Introduction

This chapter explores the related processes of economic development, economic growth, and urbanization. The prevailing and dominant narratives of economic development and urbanization will be used as scaffolding to describe and critique the objective state of our economic system and related patterns of human development as they manifest in our increasingly urbanized world. The approach taken in this chapter will be a broad overview describing economic development and urbanization as it has actually occurred while engaging in some normative suggestions and speculations as to how it might be improved in the 21st century. These normative suggestions will be explored further in Unit III: Problematics.

Guiding Questions

What is the prevailing narrative as to what economic development is and how is it measured?

How are economic development and urbanization interrelated?

To what extent do Western narratives of economic development divorce humans from nature?

What is globalization and to what extent has it dominated the planet and will it last?

What is Gross Domestic Product (GDP), how is it measured, how has it been used and misused?

How is economic development distinguished from economic growth?

Summarize Rostow’s stages of growth and comment on their relevance today.

What is urbanization and how have patterns of urbanization evolved and manifested today?

Learning Objectives

Demonstrate a basic understanding of the prevailing narrative of economic growth and economic development. Provide a reasonable critique of the prevailing narrative using empirical evidence.

Provide a brief sketch of the history of how human settlements have evolved with a focus on the nature, diversity, and potential evolution of the contemporary urban environment.

Explain how western ideas of civilization can be interpreted as humans being increasingly divorced from the natural world to such an extent that they fail to appreciate their fundamental dependence on the world’s natural capital and functioning ecosystems.

Contribute to envisioning an economic system and modalities of urbanization that will be more just, sustainable, and desirable.

Key Terms and Definitions

Rostow’s stages of economic growth, Economic development versus economic growth, GDP, Globalization, Race to the bottom, Supply chain system, GINI coefficient, Autarky, Feudalism, Mercantilism, Capitalism, Socialism, Labor force participation, Informal economy, Basic and nonbasic economy, Subsistence economy, World system theory and the Core–periphery model, Comparative advantage, Money

5.1 Economic Systems

In the beginning, we did not have iPhones, money, mortgages, or credit cards. We were hunter-gatherers living off nature’s bounty. We were much more connected to the natural world, understood that we depended on it, and likely even regarded ourselves as part of, rather than distinct from, the natural world. We were likely steeped in ancient animism and rituals (Kimmerer, 2015). Animism is the belief that objects, places, plants, and animals all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Attributing “spiritual essence” to rocks, rivers, and squirrels can be seen as quaint or even jarring to a modern scientifically educated mind. Nonetheless, there may be something profound and important that we have lost in the process of divorcing ourselves cognitively from the natural world. The “economic system” of hunter-gatherers was probably one of generalized reciprocity where individuals treated others in the same way that others treated them. If we did not engage in cooperative mutually beneficial behavior, we would have gone extinct. These behaviors took place at family, household, and tribal levels. There were no cities, no states, and no formal national boundaries. As hunter-gatherers humans are often described as participating in a “traditional economy.” We face a new set of challenges as a global civilization that might benefit from a renewed appreciation of the idea of generalized reciprocity that we likely learned at the family and tribal level.

5.1.1 Traditional Economy

A traditional economy does not operate under a profit motive. Contemporary traditional economies are often called “subsistence economies.” Traditional economies have developed over centuries driven by nature-derived activities such as agriculture, fishing, and hunting. This is supplemented by services such as weaving, cooking, building, and child-rearing. Traditional economies tend not to produce a surplus of anything. Some traditional economic societies (e.g., the Maasai in Africa) do accumulate a surplus in the form of cattle that neoclassical economists might choose to regard as “wealth creation” or accumulation. Cattle are a measure of status in Maasai culture and even a form of currency; however, surplus cattle are also a kind of resilience to environmental variability. For the most part traditional economies are nonmonetary in that they do not have a currency. They do not produce a surplus of goods to be sold in markets. They often use gift or barter as the medium of exchange. Very few people in the world today live in what could be regarded as a “traditional economy.” There are many people practicing subsistence agriculture, but they are also involved with the use of money, markets, and technologies they did not develop themselves. The first or “Neolithic” agricultural revolution took place between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago, which signaled the end of most traditional economic systems. The first agricultural revolution led to the development of new economic systems in addition to spurring the growth of the human population (Bouquet-Appel, 2011).

The first agricultural revolution is a cornerstone of the dominant narrative of economics. Domestication of plants and animals resulted in a surplus of food that could be stored for extended periods of time. Hunter-gatherers settled down to become farmers. Roaming tribes built permanent human settlements. Someone had to “own” those settlements and the land on which they were built. The practice of agriculture and animal domestication radically altered the natural environment. Writing, pottery, irrigation, deforestation, division of labor, trade, hierarchy, art, and property ownership are all attributed to this “Neolithic Package,” which heralded new economic systems (Gregory & Stuart, 2013).

5.1.2 Modern Economic Systems

An economic system consists of the institutions, rules, laws, and customs that organize the production, resource allocation, and distribution of goods and services for a country or region. An economic system is a fundamental characteristic of a society. There is ongoing debate as to whether a society normatively determines how an economic system should operate or if an economic system dictates how a society will function. Jason Hickel’s book Less is More argues convincingly that capitalism and democracy cannot coexist (Hickel, 2021). In any case, the dominant narrative is that a society has several systems (e.g., the system of laws, the political system, the economic system) that are decided by, and changeable by, the society itself. There is debate as to who the real agents within that society are who establish and support those systems. Regardless, a society or its economic system must guide the answer to these questions: What kinds and quantities of goods and services need to be produced/provided? How should these goods and services be produced/provided? How will these goods and services be distributed? When should they be produced? (Samuelson, 1980). The study of economic systems has historically explored the dichotomies between market economies and planned economies that are often closely associated with capitalism and socialism, respectively.

The three main types of economic systems in the world today can be distilled into Capitalist economies, Mixed economies, and Socialist economies. From a “Lumpers and Splitters” perspective, we could further divide these into a larger list of types: Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Feudalism, Distributism, Statism, Market Economy, Mercantilism, Mutualism, Network economy, Nonproperty system, Palace system, Participatory economy, Potlatch, Social credit, Workers’ self-management, Traditional economy, and so on. Most economic systems of the world’s countries can be roughly categorized into Capitalist, Socialist, or Mixed. These three economic systems are distinguished by their resource allocation method, ownership of the means of production, and political ideologies.

Capitalist economies: capitalism is characterized by private ownership of the means of production. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, the price system, private property, property rights recognition, voluntary exchange, and wage labor. In a capitalist market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by owners of wealth and property. These decision-makers can move financial or physical capital in a variety of capital and financial markets. They are, however, price takers (they cannot control prices). Prices and the distribution of goods and services must be determined by a competitive marketplace in goods and services. There is a saying “If your money works for you, you are a ‘capitalist’. If you work for your money, you are a laborer.” It is not entirely clear what “Pure Capitalism” would look like. Capitalist economies can, and in fact must, exist with varying degrees of government intervention without being a “mixed economy.” For example, “Property Rights Recognition” usually manifests as “Property Rights Enforcement,” usually involving police, laws, and a judicial system, and most self-described capitalists are perfectly okay with this, recognizing these as legitimate functions of government. Degrees of capitalism with decreasing levels of government involvement are “laissez-faire” or free-market capitalism, state capitalism, and welfare capitalism. The countries and regions of the world regarded as the most “capitalist” are Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Chile, Ireland, Estonia, and the United Kingdom (Menzies, 2016). The United States, despite the pronouncements of many of its citizens (“Get your government hands off my social security check!”) is really better characterized as a “Mixed Economy.”

Socialist economies: a socialist economic system is characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production. This may take the form of small independent cooperatives or direct public ownership. Production is carried out directly for use rather than for profit. Socialist systems that use markets for allocating capital goods and factors of production among economic sectors or facilities are designated market socialism. When planning is utilized, the economic system is designated as a socialist planned economy. Socialist and Marxist ideas resulted from the dehumanizing aspects of the factory system that manifested in Europe during the industrial revolution. Socialists hoped to achieve more democratic participation in decision-making regarding economic affairs that would grant workers greater control over the means of production and their workplace conditions. The idea being that this would eliminate exploitation by directing surplus value to employees rather than profits pocketed to the owners of capital. Also, the idea that free access to the means of subsistence is a requisite for liberty guaranteed that all work is voluntary, and no one has the power to coerce others into performing alienating work. Socialist economic systems were adopted by the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and the Republic of Cuba. These countries never achieved the socialist dream of equality and have since devolved into a strange mix of oligarchy, capitalism, communism, and plutocracy.

Mixed economies: mixed economies are just that a blend of capitalist and socialist economies. The ratios of capitalist to socialist elements can change that enables further subclassification of mixed economies. These subclassifications can be significant because the mixed economy of say, Sweden, is significantly distinct from the mixed economy of the United States. There are a variety of flavors of mixed economic systems of which several are described here: National System (typical of the United States from 1790s to the 1970s——used tariffs and subsidies to protect domestic industry, government investment in infrastructure, national bank), Dirigisme (stronger government intervention on the opposite end of the spectrum from laissez faire policy), Indicative Planning (coordination of public and private investment through forecasts and output targets—practiced by France after WWII to the 1980s), Nordic Model (characteristic of Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Iceland—comprehensive welfare state, collective bargaining, based on principles of social corporatism—high fraction of workforce in the public sector), Corporatism (often associated with fascism as practiced by Mussolini in Italy—organizes society by economic groups such as military, agriculture, business), and Socialist Market Economy (currently practiced by the People’s Republic of China in which public ownership and state-owned enterprises function within a market economy). In theory, mixed economic systems combine at least one of the three following characteristics: Public and private ownership of the means of production, market-based allocation with economic planning, or free markets with state intervention. In practice, a mixed economy is usually a market economy with significant state intervention. This often manifests as a large private “free-market” sector, which is taxed to pay for the public sector. In the United States, roughly 15% of the workforce works in the public sector (Federal, State, and Local government). These workers are clerks, police officers, teachers, congresspersons, government officials, etc. However, most companies in the U.S. military–industrial complex (e.g., Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, etc.) survive on government contracts yet are regarded as being in the private sector. Truly delineating a job as “public” versus “private” can sometimes be difficult. The fraction of public sector employment can vary dramatically from country to country and over time. In 1978 in China it was 100% (a pure) socialist economy. Currently, China’s public sector employs roughly 33% of the labor force. Today in Cuba, public sector employment is 80% of the workforce; in the United Kingdom, it is 24%; in India, it is only 5%. The variety of approaches to resource allocations, public versus private ownership, and degree of government intervention in the economy within mixed economies is profound. Interesting questions to ask are Why are there so many truly different economic systems operating in the world today? and Will today’s diversity of economic systems continue to evolve until all the countries of the world are operating under a single optimal economic system?

