Gimcracks, Dollar Blouses, and Transistors: American Reactions to Imported Japanese Products, 1945-1964

2010 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan Warner Mettler
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese Economy ◽  
National Security Council ◽  
American Press ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Market Capitalism ◽  
Made In

This article examines the changing extent of the Cold War's influence on popular American perceptions of goods made in Japan. Although the National Security Council recommended in 1948 that the United States rebuild Japan's devastated economy to strengthen an anti-communist ally in East Asia (and America's position there), U.S. merchants, consumers, manufacturers, and journalists did not consistently go along with this official economic policy. The American press initially depicted the Japanese economy as needing assistance and producing only cheap, inconsequential products, but as Japan's economy began to recover in the mid-1950s and Japanese manufacturers produced better quality goods, concerns over competition revived racialized wartime rhetoric. Japan's emergence as a successful exporter of high-end merchandise by the 1960s seemed to prove the strength of American-style free market capitalism.

“It Ain’t Just Black Kids and White Kids”: The Representation and Reproduction of Authentic “Skurban” Masculinities

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Atencio ◽  
Becky Beal ◽  
Emily Chivers Yochim
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racially Diverse ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Racial Formations ◽  
Brand Marketing ◽  
Recent Emergence ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Market Capitalism

The recent emergence of “skurban” (the fusion of skateboarding and urban) reflects the racially diverse history and culture of skateboarding within urban areas in the United States. Skurban follows on from skateboarding’s integral link with the urban since the 1980s. We aver that urban skateboarding is now underpinned by proliferating racial formations that reproduce a version of masculine authenticity that is highly marketable. Through our interrogation of two mainstream media skate videos featuring Stevie Williams and Paul Rodriguez, we propose that skurban reflects the ascendancy of highly valued urban racial masculinities. These masculinities enhance youth and action sport brand marketing strategies. Simultaneously, these diverse racial masculinities gain currency in alignment with discourses of individual entrepreneurialism, “free market” capitalism, and multicultural notions of diversity.

The Western Ideology

2009 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Gamble
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Order ◽  
Military Interventions ◽  
The West ◽  
American Values ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Universal Values ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Market Capitalism

AbstractAfter the fall of communism the ascendancy of neoliberalism seemed assured. Democratic government and free market capitalism had been universalized and any serious alternatives to them had disappeared. Rather than the end of ideology, neoliberalism is the latest version of the western ideology, proclaiming universal values and modernity, in the form of the liberal global order and globalization. Critics argue that neoliberalism is chiefly associated with the United States and Britain, and is best understood as a form of hegemony, concerned with the projection of Anglo-American values, policies and institutions around the world, including a particular model of capitalism and military interventions, and a particular conception of the West.

scholarly journals Prelude to America’s Downfall: The Stagflation of the 1970s

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-251
Author(s):  
Vassilis K. Fouskas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
Industrial Base ◽  
Global Power ◽  
Uneven And Combined Development ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Market Capitalism

Since the end of the Bretton Woods system and the stagflation of the 1970s, the transatlantic core, under the leadership of the United States of America, has been trying to expand its model of free market capitalism embracing every part of the globe, while addressing its domestic overaccumulation crisis. This article follows a historical methodological perspective and draws from the concept of Uneven and Combined Development (UCD), which helps us consider the structural reasons behind the long and protracted decline of the American economic power. In this respect, according to the UCD concept, there is no global power that can enjoy the privilege for being at the top of the global capitalist system forever in a world which develops unevenly and in a combined way. Power shifts across the world and new powers come to challenge the current hegemonic power and its alliance systems. The novelty of the article is that it locates this decline in the 1970s and considers it as being consubstantial with the state economic policy of neo-liberalism and financialisation (supply-side economics). However the financialised capitalism of the transatlantic assemblage lack industrial base producing, reproducing and recycling real commodity values. Further, the article shows that this attempt to remain at the top of the global capitalist system forever has not been successful, not least because the regime which the recovery of the core had rested upon, that of neo-liberal financialisation represents a major vulnerability of the transatlantic assemblage eroding the primacy of the United States of America in it.

Geopolitics and the Cold War

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Warner
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Free Market ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
World War 2 ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Market Capitalism

This chapter examines the geopolitical aspect of the Cold War. It discusses the origin of the term “geopolitics,” and investigates how and why relations between the United States and the Soviet Union deteriorated so rapidly after the World War 2. The chapter highlights the incompatibilities between the ideologies of the two superpowers, and explains that communism and free-market capitalism are polar opposites. It also argues against the claims about the extent to which the Cold War was based on ideological as opposed to geopolitical factors that persisted throughout the conflict.

