and losers, especially where the Olympics are concerned… 

5. Rather than the spread of democracy, it is more accurate to talk of the spread of U.S Military power, as outline by John Pilger in the War on Democracy, and the fact that the U.S. spends almost $700 billion on its military every year.

• The second half of this video – The War on Democracy outlines America’s military invovlement in more than 50 countries since World War 2 – Evidence suggests that the USA uses military force to get rid of democratically elected leaders that are not pro-U.S. – http://estream.reigate.ac.uk/View.aspx?ID=4068~4s~tdt8zCqn  

6. The spread of global media really means the spread of massive media firms such as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, with programmes such as Fox News presenting a pro-American view of the world. Also think of popular culture – X factor, and Hollywood and global advertising. The pessimist view on such aspects of the global media is that they lead to increasing cultural homogenisation.

7. Zygmunt Bauman argues that global cities are best described as ‘fortress cities’ – especially in the developing world cities are places of huge inequalities where the rich hide themselves away in exclusive gated communities and the poor are left to the slums.

• Read KT’s summary of ‘liquid times’ by Zygmunt Bauman- Somewhere in the article he talks about the concepts of ‘Fortress cities’  

The Transformationalist View of Globalisation

1. ‘Trade’ has many complex formations. So it is difficult to say that it is either good or bad. Besides Free Trade, Fair Trade is expanding, and there is also illegal trade – in drugs for example.

• The Fairtrade Foundation has many examples of how trade can benefit people the world over in all sorts of different ways (NB you may think this works better as an example of global optimism) – http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/
• The Global Trade in drugs is quite a good example of Transformationalism - It certainly can’t be regarded as something that benefits people, and it certainly isn’t something that benefits the West at the expense of the developing world. The global trade in drugs is not controlled by Corprations or Western governments – it’s controlled by international criminal organisations, and arguable this is a case of poor farmers in the developing world benefitting (relatively) at the expense of people in the West –   http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/drug-trafficking/index.html  

2. TNCs operate in dozens of countris. Clearly there are going to be winners and losers in different cases. Also governments the world over regulate international companies in different ways – Pollution laws, tax law, minimum wages, health and safety.

3. Increasing consumerism isn’t just good or bad – cultural globalisation is characterised by hybridity – new brands come into contact with local cultures and they are modified by those cultures, creating new products – Bollywood, Chiken Tikha Massala. A related concept here is glocalism…

• There are plenty of examples of cultural hybridity in music – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3JDH-hUJj0 (the guy from Brazil in the second half of this!) – All in all a very ‘global experience’ and a great example of ‘ground up globalisation’ – Hip Hop being transformed into something new and different as it mixes with different local traditions…

4. New sporting formations the world over are good examples of cultural hybridity

5. Globalisaion is characterised by new political formations, not just the spread of democracy or the spread of American dominance. E.G China is a Communist country that doesn’t allow voting but supports Capitalism, while many African ‘democracies’ are so corrupt they can’t really be called democracies. Also, many countries have proved more than capable of resisting American force – mostly in the Middle East.

• The Paradox of China – Apparently the Communist government is now commanding Chinese businesses to agressively pursue profit. http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/editors-blog/2011/1104/The-China-paradox-communist-capitalism
• This Glocalist Manifesto is an interesting e.g. of glocalism applied to politics – http://www.glocalisti.org/blog/the-glocalist-manifesto/ 

6. The spread of global media has lead to diverse uses – e.g. crowdsourcing, microfinance, and mobile phone use in Africa.

• http://www.kickstarter.com/ is a good example of a crowdsourcing site. It encourages people around the world to fund projects. Global flows of money funding local businesses = glocalism
• Microfinance – You can now fund local businesses in developing countries via sites like this – http://www.opportunity.org/what-is-microfinance/
• Mobile phone use in Africa – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/30/africa-digital-revolution-mobile-phones 

7. Anthony GIddens argues that ‘detraditionalisation’ is part of Globalisation – People increasingly challenge traditions as they come into contact with new ideas.

• Read KT’s blog post on ‘detraditionalisation’ and summarise Gidden’s view of what effect globalisation has on culture – Is this closer to the optimist or transformationalist view of globalisation?

Traditionalism – Globalisation is exaggerated

1. Trade is not truly global, it is regional. For example, about 60% of EU trade is within the EU. And Sub Saharan Africa is largely left out of global trade flows

2. Transnational Corporations do not operate in all countries, only secure ones.

3. Billions of people still live mostly subsistence lifestyles and simply cannot afford to take part in globalised western style consumption.

4. –

5. Some countries remain cut off from ‘global democractic and military force’ – e.g. North Korea and Iran. Also some traditional cultures still practise abuses that go against the UNDHR – see 7 below.

6. Governments still have the power to censor social media – e.g. the great firewall of China

7. Local traditions still remain in many cultures – For example it is estimated that 90% of women in Somalia have been circumcised. See the following video links for examples of traditional cultures. You should watch these and consider the extent to which these cultures are really cut off from Globalisation..