Several scholars and philosophers have espoused distinct theories of evolutionary economics. Karl Marx’s theories are based on the idea of evolving economic systems. The basic idea is that superioreconomic systems would replace inferior economic systems. Marx observed that feudalism was replaced by capitalism. Mark’s best work identified problems with capitalism and argued that capitalism would eventually be replaced by socialism. Joseph Schumpeter also had an evolutionary vision of economic development that differed from Marx in that it did not involve class struggle as a driver of change. As world history has unfolded several communist states run according to Marxist–Leninist ideologies have evolved toward market-based economies (e.g., perestroika in the former Soviet Union and the Chinese Economic reform). Despite the growing dominance of market-driven mixed economic systems, there is growing concern that market-driven economic systems are incapable of producing ecologically sustainable economies nor are they truly compatible with democratic governance (Dasgupta, 2008; Rees, 2020; Ripple et al., 2017). To wit, in the United States, we spend over 12 billion dollars on Halloween costumes, candy, and lawn decorations. Most of this is in a landfill within a month—$12 billion for 1 day. The entire annual budget for the National Park System of the United States is less than $4 billion. This is by no means a rational or sustainable allocation of resources. Fortunately, economic systems do evolve. The current challenge is to find a way to evolve our economic systems on a path toward a just, sustainable, and desirable future.

5.2 History of the Organization of Work

The world we live in is unbelievably different from the world that existed for most of human history. For most of human history, Homo sapiens lived in relative harmony with the natural world. The entire biomass of humans barely exceeded that of coyotes today. Our most profound environmental impact in prehistory likely involved the extinction of megafauna through predation. Although there is ongoing debate over the relative contributions of climate change and human predation regarding the cause of the extinction of megafauna (Sandom et al., 2014), it is clear that these extinctions pale in comparison to the environmental changes taking place today.

Recently, scientists have pushed for naming the current geological epoch the “Anthropocene” (Steffen et al., 2011). The argument is that human activities have had an impact on the earth’s stratigraphy of sufficient scope and scale to justify naming a geological epoch after the single species that is us. However, we must remember that most of human history did not produce such profound impacts on the environment. Dramatic environmental change to the earth that arguably has influenced the future stratigraphic profile of the planet has likely only taken place since the industrial revolution (dating from the late 18th century). Consequently, an alternative name for our current geological epoch has been proposed: The Capitalocene (Moore, 2017). Perhaps the economic systems we create (cultural and technological evolution) are more responsible for global environmental change than the DNA in our cells that guides our biological evolution. We have described several economic systems that embrace “capitalism” to varying degrees. Here, we provide a history of the organization of work and a summary of the economic activities associated with these economic systems.

In a traditional economy, we were hunter-gatherers who may or may not have even conceived of the idea of “work.” Prehistoric peoples likely exhibited some division of labor that was based on age and sex to some extent. However, since the dawn of agriculture, we have engaged to an ever-increasing degree in specialized and hierarchical activities. Many of these activities could be described as “work.” Historically, work has provided the basic physical needs of food, shelter, and clothing. The form and nature of the work process contribute to determining the nature and character of a civilization.

Some forms of work predate the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution. We must have engaged in some communal or tribal organization that required certain levels of cooperation (e.g., hunting and fishing). Food and resources yielded from successful cooperative activities had to be distributed. Fundamental economic ideas such as resources, allocation, and distribution must have been emerging. Pottery and textile production predates sedentary agriculture. There are suggestions that the need for textiles rather than food was an impetus for the agricultural revolution (Gilligan, 2019). These technologies represented a significant evolution in the organization of work. Animal skins were initially used for clothing but later replaced by woven textile materials as thermal properties became more important as the ice age unfolded. Agriculture was nonetheless right on the horizon and it would bring dramatic changes.

Crop cultivation began as a technology for supplementing existing hunter-gatherer food supplies. Pottery allowed some crops to be stored for later consumption. The food surplus that agriculture manifested resulted in human society’s ability to support specialists. Some of these early specialists were scientists–engineers–inventors who developed ways of smelting ore, forging metal, and creating metal tools and weapons.

Because copper ores are generally located in mountainous regions, the metal had to be transported to its lowland users. The specializations of mining and metalworking could evolve only after cultivation efforts created yields that could exceed subsistence levels. Thus, metalworkers and their families were supported by the surplus foodstuffs of farmers. Not surprisingly, metallurgy developed first near the farming valleys of the great river systems of the Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, and Indus, all of which provided a high yield of foodstuffs per acre. If metalworkers pursued their occupations full-time, then it is likely that other craft specialties developed in a similar manner. The combination of agricultural surpluses with copper and bronze tools provided the basis for development of the great irrigation civilizations of the Middle East. There the organization of work developed along lines that remained unchanged for the next 5,000 years, until the beginnings of mechanization and industrialization in the 18th century.(Krantzberg & Hannan, 2017)

The Stone Age merged into the Bronze Age. This is the dawn of large-scale systematic organization of work, widespread specialization of labor, and hierarchical social organization. The birth of economic systems? This represents a significant portion of the dominant narrative of the evolution of human political economy or civilization. This narrative tends to describe the evolution of human civilization as self-evident, natural, inevitable, and good.

This narrative is not universally accepted. David Graeber and David Wengrow wrote an ambitious book titled The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity that critiques this traditional narrative of linear development from primitivism (traditional economy) to civilization (modern political economies) and their related forms of human settlement. They argue that humans lived in many different large, complex, decentralized communities for thousands of years. Their position is supported with archaeological evidence suggesting that early human societies were highly variable in form and developed many structures that suggested varying degrees of hierarchy. The hypotheses and theories proposed by Graeber and Wengrow are highly speculative and very interesting. So much information about how humans lived in the past is lost. It can be fun to ask ourselves What will the archaeologists of the 42nd century say about our civilization? For a humorous speculation read David Macaulay’s short book, Motel of the Mysteries (Macaulay, 1979). Nonetheless, the ideas proposed by Graeber and Wengrow raise very important questions about the nature of possibility for the future trajectory of how we organize our economy and live on this planet.

Our understanding of the evolutionary process that leads to H. sapiens has evolved from a linear narrative of Homo australopithecus evolving into Homo erectus, then into H. sapiens, to a recognition that at least three Homo species (denisovan, sapiens, and neanderthalensis) coexisted on the earth at the same time (Video 5.1). A Darwinian argument might suggest that H. sapiens are the only survivor of these coexisting hominid species because they were/are the most fit. Similar Social Darwinist arguments could be made for economic systems. For example, the dominant narrative of the agricultural revolution is that it produced division of labor, hierarchy, money, armies, and the glory of civilization being the forefather of capitalism. It is a short step to argue that capitalism outlasts communism and other economic systems because it is self-evident, natural, inevitable, and good. But these arguments are a logical fallacy oft described as the “Better Mousetrap Fallacy” or “Survivorship bias.” Ralph Waldo Emerson is apocryphally quoted as saying “If you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door.” It turns out this is simply not true. Better mousetraps do not always win the day. Nor do we have to conclude that because Capitalism is outlasting communism, it is a better-suited system for long-term sustainability. There are many examples of “inferior mousetraps” that have won the day (Berkun, 2010). The QWERTY keyboard, this paragraph was typed on, is neither efficient nor ergonomic. The Phillips screw is inferior to many other designs of screw. The M-16 is the most widely produced rifle in the world despite its tendency to jam and overheat. Fireplaces are stupid and inefficient ways to heat homes but we still build them. HTML and JavaScript are not the best software development languages, yet they are very successful and dominant. Graeber and Wengrow’s speculations on the possibility of a much more diverse manifestation of human political-economic-settlement patterns of the past are important in their own right; however, they are particularly important in that they offer promise to the idea that our current economic way of being is NOT self-evident, natural, inevitable, and good. Alternative imaginings of “civilization” are an important social criticism. John Green’s Crash Course World History is funny and informative and this episode titled “Rethinking Civilization” is a good intro to the idea of hydraulic civilization (Video 5.2).

5.2.1 Hydraulic Civilization and the End of the Bronze Age

The term “Hydraulic Civilization” was coined by Wittfogel (1957) to describe the large-scale systematic organization of work associated with the massive irrigation projects of ancient civilizations like those found in Egypt and Mesopotamia. These civilizations undoubtedly used mass labor in an organizational hierarchy for building and maintaining complex systems of irrigation, crop harvesting, and food distribution. It is likely these civilizations represented some of the earliest manifestations of what we think of as “government.” Food supply grew as did food surplus. Population growth rates ticked up even as death rates grew in these new urban settlements. Armies were needed to protect stored food and farmers. A military class developed in addition to other specializations of labor such as potters, weavers, metalworkers, clerks, lawyers, and doctors. This new and more complex economic system spurred the development of writing primarily to keep track of the surplus of food, livestock, and other goods that manifested from the efficiencies of division of labor.

Social classes developed even before writing because of the various roles people had in these new societies, including kings, nobles, warriors, priests, clerks, scribes, artisans, craftsmen, peasants, and slaves. Priests likely were the scientists of the age that possessed knowledge of writing and mathematics, which enabled them to serve as government officials that managed the work of clerks and scribes. Nobles were likely promoted from the warrior class. Slaves were obtained through conquest and conflict and used in mining and agricultural harvest. This sort of hierarchy is believed to have begun in Egypt and Mesopotamia and lasted through the end of the Bronze Age into the civilizations of Greece and Rome. Social mobility (moving from one social class to another) was likely very low with heredity being the determinant of one’s social class. This complexity of social class was characteristic of the urban settlements. The rural land that produced the food for the cities had an entirely different social structure much more oriented around the family unit.

The basic agricultural work unit was the family. Even state-owned lands were typically apportioned to families. In some cases, large estates were granted to powerful members of society that were subdivided among many tenant farmer families. Typical work roles were men engaged in plowing, sowing, tilling, and harvesting, while women raised children, prepared food, and made clothing. If oxen were available, they were typically employed in pairs with a human driver and a human guide. The Roman statesman Cato described the work requirements for a medium-sized farm (60 hectares) as one overseer, a housekeeper, five farmhands, three carders, a donkey driver, a swineherd, and a shepherd (total of 13 people). Just as there are efficiency gains to division of labor, there are efficiency gains to crop specialization that are often determined by geographic qualities such as soil, climate, etc. Vineyards and olive groves were concentrated in Greece and Italy, cereals were grown in the rich soils of Sicily, North Africa, and Asia. Wine, oil, grain, and other goods were traded and transported throughout the Mediterranean in amphorae (Figure 5.1) on a variety of sailing vessels.

