Geography of Our Lives

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Geography of our Lives

1. Some argue that there is a New International Division of Labor in the world economy today. Does your sample support these suggestions?

        Over the last thirty years, the world has witnessed a growing integration of system of production that is based on a new relationship between industrialized and developing countries. Scholars argue that, during the first two decades, the developed countries maintained their position as the source of almost every technological expertise, production, and manufacturing. Recent years, however, demonstrate a significant shift in the centre of production from industrialized nations to areas where labor is not organized, and the workers’ wages are low This is particularly evident when I mapped everyday items in my house. For example, most of the clothing items are manufactured and produced in developing countries such as China, Philippines, Malaysia, and Bangladesh among many others. Clothing brands such as Old Navy and Nike are popular American brand whose locations of production are both in China. Alternately, famous European brands such as Marks & Spencer and H&M are similarly produced in China. The same goes for electronic items. The most popular example is the Apple brand whose headquarters is in California, United States. The location of production, however, is also in China.

        According to scholars, the changing geography of production is closely related to the relations of capitalists and capital and labor. Scholars argue that capitalist enterprises are faced with a never-ending quest for profit. “Global corporations have aggressively sought cost reductions in a time of increased competition. Primarily this means finding cheaper, but more important, more malleable labor supplies” (Peet 175). This means that most transnational corporations actively exploit the advantage of cheap labour.

1. Where were most of your items produced? Are the headquarters the same? If not, what is the difference?

The developing countries produced and manufactured the items that I have chosen. For instance, items under the clothing category which includes the shirt from Nike, skirt from Old Navy, dress from Mothercare, and shoes from C&J Clark International are all produced in China. Under the electronic category, products such as MacBook and iPad, as well as the electric pencil sharpener are all produced in China. What is most interesting, however, is the fact that the location of manufacturer’s headquarters are in Western countries. C&J Clark International, for example, is based in Somerset Street England, United Kingdom, while Nike’s headquarter is in Washington County United States.

The obvious difference in the headquarters from the location of production is a result of “outsourcing” of the production process to developing countries with lower labor costs. In addition to this, industrialized countries such as the United States transfer their production process in developing countries in order to take advantage of low taxed imposed by the governments of such nations. Nonetheless, scholars point out that while industrialized country turn to developing nations for large and cheap labor force, Asian countries, in fact, respond to this positively. Scholars argue that such movement is premised not as a way of keeping labor cheap, but on upgrading and enhancing developing countries’ economy. This means that most developing countries accept such set up as they mainly base their development through globalization. In fact, experts assert that this strategy has yielded dramatic development on many East and Southeast Asian countries. It has made results in the economies of Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore. “The pattern was repeated again and again, and hyperdevelopment quickly spread to the tiger economies of Southeast Asia, which were recipients of U.S. money and Japanese, South Korean, and other intra-Asian capital flows (Cheah 91).