The Legacy of Iraq

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Market Capitalism

This book critically reflects on the failure of the 2003 intervention to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy, underpinned by free-market capitalism, its citizens free to live in peace and prosperity. The book argues that mistakes made by the coalition and the Iraqi political elite set a sequence of events in motion that have had devastating consequences for Iraq, the Middle East and for the rest of the world. Today, as the nation faces perhaps its greatest challenge in the wake of the devastating advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and another US-led coalition undertakes renewed military action in Iraq, understanding the complex and difficult legacies of the 2003 war could not be more urgent. Ignoring the legacies of the Iraq War and denying their connection to contemporary events could mean that vital lessons are ignored and the same mistakes made again.

Simulation : The National Security Council

1985 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 3-4
Author(s):  
Douglas W. Simon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
High Risk ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Council ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Security Council ◽  
Gulf Region ◽  
College Course ◽  
Term Papers ◽  
Global Events

In the spring of 1981 I designed and taught what I considered, at the time, a "high risk" seminar for seventeen junior and senior political science majors. There were to be no textbooks, no lectures, no examinations and no term papers, those hallmarks of the traditional college course. Nevertheless, when the thirteen week course was over, the students were exhausted and claimed that they had never worked so hard in their college careers.The adventure that my students (and I) undertook was a semester long simulation of the United States National Security Council (NSC), dealing with actual global events as they happened. As Washington dealt with a problem, we dealt with the same problem. The simulation was initially offered during the deteriorating situation in Iran and instability in the Gulf region.

scholarly journals Estonia’s Digital Transformation

2019 ◽  
pp. 143-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Kattel ◽  
Ines Mergel
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Digital Transformation ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Economic Success ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Free Market Capitalism ◽  
Distinct Features ◽  
Market Capitalism

Estonia’s transition to free-market capitalism and liberal democracy is marked by three distinct features: economic success, digital transformation of its public sector, and a rapid increase and persistence of social inequality in Estonia. Indeed, Estonia has become one of the most unequal societies in Europe. Economic success and increasing social inequality can be explained as different sides of the same coin: a neoliberal policy mix opened markets and allowed globalization to play out its drama on a domestic stage, creating winners and losers. Yet Estonia has been highly successful in its digital agenda. Particularly interesting is how the country’s public sector led the digital transformation within this highly neoliberal policy landscape. While within economic policy, Estonia did indeed follow the famed invisible hand in rapidly liberalizing markets, in ICT, Estonia seems to have followed an entirely different principle of policymaking. In this domain, policy has followed the principle of the hiding hand, coined by Albert Hirschman: policy-makers sometimes take on tasks they think they can solve without realizing all the challenges and risks involved— and this may result in unexpected learning and creativity. The success of Estonia’s e-government has much to do with the principle of the hiding hand: naïvety and optimism propelled initial ‘crazy ideas’ in the early 1990s to become ingrained in ICT policy, enabling the creation of multiple highly cooperative and overlapping networks that span public–private boundaries.

scholarly journals Emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union in the 1960-1970s through the eyes of the American press

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-160
Author(s):  
Alexey V. Antoshin ◽  
Dmitry L. Strovsky
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
American Press ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
First Time

The article analyzes the features of Soviet emigration and repatriation in the second half of the 1960s through the early 1970s, when for the first time after a long period of time, and as a result of political agreements between the USSR and the USA, hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews were able to leave the Soviet Union for good and settle in the United States and Israel. Our attention is focused not only on the history of this issue and the overall political situation of that time, but mainly on the peculiarities of this issue coverage by the leading American printed media. The reference to the media as the main empirical source of this study allows not only perceiving the topic of emigration and repatriation in more detail, but also seeing the regularities of the political ‘face’ of the American press of that time. This study enables us to expand the usual framework of knowledge of emigration against the background of its historical and cultural development in the 20th century.

The French Factor in U.S. Foreign Policy during the Nixon-Pompidou Period

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Trachtenberg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Nuclear Area ◽  
Henry Kissinger ◽  
Sharp Turn ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The 1960S

This chapter discusses relations between France and the United States under the Nixon administration. When Nixon took office as president in early 1969, he and his national security advisor Henry Kissinger wanted to put America's relationship with France on an entirely new footing. Relations between the two countries in the 1960s, and especially from early 1963 on, had been far from ideal. Nixon and Kissinger tried to develop a close relationship with the Pompidou government and in the early Nixon–Pompidou period the two governments were on very good terms. Both governments were also interested in developing a certain relationship in the nuclear area. However, by 1973 relations between the two countries took a sharp turn for the worse. The chapter considers what went wrong and why the attempt to develop a close relationship failed.

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