[figure number=Figure 5.1 caption=Amphorae—Most Commonly Found Archaeological Object of the Roman Empire filename=Fig_5.1.jpg]

Amphorae were the shipping containers and shopping bags of ancient times. Amphorae are one of the most found artifacts of the Roman Empire. The manufacture of amphorae was likely an early manifestation of mass production. The enlarged markets that resulted from increased trade promoted the development of specialist crafts. Buildings housing 6–10 persons engaged in a specialized activity (such as the manufacture of amphorae) were perhaps some of the earliest “factories.” Eventually, market centers evolved allowing craftspeople to trade their wares and form guilds. Archaeological and historical evidence points to the craft of pottery being very specialized with shaping, firing, and decoration accomplished in separate workshops. The Bronze Age needed copper and tin to make bronze. Copper was relatively abundant, but tin was scarcer with tin coming from as far away as modern-day Cornwall and Afghanistan. The increasing levels of trade, specialization of crafts and manufacturing, and storage of food all provided the impetus for larger and larger scale buildings.

We know that monumental public works manifested in ancient times and we know that there must have been significant social stratification and hierarchy. Not everyone had a pyramid built for them to be buried in. The Great Pyramid at Giza was built around 2,500 BCE without pulleys or wheeled vehicles. The pyramid was built with human power (approximately 100,000 workers over a span of 20 years). The logistics of this building project alone are staggering. How were these workers fed? How were they housed? How were the massive blocks of granite and limestone quarried and transported? Clearly, humans had developed the capacity for complex technology (e.g., making bronze and quarrying massive stone), trade routes (e.g., ships filled with amphorae containing wine, oil, and grain), and organization (e.g., pyramid building).

The Bronze Age lasted from roughly 3,300 BCE to 1,200 BCE but came to a relatively abrupt end. There are many theories about why the Bronze Age ended. Complex stories of “Systemic Collapse” brought about by a perfect storm of disrupted trade routes, drought, earthquakes, climate change, famine, and “sea peoples” are offered as an explanation for the end of the Bronze Age (Videos 5.3, 5.4, 5.5). These videos make it clear that a complex civilization was flourishing in the eastern Mediterranean prior to Greek and Roman civilization. The suite of interacting causal explanations for the collapse of the Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean is an excellent example of systems or holistic thinking and reasoning. It also is instructive for contemplating the current suite of interacting phenomena human civilization is experiencing today.

5.2.2 The Iron Age to the End of the Roman Empire

The Iron Age began at the end of the Bronze Age (roughly 1,200 BCE). During the Iron Age people began making weapons from iron and steel. Steel is produced by smelting iron and alloying it with small amounts of carbon. The technology needed to smelt iron was the ability to achieve higher temperatures using specially designed furnaces in addition to complex processes for the removal of impurities and the inclusion of small and controlled quantities of carbon. The ability to create steel was a disruptive technology for bronze and the advent of mass production of tools and weapons from steel must have dramatically reduced the demand for tin which was necessary to produce bronze. Iron was cheaper, stronger, and lighter than bronze and permanently replaced bronze as the metal of choice.

The Iron Age is the last phase of the protohistorical period. We have continued to use iron and steel to this day; however, the end of the Iron Age is typically associated with the beginning of written history. In the Mediterranean, this is associated with the historiography of Herodotus. The geography of the end of the Iron Age is interesting in that different regions of the world began producing written histories at different times. Egypt is regarded as having a written record of its history around 700 BCE, while the Iron Age in northern Europe lasted until the Vikings (circa 800 CE). Steel enabled even greater efficiencies to be applied to the complex capabilities humans had developed through the Bronze Age.

The Greeks and Romans used these abilities to advance the building of monuments, road networks, aqueducts, public buildings, harbors, and public baths. Many scholars attribute the end of the Iron Age in Western and Central Europe to the Roman conquest in the first century BCE. Recall that the social hierarchy of Kings (aka Emperors), nobles (aka Senators), Warriors (aka Roman legionary), Priests, Clerks, Artisans, and Slaves. It can be argued that the organization of work and division of labor that manifested in the Roman Empire was a “peak” of civilization. Monty Python’s “What have the Romans ever done for us?” captures this idea quite humorously (Video 5.6). The fall of the Roman Empire (Video 5.7) brought on what is named “The Middle Ages,” which were characterized by social and political fragmentation and economic decay that reduced most of Western Europe to small-scale self-sufficient economic villages. The staying power of the Middle Ages (they lasted roughly 1,000 years from 500 CE to 1400–1500 CE) perhaps suggests that living in small fragmented self-sufficient villages was not as bad as the dominant narrative suggests. The Middle Ages are often called the “Dark Ages” ostensibly because there was little scientific or cultural advancement during that era. Monty Python strikes again with this humorous take on the science of the “Dark Ages” (Video 5.8).

5.2.3 Medieval Civilization

The Middle Ages were a time of profound change to the economic systems of Europe. After the fall of Rome, the economy was primarily agrarian and based on the values of land and labor. The Middle Ages were characterized by Feudalism and Manorialism. Feudalism is a social and political system based on three distinct classes: Lords, vassals, and fiefs. The King (lord) owned all the land and he gave out parcels of land to nobles (vassals) who would promise loyalty and service to the king. The nobles rented out their parcel of land to peasants (fiefs). Feudalism has military roots in that the vassals promise to fight for the king and the king promises to defend the vassals. The Manorial system or Manorialism is an economic and social structure based on the medieval manor in which a noble was entitled to rights over land and tenants. Peasants were totally under the jurisdiction of the lord of their Manor. Peasants were economically, politically, and socially obligated to him (and in those days it was always a “him”). The main house was surrounded by smaller peasant structures, the village, the farmlands, and the common areas for hunting and firewood. Feudalism is more about the higher-level relationship between lords and vassals whereas Manorialism is more about the relationship between lords and peasants.

Note that there are no nation-states during the Middle Ages. People lived in kingdoms that varied in size and complexity. These kingdoms could range from a few tens of thousands of people to millions of people, depending on the kingdom and particular era. Although most medieval states were much smaller and weaker than their modern equivalents. Kingdoms in what is now Norway were divided into some dozen smaller kingdoms with a total population of barely 200,000 people. In contrast, the kingdom of France at this time consisted of some 9 million people. It gets even more complicated, since the Kingdom of France really was not anything like modern France, it was a disparate collection of Crownlands, duchies, independent fiefs and land grants, church estates, independent kingdoms and duchies, and so forth. There was a dense web of feudal and religious obligations between local and regional rulers, bishops, and other significant landowners. These situations could be incredibly arcane and confusing, and while the average person knew who they directly answered to, it was a typical source of conflict when competing loyalties were called upon. Monty Python has perhaps captured our imagination with respect to what the relationship between kings and peasants looked like in the Middle Ages (Video 5.9).

The Early, High, and Late Middle Ages are characterized by evolving kingdoms (Figure 5.2). The shifting geographical boundaries and names of the kingdoms of the Middle Ages are beyond the scope of this book. Some highlights of the Middle Ages in Europe were the Holy Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the great schism between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox or Greek Church in 1054, the rise and geographic expansion of Islam and the Crusades. The rise of Islam resulted in Moors occupying much of what is now Spain. This rise of Islam motivated the Crusades, which later resulted in the sack of Constantinople. The boundaries of the kingdoms of the late Middle Ages roughly corresponded to modern European countries. The Black Plague arrived in the middle of the 14th century and killed an estimated50 million people (~60% of the population of Europe). France and England were involved in the seemingly endless 100-year war. Despite all this political intrigue, the lives of the people were still dominated by four interrelated factors.

[figure number=Figure 5.2 caption=Europe 814 filename=Fig_5.2.jpg]

These factors were (1) working for the manor and supporting its economic self-sufficiency, (2) the development of mixed agriculture based on crops and livestock, (3) some technological improvements such as the heavy wheeled plow and rigid horse collar, and (4) the system of land tenure and division of holdings. Each peasant household produced nearly everything it needed. Exceptions included the use of a feudal mill or winepress for which the peasants paid not in money but with a percentage of the crop being processed. Money did exist in the Middle Ages, but barter and other forms of exchange were also used. The first known form of currency was the Mesopotamian “shekel,” which dates back 5,000 years. The topic of money, what it is, why it is used, and how competing narratives of the answers to these questions matter is explored in David Graeber’s book, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (Graeber, 2011).

As time went by, trade and industry became more important and towns and villages grew in number and size. Merchants became more important. Specialization for markets increased. Some regions focused on labor-intensive cash crops others oriented themselves toward livestock farming. Technology continued to evolve in agriculture, transportation, metallurgy, and machines. These developments ushered in a differential growth in wealth and a new middle class of “burghers” that lived in towns or cities. Workers in the cities had more freedom than the land-bound serfs and peasants. Craft guilds (early forms of labor unions associated with specific trades) emerged that organized skill levels via a hierarchy of masters, journeymen, and apprentices. The master, journeyman, and apprentice system remains with us today in many trades including plumbing, carpentry, and electrician. Craft guilds were organized via rules and regulations. The guilds acted as gatekeepers for their trade by controlling the conditions of entrance into a craft. By defining wages, hours, tools, and techniques, they regulated both working conditions and the production process. Guilds established quality standards and prices. Monopolistic in nature, the guilds, either singly or in combination, sought complete control over their own local markets. Guilds protected their monopoly in many ways including securing a political voice in town councils. The guild system slowly became more and more corrupt and disintegrated over time. The peak of the guild system likely occurred at some point in the 14th century. The guild system likely motivated profit-motivated individuals to develop alternative industrial models. The “putting-out” system of the wool-cloth industry is an excellent example.

5.2.3.1 Advances in Technology and Monumental Building in the Middle Ages

Wind and waterpower were harnessed in the Middle Ages. These marked the beginning of replacing human labor with machine power. Waterwheels that had been used to grind grain in mills were put to use for new purposes such as sawing wood, pressing olives, and operating blast furnace bellows. Mining became a much more sophisticated endeavor with a hierarchy of clerks, technicians, craftsmen, and mechanics specializing in shoveling, carrying, sorting, washing, and smelting. This mechanization enabled the construction of larger, taller, and more complex castles and cathedrals. Some of these cathedrals took several generations to complete. A great book explaining in simple terms the process of building a cathedral has been written by David MaCauley—Cathedral: The Story of its Construction (Macaulay, 1981).

5.2.3.2 Cottage Industry and the Beginning of Capitalist Modes of Production

Wool was the basic clothing material in Western Europe in the Middle Ages. Linen and silk were too expensive, and cotton was grown only in small quantities. The making of wool cloth involved several time-consuming steps: cleaning and carding (straightening curled and knotted fibers sheared from the sheep), spinning the fibers into thread, weaving the thread into cloth, shearing off knots and roughness, and dyeing. This is why “sheep” are one of the fundamental resources in the popular game “Settlers of Catan.” All these procedures could be accomplished within a single peasant household because they required only simple tools and basic skills. A new schemata of work called the “putting-out” system was created by which a merchant clothier (entrepreneur) bought raw wool and “put it out” to be distributed as piece work to be carded, spun, and woven into cloth by any number of peasant farmers who worked out of their homes or cottages (hence the term “cottage industry”). The merchant clothier came to control the entire production process, which represented a step toward the industrial capitalism of the 19th century.