• Three episodes of Tribe with Bruce Parry – The final one on the Sanema is especially interesting – http://estream.reigate.ac.uk/View.aspx?ID=7673~4x~8CS58LtS
• This episode of Tribe sees Bruce travel to the remote island of Anuta – http://estream.reigate.ac.uk/View.aspx?ID=2116~4k~jDaFVfFT

This post just focusses on one aspect of the research (there are many more covered!) - The topic of why young people drink excessively, with some interesting findings based on semi-structured interviews with 18-25 year olds (roughly 5 mins in)

What this method yielded were the respondents own stories about their binging and events relayed included such things as falling asleep at the table in a pub, blacking out, vomiting, and getting into fights.

One thing that surprised the researchers was the enthusiasm and energy with which the respondents conveyed stories even though they weren’t necessarily pleasurable, and sometimes even dangerous.

Interepretation by the researchers was that the ‘binge drinking ritual’ had the following functions – Most of which are not actually necessarily about enjoying yourself.

• Firstly, drinking to excess transported the group of friends to a fantasy land of shared interest taking them away from the mundane tedium of daily life, providing an opportunity in which ordinary social norms could be transgressed more easily because of being drunk.
• Secondly, the drinking enabled individuals to forget themselves for a while. The researchers argued this is implicit in the way binge drinking is talked about in which phrases such as ‘getting wasted’ or ‘getting annihilated’ are commonly used.
• Thirdly there was quite often an element of risk present which necessitated looking out for eachother, which tested boundaries of friendship and facilitated group bonding .

This research also demonstrates the usefulness of the unstructured interview method to this particular topic – which is the only method that allows the researcher to observe things such as enthusiasm as the respondents tell their own stories. This wouldn’t be possible with more structured interviews or questionnaires, or even observations of the events.  What you get with this method is the sense that the respondents are very happy to reflect on these drinking events. They have a long memory, long after the drinking has taken place.

All in all this is a useful counterweight to moral panic reporting about increases in binge drinking amongst youth today, which suggests that rather than being an end in itself, much binge drinking today is merely part of youth culture with broader and temporary life-stage specific functions.

Social Surveys

Doing Sociological Research - If you can get over the desperate attempt to be ‘down with the kids’, then the section on survey research in education offers a very useful explanation of sampling and operationalising concepts such as social class.

Experiments

Milgram’s obedience experiments (youtube) – Link takes you to a contemporary version of Milgram’s experiment, which reveals depressingly similar results to the original.

The Stanford Prison Experiment (youtube)

A good example of a field experiment measuring how the public respond differently to differnt ethnicities engaged in stealing a bike.

This is a second field experiment measuring how the public respond differently to differnt ethnicities engaged in vandalising a car from the everyday sociology blog (videos removed but a good explanation on the blog)

Unstructured and Semi-Structured Interviews

Many episodes of Louis Theroux are good for unstructured interviews – I especially recommend the following -

America’s Medicated Kids (Youtube) – Louis even talks about ‘being a T.V. interviewer in the introduction. Also it should be fairly obvious why ‘unstructured interviews’ are suitable for researching these children.

Louis Theroux Behind Bars (Youtube) In which Louis interviews a man sentenced to over 500 years in jail

This is an interview with Louis Theroux (Youtube) talking about why he likes ‘unstructured interviews’ – about 1.13 in

OK – It’s not a video, it’s a podcast - but from about 5 minutes in there are some interesting results from research based on interviews with 18-25 year olds on the question of ‘why they drink to excess’. Their insights tell you much more than stats ever can about youth binge drinking today.

Participant Observation

Tribe with Bruce Parry is a good, basic introduction to the advantages and Limitations of using Overt PO to research traditional societies in remote rural settings. I especially recommend the episode on the Suri in Ethopia.

For Covert Participant Observation, the standard ‘classic video’ from the late 1990s is Donal Macintyre’s research with the Chelsea Headhunters (link is to college’s estream and requires password)

Another ‘covert classic’ is the Secret Policeman – College estream link (needs password)

Official Statistics

The Office for National Statistics has a huge array of videos on youtube. Some of the most interesting include – (1) Immigration Stats (2) Household Wealth (3) Cohabitation in the UK (4) The Latest on the Labour Market, including unemployment stats

Secondary Qualitative Data

The Freedom Writers - (link to college estream, requires pass word) A film based on a true life story of a teacher who gets her disinterested English literature students to tell their own stories using diaries

The BBC’s who do you think you are is an accessible way to introduce the usefulness of secondary qualitative data. This is a link to one episode on estream (password required)

TED Talk – what we learned from 5 million books - using google ngrams to quantify the content of books

Longitudinal Studies 

The Marshmallow Experiment (Youtube)  - Measures deferred gratification in children and then tracks the children through childhood to see the effects of deferred gratification on future test scores in education.

Another classic is 7 Up – This is the original 1964 documentary and the trailer for 56 up 

Other Videos

It’s a bit long winded, and it is a cartoon – but this is a good xtranormal video (link to youtube) that goes over the pros and cons of quantitative versus qualitative research – using the topic of researching children with ADD as an example.

This is really for A2 Sociology students studying crime and deviance. Enjoy the enthusiasm in my voice…