GLOBAL ECONOMIC ISSUES
ASSINGMENT WEEK 6
Trends:
As society develops, it also improves economically and socially. During the second half of the 20th
century in the U.S. society has changed drastically. The explanation of this drastic change is due to a
variety of reasons. In the field of science, medicine saw a great development impacting life expectancy
finding a cure to diseases that killed thousands of people, reducing infant mortality and mortality in
general, which made life expectancy increased. Economically, U.S. societies got richer and poverty levels
dropped, the typical household saw an improvement in their lifestyle as GDP increased; there was a
trend in which the U.S. economy was emerging as a great force and one of the most powerful (if not the
most powerful) economy in the world. Transportation and communication saw an improvement as well,
opening the U.S. to the world.
Abundance:
The industrial revolution changed completely the way of living. It affected tremendously in those
countries that were ahead of the industrial revolution such as England, France, Germany, Soviet, Soviet
Union, The U.S., and Japan. These countries improved technologically, socioeconomically, and culturally
as countries and their economies became more and more globalized.
The Malthusian trap was a term introduced by Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus to explain the societies
before the 1800s. In the years of the pre-industrial revolution, economies were impoverished by the
increasing growth of the population and slow technological development. Malthus stated that as long as
the technology was slowly improving, life would be just in miserable living comfort. Economies and
human societies were governed under the same rules in the animal kingdom, mankind was subject to
natural selection throughout the Malthusian era.
In terms of abundance, countries that are highly societal developed stand out. Economists point to good
policies and the quality of a county’s institutions as the reason for its wealth.