5.2.3.3 The Nature of Work in the Renaissance and Enlightenment

The Renaissance and subsequent Enlightenment are almost universally regarded as distinct turning points in the history of human civilization. There is a theory that demographic change was a driving force causing the Renaissance. The idea is that the Black Plague was a causal element in bringing about the Renaissance (Getz, 1991). The Plague killed a staggering number of people with estimates ranging from 75 to 200 million worldwide from 1347 to 1351. Why would such an enormous tragedy bring about a Renaissance? Arguments are made that the plague resulted in a dramatic reduction in the labor force (Hay, 1997). This resulted in increased wages for both agricultural and urban workers. This triggered the beginning of the end of Feudalism. The tragedy also resulted in some eschatological religious fanaticism and ultimately a loss of faith and the rise of secularism. The idea that a massive die-off of the human population could trigger a rebirth of civilization is an appealing story for neo-Malthusians to tell. This story is nonetheless highly contested. Jason Hickel’s book Less is More describes the aforementioned sequence of events in a similar manner but the process of empowerment of the people is stopped in its tracks by the enclosure movement where common lands become privatized by the elites (Hickel, 2011). This idea will be explored to a greater extent in Chapter 8: Population and Political Economy. An alternative theory is posited by Ada Palmer (2020) arguing that the Renaissance was not a “Golden Age” at all and was not dramatically different than the unfairly described “Dark Backward Middle Ages.” The idea is that the Renaissance was more of a continuous evolution of civilization from the Middle Ages and that the whole idea of The Renaissance may be a narrative that serves political and social purposes.

Nonetheless, the dominant narrative is that the Renaissance is the era that bridged the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment (14th century to 17th century). The Renaissance or “rebirth” is associated with dramatic social, cultural, economic, and political development. The Renaissance originated in Italy and spread throughout Europe. Both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment are generally regarded as two significant points in world history, specifically in European history. Both periods have unique characteristics but share the notion of being times of discovery in many aspects of life and living in this world. The Enlightenment was characterized more by a focus on mathematics, science, and technology and was centered around the idea that reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy.

The burgeoning of industry during the Enlightenment (immediately preceding the Industrial Revolution) was driven by four influences: (1) the growth of wealth, derived to some extent from the influx of gold and silver from the New World but also from developments in commerce, banking, and the very concept of money, (2) the growth of markets, (3) the introduction of new products, and (4) the development of new technologies. All these drove increases in the scale of manufacturing throughout Europe, which in turn prompted changes in the organization of work.

While geographic explorations of the preceding era and subsequent colonization did create new markets, most of the new demand for goods came from the new middle class (or bourgeoisie). The rise of markets also contributed to the demise of small medieval feudalities, which eventually gave way to larger political units—the royal kingdoms. As economic influence extended over a larger region, it reduced the power of guilds and other barriers to trade. Manufacturing increasingly was accomplished via the factory system by which large groups of people worked in a single location that imposed disciplinary rules on their behavior. These factories became increasingly mechanized with the use of water and wind power. The factory system, mercantilism (government encouragement of industry that enables a country to export more than it imports to amass wealth), and developments in banking and finance were the nascent manifestations of what we now call capitalism. The stage was set for the industrial revolution where mechanization would be powered increasingly by fossil fuels.

5.2.4 Industrial Civilization

A great “What came first the chicken or the egg?” question can be applied to Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution. Two fundamental ideas of capitalism are (1) private individuals or groups of individuals invest their money (“capital”) in assets or companies, making them owners or part owners and (2) labor, raw materials, and finished products are exchanged in a free market where the buyer and seller agree on prices. Rarely mentioned is the fact that in a “capitalist” economy the majority of the population are laborers rather than capitalists. In any case, capitalism was already taking place to greater and lesser extents throughout Europe prior to the industrial revolution. Nonetheless, capitalism and the industrial revolution mutually reinforced each other to trigger rapid and dramatic social, economic, and environmental changes that are still taking place today.

The industrial revolution marked a profound change in the way a growing fraction of the world’s population would spend their waking hours. Division of labor and specialization resulted in unbelievable increases in productivity while subjugating many to repetitive soul-crushing tasks. Adam Smith’s classic work The Wealth of Nations (1776) describes this new production system via the example of a pin factory:

One man draws out the wire; another straights it; a third cuts it; a fourth points it; a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business; to whiten the pin is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is in this manner divided into about 18 distinct operations.

According to Smith, a single person “could scarce, perhaps with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make 20.” Division of labor empowered a pin factory to turn out as many as 4,800 pins per person per day. As our economic system evolved from agrarianism to mercantilism to capitalism, it produced more and more and more, faster and faster and faster. Mechanization and the development of steam engines that were burning fossil fuels helped speed us along. Industrial civilization soon evolved systems of mass production.

Mass production is accomplished with a highly organized flow of materials through various stages of manufacturing, careful supervision of quality standards, and precise division of labor. Mass production is pointless and unprofitable unless there is an accompanying mass consumption. Prior to the retail culture we now know, the only large-scale demand for standardized, uniform products came from the military. Consequently, many of the trials that led to mass production were first completed under the sponsorship of the military.

Why Henry Ford is credited for inventing the assembly line in light of Adam Smith’s description of pin manufacturing is not clear. In any case, many argue that Henry Ford was aware that mass production does not work without mass consumption. In 1914, he doubled his worker’s wages to $5 a day. Some say Ford’s reasoning was so that his workers could buy the cars that he was mass producing. Ford even wrote this in his 1926 book, Today and Tomorrow—“The owner, the employees, and the buying public are all one and the same, and unless an industry can so manage itself as to keep wages high and prices low it destroys itself, for otherwise it limits the number of its customers. One’s own employees ought to be one’s own best customers.” Worstall (2012) in Forbes magazine does not buy what Henry Ford actually said and argues it was really all about the bottom line. This is a fascinating story that likely involved monopoly power, suppression of union organization, and the principle of “shareholder primacy.” A famous lawsuit resulted from this action (Dodge v. Ford Motor Company) that determined that Henry Ford had to operate the Ford Motor Company in the interests of its shareholders rather than in a charitable manner for the benefit of his employees or customers. Nonetheless, Ford was given wide latitude with respect to his business judgments and was allowed to pay his employees $5 a day.

The development of mass production transformed the organization of work in three important ways. First, tasks were minutely subdivided and performed by unskilled or semiskilled workers because much of the skill was built into the machine. Second, the increasing size and sophistication of assembly and manufacturing operations necessitated the formation of a hierarchy of supervisors and managers. Third, the growing complexity of processes stimulated the hiring of managerial-level employees who specialized in such areas as accounting, engineering, research and development, human resources, information technology, distribution, marketing, and sales.

Mass production also promoted an international division of labor. The growing scale of factories made it economical to import raw materials from one country and produce them in another. Saturation of domestic markets led to a search for new markets abroad. A new sort of mercantilism manifested with some countries becoming exporters of raw materials and importers of finished goods, while others did the reverse. In the 1950s and “60s, some agrarian countries (particularly in Asia and South America) began to manufacture goods. Low-skill jobs on assembly lines lured people to the manufacturing sector. Standards of living in developing countries were so low that wages could be kept below those of the developed world. And the increasingly transnational corporations were happy to engage in this “race to the bottom.” Lower wages were often correlated with lax or nonexistent environmental and labor laws. This made the entire production process even less expensive and more profitable. Many large manufacturers in the United States and elsewhere began outsourcing—that is, having parts made or whole products assembled in developing countries. The birth of the “Supply Chain” and “Just in time” manufacturing was upon us.

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5.2.4.1 Industrial Agriculture

The nature of farming, livestock raising, and food production in general has changed dramatically in the last 100 years. The changes began in the 19th century. Work on the farm underwent a transformation comparable to the change from cottage industry to industrial mass production. Farming was primarily a family enterprise that used traditional methods. Despite some innovations, such as the plow and seed drill, production was relatively low. Output per farmer has increased rapidly to the point where a small minority of farmers in the most developed countries can supply entire populations with food. In the United States, only 1.36% of the labor force is employed in agriculture. These changes resulted from many sources including improved power supplies, mechanical devices such as the reaper and combine, science-based plant and animal breeding, improved food processing and preservation, more effective fertilizers and pesticides, and application of industrial management techniques to agriculture. This is what capitalist farming in industrial civilization looks like. However, it is important to remember that these improvements in productivity are absolutely dependent on fossil fuels. Nitrogen-based fertilizers derived from ammonia are produced using the Haber process that represents almost 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions in and of itself (Boerner, 2019).

Industrial agriculture is an increasingly agglomerated industry. In beef packing, Cargill, JBS SA (a Brazil-based company), and the National Beef Packing Company account for 85% of all U.S. grain-fattened cattle that are processed for consumers. Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride, Sanderson Farms, and Perdue Foods account for 55% of U.S. chicken production. Smithfield Foods (owned by China’s WH Group) JBS, Tyson, and Hormel account for 67% of U.S. pork production. This agglomeration borders on monopoly or monopsony and is garnering some bipartisan political attention for remediation (Salvador, 2022). Factory farms are assembly lines of mass production that are considered by many to be inhumane and unsustainable. Nonetheless, capital investment in such factory farms is high and production by these means is funded by a smaller and smaller number of giant companies. The efficiency of modern industrial farms has dramatically reduced the demand for agricultural labor, which has contributed to rural-to-urban migration globally. Migrant labor (often undocumented and underpaid) is still needed for many seasonal tasks such as the planting and harvesting of fruit and vegetable crops that mature simultaneously. In the United States, the need for seasonal farm workers has been met by migrant workers, largely from Latin American and Caribbean countries. The employment of these seasonal workers raises many social, political, and economic challenges. Migrants are typically paid low wages with no benefits. Their living and working conditions remain far below standard.

