Globalization Leads to Increased Culture Shock

In what ways and to what extent does capitalism increase inequality? Be specific.

Inequality is an essential aspect of capitalism. All capitalist organizations are focused on making profits. An individual would not invest their time and money to undertake a risky venture without substantial profit. Without profit, entrepreneurs would not bother setting up new firms. Increased profits lead to increased wealth differences between the population, creating inequality in the population's wealth. Employees are paid based on their skills, effort, and experience. If all employees were paid the same regardless of their abilities, they would not be motivated to increase productivity or learn new skills. Therefore, capitalism creates wage inequality by paying successful workers a higher salary to demonstrate their higher productivity. Wage inequality is inevitable in a capitalist organization since leaders and workers cannot be paid the same, and the organization remains successful. Workers are also free to change jobs and work for an organization willing to pay them higher.

Capitalism can lead to inequality where a firm has monopoly power. A firm can determine prices to charge consumers and even pay its employees lower wages with monopoly power. Charging higher prices will deter other firms from entering the market, maintaining its dominance and monopoly. The firm will pay employees meager wages to increase its profits since they have no choice. Employees get discriminated against, and if they complain, they get fired. In such a scenario, the workers will forever be poor, and the wealthy will continue increasing their wealth. Political inequality is created because the rich can influence political decisions. Politicians depend on donations to run their campaigns. Therefore, once they assume office, they will put policies that favor their wealthy donors, resulting in the donors increasing their wealth. Capitalism focuses on preserving and increasing the wealth of the rich.

Explain the specific differences between de jure and de facto forms of segregation.

De jure segregation indicates segregation that is based on law. In de jure segregation, there is a law or legal provision that separates different racial classes from each other. People from different racial classes could not share public areas. The best example is the South African apartheid system, which limited the interaction of white South Africans and non-white South Africans. Another example of de jure segregation is in the Jim Crow era in the American South, where laws were put in place at the end of the civil war. These laws separated whites from blacks. The laws were written and enforced by the police and other people in authority. In de jure segregation, the practices are legally recognized even if the practices do not exist in reality.

De facto segregation refers to those separation practices that exist in reality, but any law does not recognize them. De facto segregation is the direct expression of de jure segregation because even with abolishing the laws promoting segregation, the hearts and minds of most people do not change. The government can make the segregation laws unconstitutional, but it cannot force people to interact with a race they do not want. Since most white people did not want to interact with other races, they made it a reality by moving to areas where blacks were not located. The result is we have cities with predominantly white people and others with blacks. The best way to differentiate the two is to understand that de jure segregation was sanctioned by law and de facto segregation by personal choice and understanding.

How would a 19th-century American man explain why a woman should not vote, work in the professions, sit on a jury or otherwise be an equal in society? How would a progressive woman of the time respond to these claims?

The 19th-century American men believed women were childlike and incapable of independent thought. For these reasons, women were never allowed to vote, work, sit on a jury, or be considered equal in society. The men believed allowing women to vote would result in irresponsible voting where they would select candidates based on their emotions and not a critical judgment of the candidate. Women's brains were inferior, and they could not participate in politics. The inferiority placed on women was due to their nature, where women are considered to think with emotions and not logic. Politics needs a person who can think logically without resulting in emotional manipulation. It was assumed that allowing women to vote would neglect their homes and family. The woman's place was always in the house where she was supposed to take care of the children, wash, clean and prepare meals for the family. Therefore, allowing women to take on additional roles would result in absconding from their duties.

Progressive women of the 19th century would have responded to the claims by showing the men that both men and women have the same mental abilities. The woman would have argued that men were making excuses to limit the independence of women. By denying the women a chance to leave the house and interact with others outside, the women would always be dependent on the men, who in turn would continue to discriminate and deny them the freedoms they needed. Men wanted control over women, and they had found it by demonstrating that women cannot think critically. The progressive woman should argue that women are stronger than men by showing them that women can raise children, take care of the house, and still be involved in politics.

Black women face both racial and gender discrimination. Which of the two is the more serious problem and why?

Racial discrimination is a more severe problem. Black women are treated differently from white women, and they face far adverse effects of discrimination compared to their white women counterparts. Even with the advancements made for women in the workplace and policies being put in place encouraging organizations to hire more women, black women are still discriminated against due to their skin color. The result is that white women are given preference over black women. The reason behind this skewed appointment is due to the women's skin color. Black women are more ambitious and willing to work harder than white women, yet they are least likely to ascend to positions of power. In many places, it is not easy to discriminate against any woman. However, it is possible to discriminate based on color. When a black woman visits a store, she is likely to be followed by the store assistants to ensure she does not steal anything. The same does not happen to white women. The image most people have of black women is that they are thieves and violent or deal with drugs. Therefore, most people already have a negative image of the black woman even before interacting with them.

Gender discrimination does occur, but its severity is not comparable to racial discrimination. There is even pay discrimination enforced against black women. In most workplaces, black women earn only 64 cents on the dollar compared to 79 cents earned by white women. Therefore, while there are discrepancies placed on women's wages, black women suffer even further due to their skin color. Black women lack confidence and intelligence, meaning they cannot be given any leadership roles.

Globalization has made the world interconnected yet people who immigrate from one area of the world to another experience culture shock. Why? What are some examples of this?

Globalization has only made the movement of goods and services easy from one country to another. Cultures are still different, and people have not exported cultures from one community to another. Culture shock occurs due to the innate differences between people. Even in the same country, there are differences between how things are done in one area and how they are done in another area. These differences make us all human and stem from our upbringing. Globalization has not made it easy to export and import cultures, and there is no likelihood that this will ever occur. Our interconnection is based on trade and not how we live our lives. Therefore, there are bound to be differences in every country or state on how people conduct business, the etiquette of business meetings, and when to discuss business. When a person immigrates to a new country, they already have their modus operandi based on where they come from. When they go to another location, they discover things are not done in the same manner as back home, forcing them to try and assimilate to the new way of doing business. These changes constitute culture shock, where a person discovers that things are done differently from what they are used to.