Assess the extent to which the cold war involved the nationas of the Essay

Assess the extent to which the cold war involved the nationas of the middle east and africa - Essay Example This is because of the suspicious relationship that developed between these two nations at the time, whereby nations split into two with some supporting the US, and the others remained in support the USSR. Thus, even within these nations, leaders acted in a divided manner with some supporting the ideologies of the USSR communism, while other countries supported the capitalistic view of the US, and this propagated the social and political division of nations.4 Cold war involvement in Africa Because of its endowment with resources, Africa was a battleground for Cold War for quite a long period that led to many wars, which both sides of the conflict, namely the United States and the Soviet Union blamed on each other. The harassment that was conducted by the Americans and the UK on Mugabe and Al-Bashir of Sudan was heaped on China and Russia with the aim of making the west to appear friendly and clean to Africa.5This has proved to be the new stage being set for fresh crop of Cold War in the African soil, as at the time USSR and US were engaged in Cold War, Africa was still involved in it, as some of the African states were surrogates of the two. Africa is a rich provider of the world’s major raw material for the production of goods for the industries in the west because a country is only able to engage in war if it has enough economic power and political influence for the purpose of protecting its interests.6 Therefore, surrogate African States provide support to one of the side in the cold war for their own interests and for their leaders selfish interest; such support normally involved the use of their state resources, which involved workforce in form of soldiers when they are required. As a result of the Cold War, Zimbabwe being a surrogate to one of the main two countries involved in Cold War, their leader Robert Mugabe murdered and violently overthrew the opposition to the side that supported the Britons, Americans and the western powers.7Moreover, beca use of the Cold War, nationalists and African leaders were frequently overthrown when they did not support the nations in such warfare. For instance, famous leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba or Eduardo Mondlane among others were victims of claims that they were supporters of the Chinese or Russians and the East policies. In these cases, other African leaders have more often than not found themselves behind bars without the hope of ever being freed.8 In addition, the involvement of Africa in the Cold War has greatly affected the continent in terms of its human, society and economy; these impacts are still very fresh with the slow growth of the African continent attributed to the Cold War. Furthermore, African resources that involved agricultural outputs and minerals were

Theories of Late Capitalism in the World System Essay

Theories of Late Capitalism in the World System - Essay Example The global market was significantly expanding in the late 1960s and early 1970s, resulting to rivalry on both the US labor and capital. Moreover, the post-war long cycles of expansion saw the US manufacturers investing enormously in fixed capital and capacity building such that by late 1960s, profits margins for these investors were beginning to decline due to the significantly high capital-labor ratio of operations. Rephrasing this, the huge amounts of â€Å"sunk costs† especially in the form of plant, equipment, or fixed capital, had enormous eroding impacts on their profit rates. These changes in the realignment of the global market and the actual production conditions led to the abandonment of Keynesian economics, contrary to what Keynesian and liberal partisan claims. Actually, it was globalization of capital and then labor, making the New Deal-type and Keynesian economic policies loose their favor to capitalist profitability, paving way for Neoliberal and Ronald Reagan a usterity economics (Wallerstein 132). This is according to the theory of capitalist crisis, globalization, and theory of falling profit rates emphasized by Harvey and Frieden. The integral dynamics of capitalism lies at the center of the theory of falling profit rates. ... Part 2 With the falling profit rates, political leaders sought to make some amendments to capital accumulation laws and regulation with an objective of increasing or maintaining rates of profits. These changes came in as state policies seeking to regulate capitalism, essentially raising the living standards of the working class and their working conditions and increase capitalist profits (Harvey 168). Consequently, capitalist states introduced social welfare cuts, geographic expansion of capitalist production, and a series of mergers, acquisitions, and bankruptcy. These policies brought together led to the revival of profitability, particularly in the US beginning early 1980s. Lean production generalization through service and industry significantly increased the rate of exploitation (labor productivity). The series of mergers, bankruptcies, and acquisitions was the primary source of the financial sector growth, leading to desertion of old and inefficient operations. Political leader s also enacted regulations to reduce production capacity in some industries such as steel production, leading to a shift of investment to other fields of production (diversification of steel production into oil exploration). The boundaries of the world economy expanded due to the construction of global production chains, enabling labor-intensive operations shift to low-wage regions in the global south (Postone, 15). The economic policies of neoliberal capitalist states encouraged capital restructuring. The deregulation of labor and capital markets, together fiscal policies that focused on disinflation, enabled capitalist firms to respond to rising profits with more equipment and plant investment (majorly inventory systems