The cheap labor that is argued by some to be essential to the American agricultural economy is an interesting example of unhealthy codependence. Many Americans fail to realize how important migrant labor is to our lives, livelihoods, and quality of life. The state of Alabama enacted a bill (HB56) in 2011 that made it a crime to not carry valid immigration documents and forced the police to check on anyone they suspected might be in the country illegally. Crops rotted in the field as migrant workers fled to other states to work. Clearly our agricultural industry depends on illegal labor. This codependence exposes a hypocrisy that many of us tolerate as necessary. The dollar value of the output of America’s farms is less than 1% of the national GDP. Cheap food is one way to avoid domestic political unrest. The phrases “Let them eat cake” and “Bread and circuses” are significant. Cheap migrant labor contributes to cheap food as does not account for the myriad external costs of industrial agriculture. Food is essential for survival. In the United States, food costs represent more than one-fourth of the income of the poorest 20% of the population, while it represents only 7% of the income of the richest 20% of the population. The cost of food as a fraction of income has dropped dramatically (by almost 50%) in the last 50 years (Barclay, 2015). The low cost of food that we enjoy in the United States comes with a hidden price that might make us all think carefully about industrial agriculture and its codependence on cheap labor. Most of the American labor force left the farm for the factory with the peak of American manufacturing jobs happening in 1979 with one in five American workers employed in manufacturing. Perhaps not coincidentally, 1980 was when real hourly wages began to decline in the United States and GDP per capita diverged from most other measures of progress and human well-being (e.g., the Genuine Progress Indicator; Kubiszewski et al., 2013). Since then the service sector has grown while real purchasing power for most Americans has declined.

5.2.4.2 Employment in the Service Sector

For most of history, most of the world’s population worked on the farm. Not until the 19th century did industrial employment surpass agricultural work in many countries. By the 21st century, the service sector has become the fastest-growing area of the workforce in the world’s most-advanced economies. For example, in the United States, the number of people engaged in service occupations in the 1950s already exceeded the number of those employed in industry and that fraction has only grown since then. Work in the service sector is marked by diversity. Jobs are on a spectrum of skill, status, and compensation ranging from fast-food waiters to chefs, from office clerks to advertising executives, from kindergarten teachers to university professors, and from nurses’ aides to surgeons. Janitors, business consultants, truck drivers, and hedge fund managers are all categorized as being in the service sector. Government employees ranging from street sweepers and garbage collectors to legislators and heads of government are also all considered to be in the service sector. An interesting criticism of this growing fraction of workers in the service sector is provided by David Graeber in his book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018).

David Graeber argues that the productivity benefits of automation have not led to a 15-h workweek, as predicted by economist John Maynard Keynes in 1930, but instead to “bullshit jobs.” Bullshit jobs are paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence. One example is someone that denies insurance claims for people who need lifesaving health care. Often those employed in these “bullshit jobs” feel that they must pretend their job is meaningful as a requisite for keeping the job. These jobs can be well paid and provide good benefits, while nonetheless causing an anxiety or alienation that is deeply unsatisfying.

Graeber’s list and description of “bullshit jobs” are quite humorous and somewhat compelling. He argues that more than half of societal work is pointless and these are categories of jobs he declares to be so “Flunkies”—receptionists, administrative assistants, door attendants, store greeters, makers of websites whose sites neglect ease of use and speed for looks; “goons” (those who act to harm or deceive others on behalf of their employer)—lobbyists, corporate lawyers, telemarketers, public relations specialists, community managers; “duct tapers” (who temporarily fix problems that could be fixed permanently)—programmers repairing bloated code, airline desk staff who calm passengers whose bags do not arrive; “box tickers” (who create the appearance that something useful is being done when it is not)—survey administrators, in-house magazine journalists, corporate compliance officers, quality service managers; and “taskmasters” (who create extra work for those who do not need it)—middle management, leadership professionals. Currently, in the United States, there are six people employed in public relations for every one journalist.

Graeber argues that these jobs are largely in the private sector despite the idea that market competition would root out such inefficiencies. In companies, he concludes that the rise of service sector jobs owes less to economic need than to “managerial feudalism,” in which employers need underlings in order to feel important and maintain competitive status and power (Heller, 2018). Graeber credits the Puritan-capitalist work ethic for making the labor of capitalism into a religious obligation. Graeber notes that work as a source of virtue is a recent idea and that work was looked down upon by the aristocracy in classical times but reinvented as virtuous through philosophers like Locke and Rousseau. Bullshit jobs justify modern patterns of living where the drudgery of so much of our work is justified in our ability to fulfill our consumer demands and that fulfilling those desires is the reward for suffering through pointless work. Ellen Goodman describes “Normal” in a way that rhymes with Graeber “Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.” Or Dave Ramsey’s version “We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.” Unfortunately, it seems that over time, the wealth derived from technological advances has been reinvested into industry and consumer growth for its own sake rather than the purchase of additional leisure time from work. In addition, Graeber contends, populations occupied with busy work have less time to revolt. Graeber’s work is perhaps a modern update of Karl Marx’s ideas of “alienation of labor” (Marx, 1844). Graeber’s work did motivate a YouGov poll that did not completely validate his assertions (YouGov is a British international internet-based market research and data analytics firm). The critical perspectives provided by the likes of David Graeber help us envision alternative possibilities that are essential to bringing about change that can move us toward a more just, equitable, and desirable future of work.

Despite the lamentations of David Graeber and others regarding the nature of work in the modern era, the push for efficiency marches on. Scientific management of the work process (aka industrial engineering) has delved into analysis of the management, planning, and coordination of production processes. Many think this has gone way too far when we are routinely asked to complete a customer satisfaction survey after buying a candy bar or getting our password reset. We can likely thank Frederick Taylor (1865–1915) for this. His time and motion study methodology likely spawned the growing surveillance of the employee in the workplace under the auspices of identifying ways to improve our efficiency. Most of the early studies involved manufacturing processes but they exist today outside the manufacturing sector. Your HMO (Health Management Organization) likely recommends that your physician only spend a certain number of minutes with you at your next doctors’s appointment, and if she spends more she will be notified. There was pushback to the drive for efficiency promulgated by the industrial engineers. Unions opposed some aspects of scientific management. This pushback led to industrial psychology, which involved both motivating workers and improving their comfort and efficiency in performing tasks. Industrial psychology drew on the behavioral sciences, including social psychology, to explore questions related to work and labor–management relationships. It encouraged the development of human-factors engineering and ergonomics. This led to the design of “user-friendly” equipment and furniture. Despite all these efforts to accommodate the human factors related to the modern workplace, automation of more and more tasks progressed. The challenges of automation and threats to labor were recognized in a variety of arts and literature including Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” and the legend of John Henry.

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5.2.4.3 Automation in the Workplace

Automation ominously portends the elimination of all manual labor through the use of automatic control. Total automation has not been achieved; nonetheless, partial automation has changed the nature of the workplace. The term “automation” was coined at the Ford Motor Company and applied to the automatic handling of parts in metalworking processes. The idea expanded with the development of cybernetics by American mathematician Norbert Wiener. Through cybernetics, Wiener predicted that computers would govern manufacturing. We now have CAD/CAM or computer-aided design and computer-assisted manufacturing. Cybernetics was frightening to some who believed this sort of technology would lead to mass unemployment.

Although we have not yet achieved completely robotized production, there are still good reasons to remain very skeptical about its potential. Early industrial robots could only perform simple tasks for they were unable to distinguish slight differences in the objects on which they worked. Computer scientists and engineers subsequently developed robots with more sophisticated sensors and capabilities. Development in the areas of artificial intelligence and pattern recognition in conjunction with robotics are moving rapidly and may be yet another case where humanity harnesses a technology that rapidly outpaces our ability to deal with the cultural, biological, psychological, and environmental consequences. We can only hope that human beings will always be needed to back up the robots to maintain and justify whatever the robots are doing. You may recall that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Terminator” character described himself as a “cybernetic organism: living tissue over a metal endoskeleton.” Perhaps we are not afraid enough of the potential of automation particularly when it comes to military functions and autonomous weapons (Video 5.10).

Automation evolved from four interrelated trends in technology: The development of powered machinery for production operations, the introduction of powered equipment to move materials and workpieces during the manufacturing process, the perfecting of control systems to regulate production, handling, and distribution, and the development of computers to support pattern recognition, sensory feedback, and mechanical control. While industrialization enabled the mass production of identical parts for mass markets, the computer allowed for custom-made small-batch production. In the auto industry, niche production allows many cars containing different options to be fabricated on the same assembly line, with computers monitoring a system makes sure the proper parts will go into each separate car. These practices moved us toward “just in time” production and a corresponding dependence on supply chains. While this has reduced demand and cost for warehouses and related inventory expenses, it has also significantly reduced our resilience and our ability to not be disturbed by shocks to supply chains that can result from wars, natural disasters, and labor unrest in other countries.

Automation certainly reduced the demand for labor in the manufacturing sector. Rather than allowing this “progress” to buy us more free time, we have migrated to the service sector perhaps being employed in a “Bullshit Job” in an office somewhere. Many movies and TV shows ridiculing and/or satirizing the office workplace suggest that perhaps David Graeber was right (e.g., Office Space, Utopia, Damned, Parks and Recreation, The Office, The IT Crowd, the list goes on and on and on). Office automation perhaps represents a further mechanization and dehumanization of office work. It began with the typewriter and went downhill all the way to doodle scheduling polls. Computers have profoundly affected the organization of work in all sectors of the economy. Automated machinery eliminated the jobs of many machine operators as computers have eliminated many clerical and administrative tasks. The combination of computers and the internet led some to believe that office workers would perform their required functions without leaving their homes. A home with internet access and a computer is a really cheap office for an employer. The predictions of the degree to which the workforce would telecommute were overestimated until the COVID pandemic arrived and video conferencing software like ZOOM and Microsoft Teams enabled almost all these office tasks (including meetings) to take place remotely. The nature of work is evolving right under our feet.

5.2.5 The Evolutionary Arc of Work and the Modern Economy

Odds are that the work you do in your life will not be anywhere near as physically demanding as the work your great-grandparents had to do to survive. The Industrial Revolution and associated machinery dramatically reduced how much onerous physical effort was necessary to work in factories and fields. Recently, the development of automated machines and processes, the ubiquity of computers, and the burgeoning service industry have led some to suggest we are now in a “postindustrial society.” This vision has not prevailed nor is it likely ever to do so. We must always engage in agriculture because it is very unlikely we will develop a means of producing human-ingestible chemical energy that is more efficient than photosynthesis. There is a lot of work to be done to ensure that we develop improved forms of agriculture that are regenerative and sustainable. The trajectory we are currently on will deplete soils, biodiversity, and necessary nutrients (e.g., phosphorus) in the not too distant future. Agriculture must change but it is very unlikely it will go away. We will also always have some industry associated with supporting our buildings, transportation, and communication infrastructure. The human economy invariably involves a flow of material and energy. The idea that we can live in a “postindustrial” world where economic growth is “decoupled” from the environmental impacts of material and energy use is a fantasy that economists must be disabused of (Ward et al., 2014).

