Final Exam Flashcards
Factors shaping changes in the retail sector
online retailers, debt, oversupply of retail, increasing income inequality and decline of middle class
What are some factors influencing JCP store closings?
manufacturing dependency,
adjacency to metropolitan,
rate of population change since great recession
nonHispanic black population
What are some issues for small towns?
jobs and regional economies,
use of buildings
public space and social interaction
What happened in post industrial society?
shift from manufacturing to service sector
rise of professional and technical class
centrality of technical knowledge
T/F: Employment rate higher for movers than stayers
false!
T/F: Displaced movers have larger earnings loss
true
There’s a decline in storing serving _____ consumers
middle class
Many small towns will be left behind due to _____ and retail ______.
deindustrialization, apocalypse
What is the Walmart effect?
Walmart’s size and the scope of its operations make it an important presence in the market in its own right, but also changes the playing field for its competitors, leading them to adopt Walmart’s practices.
What’s a template firm?
in each era a prototypical enterprise embodies a new and innovative set of technological advances, organizational structures and social relationships. These template businesses are emulated because they have perfected for their era the most efficient and profitable relationship between technology, the organization of work, and market conditions.
What is Walmart’s business template?
always low prices, low labor costs, supply chain innovations
What are some of Walmart’s supply chain innovations?
Bar codes/scanners Electronic point-of-sale data collection Real-time Internet-based transactions Just-in-time purchasing Automated distribution centers
___ gives Walmart the upper hand in negotiations with suppliers, allowing them to dictate the price point, speed of production, and to require quality improvements and investments in supply chain modernization. It causes them to have such low prices.
size
T/F Walmarts correlate with poverty
true
Why does Walmart correlate with poverty?
by offering jobs at a low wage, the company drives down competitors’ wages, or at least keeps them from rising. But anti-union tactics and driving firms with unionized or higher-paid workers out of business also play a role.
site-fights: does Walmart hurt the economy of a town?
If there is an oversupply of retailers, Walmart will crowd out smaller businesses. If there is an undersupply—not enough retailers to meet local demand—the effect on small businesses is less.
What is Fordism?
The idea that for workers to constitute a market for cars they needed income to buy them and leisure to use them
What was the idea behind the kitchen debates?
the consumer is the motor of the economy
hourly wages have stagnated as ____ increases
productivity
Which factors are most important in causing labor’s declining share of national income?
1) Growth of global financial markets
2) Declining strength of labor market institutions (including unions)
3) Economic globalization
4) Technological change
What is the great risk shift?
Over the past 40 years or so, employers have backed out of the social contract forged in the past (to provide benefits and stable employment).At the same time, cutbacks to government spending have weakened the social safety net. With both public and private support eroding, workers and their families must bear a greater burden of risk.
What is chain migration?
Once a migration stream is established, push and pull factors become less important influences on the decision to migrate and the presence of family and friends in the destination becomes a more important factor
What is the bracero program?
Diplomatic agreement between the U.S. and Mexico that brought up to 75,000 Mexican workers per year into the U.S. to work in agriculture and industry, sponsoring over 4.5 million border crossings
What is human trafficking?
he recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion…to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation
What is structural adjustment diaspora
Structural adjustment refers to a set of policies used by the International Monetary Fund and other development banks. When developing nations cannot repay loans, the banks agree to restructure them in return for certain “reforms” in the nation’s monetary and fiscal (i.e. budgetary) policy. Most significantly, lenders require reduce spending on social programs like health, education and community development in order to speed up debt repayment. Critics argue that lenders are demanding that poor nations lower the standard of living of their people.
What is One Big Labor Market?
The world used to be divided into many, many local and regional labor markets. A labor market is basically a recruitment areas for different kinds of jobs. Today, increasingly workers in different parts of the world compete against one another. Companies say “take a cut in pay or we will make the garments/autos elsewhere. Putting workers in different countries with different wage scales and job quality in competition with one another shrunk the gap between jobs in different places. The wages of Honduran and Bangladeshi workers came up a little bit. The wages of U.S. workers went down. The safety standards in the developing world improved and those in the U.S. declined. One big labor market has winners and losers.
What is the autonomy myth
As children, we all require protection and care, as we do when we are ill, disabled and elderly. Historically, the long working days and relentless schedule of industrial work were enabled by the presence of someone in the home to restore the laborer on a daily basis. Today we get more of those services on the market .
Examples of “respatializing” social reproduction and the life cycle
return to communities of origin for care
assimilation
suggests that migrants acquire new customs and attitudes through contact and communication. At the same time, immigrants contribute some of their own cultural traits to the new society.
politics of propinquity
the intense, everyday, face-to-face negotiation of difference
Mediating institutions
places outside the plant that provided opportunities for interaction and emerging interracial, intercultural dynamics
Multi-stranded relationships
social ties based on knowing an individual through multiple channels
What does it mean to be political?
democratically making decisions about how we should live together
What is common sense?
Unexamined beliefs, what we take for granted
What is an organic intellectual
a person who is continually learning and critically examining their beliefs in order to change society
