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Lesson 4: Early Globalization (pt. 1)
How does globalization create privilege?
Cost - What is lost due to a decision or action, not always money
Benefits - What is gained due to a decision or action, not always money
the basic economic problem is scarcity, limited and unlimited wants results in globalization, where people trade their limited resources with each other to satisfy their wants
with every choice you made, you sacrifice something in favor of something else, the choice you sacrificed is the opportunity cost, because choosing one option over the other costed you that option. eg. Choosing an apple over a banana, the banana is the opportunity cost because it costed you the banana to choose the apple
hehe
Early Globalization: European exploration
Why?
1.
Gold
Increased demand for gold, spices and other resources
Didn’t want to pay Muslims & Italians who controlled the other trade routes
1.
Glory
competing with other European empires
Personal wealth
1.
God
Spreading Christianity
How?
Then recent inventions around the world has allowed for easier and safer navigation
Compass
Improved ships and sails
Portugal wanted to carve out their own trade routes because they are located on the very edge of Europe, so by the time Asian goods reach them, all thats left are leftovers that go for very high prices.
Competition for Territory
Spain goes in the opposite direction to Portugal because they did not want to compete too fiercely
Christopher Columbus
Sets off to conquer India by sailing the other direction because he miscalculated the size of earth, and decided it was faster to go the other way, thus he set off with way less food than needed
He later reached the Americas, convinced that he had reached India. He crowned the location the West Indies and the natives Indians/
To avoid conflict, the pope later decided that Portugal will take the entirety of the East, and Spain would take the entirety of the west, whatever territory or people they encountered, they automatically owned
They later turned to Africa for slaves over the natives, for several reasons. (The natives also kept running away)
1.
They looked very different from the natives, making it near impossible to blend in once escaped.
2.
European settlers have already previously been to Africa, meaning they were immune to most European diseases already.
Columbus treated the natives terribly, sometimes causing them to even die. In addition to that, they also brought along diseases that wiped most of the remaining natives.
This led to the triangle trade, with raw materials and cotton flowing from the Americas, the raw materials manufactured into goods and traded to Africa for slaves, and finally the slaves being sent to plantations in the Americas to produce more raw materials.
Global Culture Exchange
Columbus crowned the Americas the “New world”
Goods flowed between the old world and the new world
In addition to goods, diseases also flowed between the “two worlds”
During this time, many African countries also got English names