In fact, rather than achieving some sort of “postindustrial” world, we are living in an increasingly industrial world. It just seems we are migrating our dirtiest industrial activity to the developing world in a race to the bottom for lower taxes, cheaper labor, and lax environmental regulations. People in the developed countries of the world may “feel” they are living in a postindustrial world only because industry has moved abroad. Industrial production has spread to developing countries, meaning that economic and political questions of working-class and managerial relationships are changing on an international front, affecting economic and political relationships on a global scale. There are some positive signs. Many developing countries can bypass less efficient technologies, which offers some hope with respect to achieving sustainability. Cell phone towers are less expensive and more efficient than dragging phone lines across the countryside. Renewable energy is preferable to fossil fuels.

New demands are being placed on educational systems in the developing countries as they attempt to train their workers for a changing world of numerically controlled machines, sustainable agriculture, and ecotourism. Similarly, new demands are being placed on the educational systems in the developed world. Big tech (e.g., Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon) are employing some of our best and brightest citizens to write code and design web pages to garner our attention and money. In some respects, we live in an attention economy that is funded by advertising revenue that used to fund journalism. The movie “The Social Dilemma” communicates this reality and some of the problems it represents quite well. Human civilization is currently facing serious social, economic, political, and environmental problems. We need to design an economic system that is regenerative, socially just, ecologically sustainable, and most importantly, desirable. It is in the interest of all countries of the world for the developed countries to partner with the developing world to chart a path to a just, sustainable, and desirable world. The next section takes a critical perspective while exploring some of the prevailing ideas for fostering economic development.

5.3 Economic Growth and Economic Development in the Modern World

A fundamental premise of this book is the following idea: The dominant economic system currently practiced by the majority of human civilization is ecologically unsustainable and produces income and wealth inequality that is neither desirable, efficient nor equitable (Pickett & Wilkinson, 2010; Piketty, 2017). Another fundamental premise of this book is the idea that the lens of Population Geography is essential for understanding these problems and developing solutions. In light of the fact that our current economic system is failing to create a just, equitable, sustainable, and desirable civilization, much of the theory and practice of “economic development” of the past is not likely to be very useful moving forward. Here, we review some of these ideas with a critical eye toward developing new ideas of progress that will be explored in more detail in Unit III. It is important to appreciate the distinction between economic growth and economic development to understand the flawed worldview of the neoliberal agenda that justifies itself primarily with neoclassical economic theory.

Economic growth is measured in dollars. Thus, it is fundamentally linked to only those goods and services that are exchanged in markets. Neither mothers caring for their children nor bees pollinating our crops are valued through the lens of economic growth. Historically, economic growth was measured as increases in GDP. Currently, this has expanded from GDP alone to include Gross National Income (GNI), and GDP per capita. GNI is the total income received by the country from its residents and businesses regardless of whether they are located in the country or abroad. GDP is the total market value of all finished goods and services produced within a country in a set period of time (it is usually measured annually). GDP is not as simple a thing to measure as some economists would have us believe. The annual budget for the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the United States alone is over $600 million. GDP is increasingly criticized for its inappropriate claim to measuring human welfare. Simon Kuznets, who invented the GDP statistic even said “The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income as defined by the GDP.” Lorenzo Fioramonti’s book Gross Domestic Problem presents compelling arguments as to why GDP should not be the “world’s most powerful number” (Fioramonti, 2013). Even some Nobel Prize-winning economists are recognizing that GDP has been misused (Stiglitz, 2018).

Economic development, on the other hand, is a broader concept capturing quantitative and qualitative changes to an economy that are associated with improvement in the quality of life and living standard of the population (e.g., literacy, life expectancy, health care). Economists tend to measure economic development in economic terms such as per capita income (this is a number where means and medians can be strikingly different based on levels of inequality of income). Other measures of economic development that are commonly used include purchasing power parity (which measures the buying power of income in the region in question), the Human Development Index (which originally was a combination of life expectancy, education, and GDP per capita), percent of the population in poverty, literacy rates, percent of the population working in agriculture (the assumption being countries with lower fractions of the population in agriculture have higher levels of economic development). There is a growing demand for measures of happiness and human well-being that are not so tied to ideas of money and occupation. Not surprisingly, demographic statistics such as infant mortality and life expectancy have long been considered good measures (Smil, 2021). “Years of Good Life” is gaining increasing support as a measure of human well-being to serve research on sustainability (Lutz et al., 2021). Human civilization is facing pressing challenges regarding the question of how to produce economies that thrive rather than grow. Kate Raworth presents a new idea of “Doughnut Economics” that critiques the traditional economic development narrative “Rostow’s Stages of Economic Growth” and provides a sketch for an alternative (Video 5.11). Kate Raworth is a leader in the field of reimagining the shape of progress.

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5.3.1 W.W. Rostow’s Model “The Stages of Economic Growth”

In 1960, W.W. Rostow presented one of the major historical models of economic growth. His book titled The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-communist Manifesto (Rostow, 1960) clearly illustrates how academic economic theory is deeply intertwined with politics. Until the late 19th century what we now regard as “economics” was regarded as “political economy.” Political economy is the study of production and trade and their relations with law, custom, and government that includes analysis of the distribution of national income and wealth. Political economy recognized its roots in moral philosophy much of which has normative as opposed to objective elements to it. The discipline of economics distanced itself from normative questions of value and morals and sought to establish itself as an objective science, which it never was and never will be. The persistent narrative of The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-communist Manifesto by W.W. Rostow is a compelling example of this false pseudoscientific objectivity applied to a very normative story-telling of historical patterns of economic growth and development. This is the story that Rostow presented as economic science.

In many respects, Rostow’s Stages of Growth model mirrors the historical evolution of work described in the previous section of this chapter. Rostow posits that the economic growth of a region or country passes through five stages (a sixth stage was added later). The first is a traditional society (characteristic of what we have previously described as a traditional economy). Stage II is labeled “The Preconditions for take-off.” In Stage II there is growing external demand for raw materials (e.g., a developing country in Stage II selling natural resources to a more developed country). Agricultural surplus is accompanied by investment in irrigation technology and development of ports to facilitate exporting of natural resources, and changes to social structure associated with increased individual social mobility. Stage III is labeled “The Take-Off.” In Stage III urbanization increases along with early stages of industrialization. Rostow was a supporter of David Ricardo’s idea of “Comparative Advantage” with respect to “The Take-off” in that a country or region should not try to develop industrial capacity across the board but focus on those industries for which it had a comparative advantage. Hence, in Europe Stage III was characterized by the mechanization of the textile industry, whereas the Green Revolution of the 1960s was heralded as Stage III for some countries in the developing world. Stage IV is labeled “The drive to maturity.” Stage IV is characterized by a diversifying investment-driven industrial base with exports decreasing as a share of production due to more domestic consumption of locally produced goods. Increased social investment in transportation infrastructure and other public goods such as schools, hospitals, and the military. Stage V is labeled “The Age of Mass-Consumption.” In Stage V the industrial base dominates the economy, the primary sector (e.g., agriculture) shrinks as a fraction of economic activity (measured in dollars), and a middle class of consumers develops, which has a significant disposable income to buy a growing diversity of goods. Stage V is an urbanized world with most of the population living in cities. Stage VI was not discussed explicitly in the initial model. However, it was speculated upon and later labeled as “The Search for Quality.” In this final phase, it was hypothesized that people would have more children and consumer products would become more durable (perhaps an early recognition that planned obsolescence was taking place and not sustainable), young people would grow up in a world of much greater economic security and enjoy mass consumption. As Kate Raworth points out (Video 5.11), Rostow’s model explains how the “airplane” of the global economy takes off but does not explain how it lands. The imperative of growth is embedded in Rostow’s story. The concept and practice of money and interest-bearing debt also evolve in the process of a country passing through Rostow’s stages of economic growth. While there remains some debate as to whether or not interest-bearing debt creates a growth imperative (Jackson & Victor, 2015; Shaukat et al., 2015), the growth imperative of neoclassical economics as evinced in Rostow’s model is undisputed.

5.3.2 Criticism of Rostow’s Model

A fundamental criticism of Rostow’s Stages of Economic Growth is that it is merely a description of economic history that has taken place in some countries. The same criticism can be leveled against the theory of the demographic transition. The causal mechanisms postulated to explain the transition from one stage to the next are merely historical and mechanical descriptions of what has taken place (e.g., industrialization, banking, finance, etc.). In addition, it is a normative theory (i.e., describes what has happened as what “should be”) when it describes the manifestation of mass consumption of western developed countries. Critics suggest that perhaps mass-consumption economies are not ideal particularly because of the massive inequality that manifests in so many of them today in addition to their ecologically unsustainable nature. Rostow’s model assumes that neoliberal trade policies (e.g., contemporary examples being the WTO, GATT, etc.) that result in the “race to the bottom” for cheap labor, lax environmental regulations, and lower taxes will result in greater good for all involved. Contemporary empirical evidence suggests this is likely not going to happen. Empirical evidence provided by the current socioeconomic circumstances of many countries in Africa and Asia suggests they are not in any “Stage of Economic Growth” described by Rostow. Another assumption of Rostow’s theory that does not seem to hold is the linear and inevitable notion of economic progress. Many countries are making “false starts” by reaching a degree of progress and change and then slipping back (e.g., Russia slipping backward from high mass consumption). The role of geography and scale are also not incorporated into Rostow’s theory. Many argue that a nation’s geographical endowments (e.g., climate, topography, location) are vital determinants of their economic potential and prosperity. Absolute size in terms of geographic area and/or population can be an influence also. Small countries can be at a significant disadvantage for progressing through the stages of economic growth because they lack sufficient scale to build sufficient resources and/or political will to operate with sufficient independence to not be subject to the will and manipulation of more powerful countries. These less powerful nations are doomed to the “client state” status of more powerful countries. Client states are states that are economically, politically, and/or militarily subordinate to another more powerful state. An autarky is a country or state that enjoys complete economic self-sufficiency and independence. Some nations such as North Korea pursue a policy of autarky but there are probably no autarkies in the world today. This juxtaposition of “client states” and Autarkies provides an alternative theory of why the contemporary states of economic development exist the way they do. World Systems Theory suggests that there are Core nations and Periphery nations of which the idea of a “client state” looks a lot like a periphery nation.

5.3.3 Core–Periphery Model of Economic Development

Another explanation for the varying states of economic development throughout the world is the Core–Periphery model. The Core–Periphery model posits that the world can be perceived as a spectrum from core to periphery countries where high development levels, manufacturing systems, a capacity for innovation, and convergence of trade flows characterize core countries. The emergence of core countries is the outcome of a historical process of economic development that began in England and northern Europe during the industrial revolution in the 19th century. With industrialization and economic development, North America, Japan, and Australia became core areas of the world economy by the early 20th century. The periphery is composed of countries that have experienced limited economic development, implying growing differences with the core.

[figure number=Figure 5.3 caption=World Trade Map filename=Fig_5.3.jpg]

The core exerts domination over the periphery, which is evident in trade, the structure of transportation networks and agreements, and political strong-arming. Historically, this dominance was political through the incorporation of the periphery into colonial empires, but from the second half of the 20th century, economic factors became the key drivers or it was not a good “political look” to have colonies. Most high-paying economic activities and innovations are located in the core, with the periphery subjugated to processes conferring a lower added value such as resource extraction and labor-intensive manufacturing.

This pattern was particularly prevalent during the colonial era, when the development of transport systems favored the ability of core countries to access the resources and markets of the periphery. This situation endured until the 1960s and 1970s. The semi-periphery had a higher level of autonomy and has been the object of significant improvements in economic development. Concomitantly, the development potential of the semi-periphery improved, permitting the integration of its comparative advantages in labor and resources. Thus, the rise of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) along with South Korea, Thailand, Mexico, and a few others. The Core–Periphery model is one describing explicit exploitation by the core of the periphery. What motivations do core countries have with respect to enabling the economic development of the less developed world? John Perkins in his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (Perkins, 2004) suggests that true motivations are nowhere near as altruistic as some countries and corporations would like us to think.

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5.3.4 The Emergence of Corporatocracy

Corporatocracy is an economic, political, and judicial system controlled by corporations and corporate interests. Many are lamenting the rise of corporatocracy in the United States and around the world today (Shatalova, 2017; Stiglitz, 2019; Zinn, 2005). Growing levels of inequality are also cited as a characteristic of corporatocracy (Saez & Zucman, 2014). A particularly compelling narrative of how corporatocracy has developed is provided by John Perkins in his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Perkins argues that corporatocracy manifests through a cooperation of government and corporate interests. Perkins describes his career with the engineering consulting firm Chas. T. Main in Boston. He explains how his job at the firm was to convince leaders of underdeveloped countries to accept substantial development loans for large construction and engineering projects (e.g., Hydroelectic Dams and Ports for exporting raw materials). These “negotiations” required that these projects be contracted to U.S. companies. The loans garnered political influence for the United States and access to natural resources for American companies.  This system in essence propped up the rich families and local elites of the developing country rather than the majority of the population (which is not the goal of economic development). Perkins described a system of corporatocracy and greed and claimed the involvement of the National Security Agency and other agencies including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The book describes U.S. foreign policy publicly pitching the bland idea that “all economic growth benefits humankind, and that the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits,” while acting in a ruthless empire-sustaining capacity to perpetuate core–periphery relations. This system is in essence the powerful corporations using government as a cover for sanctioned exploitation of the countries in the periphery where only a small portion of their populations benefit at the expense of the vast majority. This process exacerbates wealth and income inequality enabling large U.S. corporations to exploit cheap labor and oil companies to destroy local environments. Perkins characterizes this system of corporatocracy and greed as the hidden driving force that established the United States as a global empire.

The purpose of Economic Hit Men (of which Perkins claims he was one) was to convince the political and financial leadership of developing countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank and USAID. These loans were often at exorbitant interest rates which the banks of the developed world knew would be backed up by other entities if they were defaulted on. Encumbered with debts they could never hope to pay, such countries would then be forced to succumb to political pressure from the United States on a variety of other political and economic issues. This process effectively neutralized nations politically, increased economic inequality, and devastated the long-term potential of these developing countries for true economic development. Perkins describes the role of an economic hit man as follows:

Economic hit men are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.

Corporate concentration and agglomeration is a fact of life. Nearly all food brands are controlled by 10 companies (Figure 5.4). In 1983, 90% of all media companies were owned by a total of 50 companies; however, in 2020 only six companies controlled 90% of those media companies. The narrative of a corporatocracy that developed through cooperative relationships between transnational corporate interests and several U.S. government agencies provided by Perkins is disputed by and regarded as a conspiracy theory by some. Nonetheless, there is an emerging recognition that massive individual and corporate wealth is contributing to something akin to corporatocracy. One critic of John Perkins (Sebastian Mallaby) challenged his assertion that 51 of the top 100 world economies belonged to corporate entities rather than national governments (Anderson & Cavenaugh, 2016). An independent evaluation of this claim was made by Peter Chowla (2005) who suggested that comparing the GDP of a nation to the value of a corporation is akin to comparing apples and oranges. Chowla compared value-added corporate revenues to government revenues (taxes, fees, tariffs, etc.). This study suggested corporate domination was even worse than what Perkins hinted at with 71 corporations in the top 100 most powerful economic institutions and only 29 countries making such a list.

[figure number=Figure 5.4 caption=Nearly All Food Brands Are Controlled by 10 Companies filename=Fig_5.4.jpg]

Thus, the question of how economic development takes place and what policies are effective at bringing about economic development can become very muddied when we consider that the motivations of the stakeholders (national governments of the core, national governments of the periphery, transnational corporate interests, and the interests of the elites in both the core and the periphery) may not be aligned or even transparent. Economists have proposed two major schools of thought with respect to policy to support economic development in the developing world: Import Substitution and Export Led.

5.3.5 Import Substitution and Export-Led Economic Development Strategies

Import substitution is an economic development policy aimed at establishing a country as a self-sufficient autarky in which economic goods that are being imported will be substituted with local production. Export-led growth or export substitution is a trade and economic policy aimed at speeding up the industrialization process of a country by exporting goods for which a nation has a comparative advantage. Historically export-led strategies have been successful for countries that engage in manufacturing (e.g., Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan) but have not worked as well for countries exporting raw materials and natural resources. There are many complexities about the advantages and disadvantages of these policies in light of the existence of multinational corporations and significant differentials in economic power and manufacturing capability between the developed and developing world (Videos 5.12 and 5.13).

Countries adopting export-led growth strategies are essentially buying in to the neoliberal economic paradigm and the philosophy of “economic growth through trade”. Countries that adopt the import substitution strategy are somewhat more skeptical of the neoliberal agenda and seek to be more resilient perhaps at the cost of growth rates and efficiency.

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5.3.6 Will the Real Economic Development Strategy Please Step Forward?

We have described several historical patterns and theories of economic growth and development ranging from Rostow’s stages of growth model as a normative and inevitable path from a traditional economy to a mass-consumption society to the Core–Periphery model of economic development that is much better characterized as an adversarial, colonial, and extortive power struggle. The growing role and influence of multinational corporations in the execution of what are ostensibly described as economic development policies has been suggested as an indicator of a growing dominance of corporatocracy. Economists and policymakers have encouraged “export led” or “import substitution” development strategies that are perhaps naive to the realpolitik of what is really a Core–Periphery and/or corporatocratic reality. Or, a more cynical idea is that economists are serving as public relations agents for a hegemony whose real objectives are to maintain that hegemony and would prefer to hide in the shadows (Lovins, 2018; Hacker & Pierson, 2022; Giridharadas, 2020).

All of the aforementioned descriptions and theories of economic development have a ring of truth to them yet none of them adequately describe the complex development trajectories of contemporary human civilization. We discuss economic growth and economic development in this book that focuses on population geography because it has a profound impact on how the majority of the people on this planet actually live and there is increasing recognition that we cannot continue to live this way.

A key question to ask with respect to population and economic development is How is population growth or decline related to economic development? While this may seem like a straightforward question, it is not. It is imperative to define What is meant by the term economic development? Often this is a source of confusion in academic studies that attempt to answer this question. In the past, this has simply meant increased GDP. In simple terms, a growing population needs more diapers, schools, houses, cars, and all the other material goods and services associated with living. This suggests that a growing population will be positively correlated with a growing GDP (although not necessarily a growing GDP per capita). The fact of the matter is this is true—A growing population results in a growing GDP. There are many studies on the relationship between population growth and economic growth; however, economic growth is often defined as increases in GDP per capita rather than GDP alone. Piketty (2017) notes that economic growth “…always includes a purely demographic component and a purely economic component, and only the latter allows for an improvement in standard of living.” Piketty also attributes equal contributions of population growth and per capita output growth (at 0.8% each) to annual world economic output from 1700 to 2012. In other words, population growth alone accounts for one half of economic growth. However, economic development is not the same as economic growth. The trickier question is related to the idea that population growth contributes to per capita output growth. Myriad studies of this nature show mixed results; however, the growing consensus is that population growth has impeded economic development since the 1980s (Heady & Hodge, 2009). It is interesting to compare Europe and the United States from 1960 to 2015 (Peterson, 2017).

From 1960 to 2015, for example, the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 3.04% compared with 2.66% for the European Union (EU). If the United States and EU economies are both set at a nominal value of 100 in 1960, these growth rates would result in the United States ending up in 2015 at 532 compared with 432 for the EU. Note, however, that the reason for this difference is not that the United States had greater growth in per capita output but rather that the U.S. population grew more. In actuality per capita GDP grew more in the EU than it did in the United States. A similar story manifests in the countries of India and China (Figure 5.5). India’s population is growing faster than China’s, while China has experienced a much higher growth in economic output per capita. This suggests that in recent years, population growth actually impedes economic development (at least as measured by GDP per capita) in four regions that constitute roughly half of the world’s population. A recent article by Lianos et al. (2023) suggests that a declining population is associated with increasing GDP and increasing GDP per capita. This is counter to the shrill narrative that countries with declining populations such as Japan, Spain, and Greece are doomed to the negative economic consequences of a “birth dearth.”

[figure number=Figure 5.5 caption=Contrasting Population Growth and GDP per Capita in China and India 2000–2018 filename=Fig_5.5.jpg]

Does this suggest that countries with higher population growth rates will benefit from greater overall economic growth? This is one of the concerns of Thomas Piketty. The idea that slowing economic growth (i.e., an inevitable result of slowing global population growth) will result in a concentration of capital that will bring back the patrimonial capitalism of the 19th century where one’s fortune was more effectively made by marrying an heir to great wealth than by working to develop one’s talents in the service of a productive career. A major finding of Piketty’s book Capital was that money (i.e., Capital) makes more money than labor and a smaller and smaller fraction of the world’s population holds a larger and larger fraction of all the money in the world.

Piketty’s concern that the rate of return to capital will be higher than the economic growth rate leading to an increasing concentration of wealth and greater inequality seems likely considering current demographic and economic trajectories. This problem would be mitigated if the rate of return to capital were to decline to levels below the current 3%–4%. It is expected these rates of return to decline as greater amounts of capital are amassed (too few people with too much money). Economic growth will continue to be a vital concern in the 21st century for at least two reasons. First, slow economic growth may continue to be a factor in rising inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth. Second, economic growth is needed in low-income countries to raise living standards and reduce global disparities between the more prosperous industrialized countries and those in which poverty and poor quality of life are still common. Because population growth plays an important role in overall economic growth, the evolution of world population will continue to be a major global concern.

Some population growth in the next 50 years is inevitable. How much is desirable is another question altogether. There are Neo-Malthusians who posit that the world is currently overpopulated, and our consumption of resources and generation of waste is placing unsustainable strains on the environment. Evidence for this is provided by metrics like the “Ecological Footprint,” which suggests the global population currently uses up the earth’s renewable resources in less than a year (Wackernagel & Rees, 1996). Many scientists also argue that population stabilization and diminished per capita consumption of fossil fuels and other resources are essential for long-term human survival. The article titled World Scientists” Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice (Ripple et al., 2017) has more scientist cosigners and formal supporters than any other journal article ever published. If this is true and we want people in the developed world to have an improved standard of living, we must enact policies to reduce the world’s population in order to have a human population that can be sustained indefinitely. Most of those who believe the world is overpopulated focus on the potential exhaustion of vital resources such as farmland, water, energy, and raw materials. The implicit assumption in these analyses is that future technological innovations will be unable to overcome resource scarcities created by the needs of the growing population without causing irreversible environmental damage (Friedmann, 2016; Heinberg, 2017).

Recent technological innovations in food and agricultural production offer some hope but are often increasingly dependent on technology. Conservation practices such as no-till farming, which can reduce soil erosion and chemical runoff (Derpsch et al., 2010), precision farming that enables the distribution of fertilizers and pesticides to only those areas that need it, and other environmentally friendly management practices have been widely adopted around the world without significant sacrifices in total food production or farm incomes (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2016). While Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are very controversial (sometimes called “Frankenfoods”), there is some evidence that some GMO crop varieties require fewer chemical inputs and reduce the impact of agriculture on the environment (Hamilton, 2009). Most demographers project that the global population will reach 10 billion over the next 50 years. This will depend on civilization’s collective ability to navigate an energy transition, impacts of climate change, water shortages, and food production challenges. If we succeed these people will likely have higher incomes on average than is the case today, and food demand will increase dramatically. Meeting this increased demand without causing irreversible damage to the environment will be incredibly challenging if not formidable; the rapid adoption of more sustainable agricultural practices that we are currently discovering and rediscovering will be essential to make a successful transition to a just, sustainable and desirable future.

Our currently unsustainable trajectory with respect to the use of nonrenewable resources, loss of biodiversity, overharvesting of fisheries, land-use change, and land degradation, growing social and economic inequality, and climate change present us with unprecedented challenges. While we must learn from our past behaviors, we cannot hope that proceeding with “Business as usual” will produce the change we want to see in the world. Yogi Berra is credited with saying “The only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn a damn thing from history.” There is another saying that states “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” We need a different result from what we are producing now. If our best thinking got us where we are now, we need some new thinking. Another Yogi Berra quote is “If we don’t know where we are going, we’ll end up someplace else.” Perhaps we have not achieved sufficient agreement as to where we want to go. A common phrase throughout this book is the idea that we need to “chart a path to a just, equitable, sustainable, and desirable future.” A key normative idea in this book is that the real economic development strategy needed is one that achieves this future.

Population geography provides a lens for thinking about this which suggests that significant changes are needed with respect to population stabilization and degrowth, agricultural practices, distribution of wealth, transparency of corporate and governmental institutions, reduced per capita consumption levels in the developed world, and increased per capita consumption levels in the developing world. These changes represent significant challenges. A growing fraction of the world’s population now lives in cities so these changes must be implemented in the urban environments of the world. The next section explores some of the history of urbanization, patterns of urban development, interactions between demography and urbanization, and visions of a just, equitable, sustainable, and desirable urban future.

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5.4 Urbanization

Urban areas are characterized by higher population density and massive and extensive human-built features in comparison to their surrounding areas. Urban areas may be Metropolitan areas, cities, towns, or conurbations; however, the term “urban” is not typically extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets. Urban areas are created, expanded, and further developed by the process of urbanization (Video 5.14). Metropolitan areas include not only the urban area but also satellite cities plus intervening rural land that is socioeconomically connected to the urban core city as a commutershed (the area that workers are known to commute from for employment in a downtown area). In some cases, a metropolitan area can be a “commutershed” in others the metropolitan area is even larger than a “commutershed.”

Urbanization as a Process

Urbanization is taking place rapidly. In 1850, only 2% of the world’s population lived in cities with a population greater than 100,000. In 1900, only 6% of the world’s population lived in cities with populations greater than 100,000. By 1950, it is estimated that 16% of the world’s population lived in cities of 100,000 or greater. It is anticipated that two-thirds of the global population will live in urban areas by 2050. For most of human history, almost no one lived in cities. Cities were small islands in a sea of rurality. As our economic systems evolved from feudalism (where land is wealth) to mercantilism (where gold and money are wealth), we also evolved from rural living to urban living. Urbanization and the evolution of economic systems are fundamentally interrelated. This transition from rural and agricultural to urban and nonagricultural is probably as significant as population growth itself with respect to understanding the changes we are currently experiencing. Global population growth typically happens in rural areas and migrates to the cities. Rural fertility rates are high and urban fertility rates are low. Nonetheless, the young and unemployed of the rural areas migrate to cities and often have children that cause the population of urban environments to grow rapidly despite their lower overall fertility rates. The wealthiest and healthiest countries are typically highly urbanized. More than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas and that proportion is growing as a fraction of the global population (Figure 5.6). According to Figure 5.6, the world’s population reached 50% urban just after 2005. Current estimate of the fraction of the world’s population living in urban areas is 56%. Of course, this raises the question “What is the operating definition of urban?” Answering the question “What is urban?” is not as simple as it sounds. Academics

[figure number=Figure 5.6 caption=Urban and Rural Populations of the World filename=Fig_5.6.jpg]

have spent years discussing the relative merits of a variety of definitions of urban. Perhaps “urban” is like “pornography,” you know it when you see it (Gewirtz, 1996). Definitions of urban are often circular or self-referential (e.g., “in, relating to, or characteristic of a town or city”). The images of the earth at night comprised a mosaic of nighttime satellite images is a reasonable means of capturing the urban–rural distinction (Figure 5.7). Images of the earth at night come surprisingly close to what significant efforts at mapping global human settlements have produced (Florczyk et al., 2019). Formal definitions are often needed for a variety of reasons including the allocation of resources.

[figure number=Figure 5.7 caption=Light From Urban Areas of the World as Seen by Night Observing Satellites filename=Fig_5.7.jpg]

The United States Census Bureau has had an evolving definition of “urban” throughout history. The Census Bureau’s urban–rural classification is a delineation of geographical areas that formally defines the urban and rural areas of the nation based on attributes of census data structures (e.g., tracts, block groups, blocks). The Census Bureau’s urban areas represent densely developed territory that can encompass residential, commercial, and other nonresidential urban land uses. As of 2010, the Urban and Rural classifications of the Census Bureau were as follows:

Urbanized Areas (UAs)

A UA is a continuously built-up area with a population of 50,000 or more. It comprises one or more places—central place(s)—and the adjacent densely settled surrounding area—urban fringe—consisting of other places and nonplace territory.

Urban Clusters (UCs)

Urban Clusters consist of a central core and adjacent densely settled territory that together contain between 2,500 and 49,999 people. Typically, the overall population density is at least 1,000 people per square mile. Urban clusters are based on census block and block group density and do not coincide with official municipal boundaries

Rural Places and Territory

Territory, population, and housing units that the Census Bureau does not classify as urban are classified as rural. For instance, a rural place is any incorporated place or CDP with fewer than 2,500 inhabitants that is located outside of a UA. A place is either entirely urban or entirely rural, except for those designated as an extended city.

The results of the 2010 census for the United States identified 486 urbanized areas with a total population of 219,922,123 persons, 3,087 urban clusters with a total population of 29,331,148 persons, and rural areas with a total population of 59,492,276 persons. In 2010, the census counted 80.7% of the U.S. population to be living in urban areas. These definitions have evolved for the 2020 census and counts for the new urban and rural designations are not yet available (Bureau of the Census, 2021). Other countries have a variety of definitions of urban some of which incorporate types of economic activity. Some countries like Singapore are entirely “urban,” while some Polynesian islands have no official urban areas and are designated entirely rural. Increasingly we are seeing international efforts to harmonize practical and measurable definitions of urban and rural. For example, the Global Human Settlement Layer project of the European Commission is developing universal definitions based on objective earth observation data (e.g., satellite imagery) used in conjunction with census data. The GHSL data products are used for a variety of reasons including to enable better “apples to apples to apples” comparisons of development in support of measures and indicators of equity and sustainability (e.g. the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)).

5.4.1 Urban Form

Urban morphology is the study of how cities manifest and transform into a variety of urban forms. The spatial structure of metropolitan areas, cities, towns, and villages have many similarities and many differences. Some cities have developed organically, while others have been planned. The physical layout of streets, buildings, and other infrastructure is influenced by waterways, topography, coasts, and other geographic realities. Urban forms can also be influenced by a variety of cultural and religious mores and traditions. A very fundamental attribute of a city is aggregate population density that varies dramatically throughout the world (Video 5.15). Population density within cities is typically highest in the Central Business districts with lower and lower population densities as one gets farther from the city Center (Clark, 1951), although conurbation (the growing together of what were once separate urban areas) has manifested many unique patterns of population density (Sutton, 1997). Urban areas typically grow from a CBD, which becomes a central node of the urban transportation network that supports commercial activity and government. Urban planners are often interested in developing ways to minimize traffic, reduce pollution, and provide jobs and affordable housing. Their work is informed by a variety of models of urban form which manifest to varying degrees throughout the world. The concentric zone model (Figure 5.8) has the CBD at its Center, with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and outer rings being occupied by industry, low-quality housing, suburban housing, and exurban housing. The Sector model of urban form (Figure 5.9) posits that cities grow along the “spokes” of the transportation network that manifest as slices of a pie of varying width. A third model of urban form is the Multiple Nuclei Model (Figure 5.10). This model has a variety of “centers” that could be downtowns, airports, industrial parks, etc. Residential land uses then develop based on relative desirability of site and situation within the urban area. An interesting website and related application (The Urban Observatory https://www.urbanobservatory.org/) allow you to compare and contrast maps of cities around the world that helps make the world’s data comprehensible and useful.

[figure number=Figure 5.8 caption=Concentric Zone Model of Urban Form filename=Fig_5.8.jpg]

[figure number=Figure 5.9 caption=Sector Model of Urban Form filename=Fig_5.9.jpg]

[figure number=Figure 5.10 caption=Multiple Nuclei Model of Urban Form filename=Fig_5.10.jpg]

Regardless of the urban form a particular city manifests, almost all cities have common land uses within them. The Multiple Nuclei Model described these as the CBD, wholesale and light manufacturing, outlying business district, low-class residential, medium-class residential, high-class residential, residential suburb, heavy manufacturing, and industrial suburb. From an earth observation perspective, these urban areas are often classified as commercial, industrial, transportation, high-density residential, and low-density residential.

5.4.2 Suburbia, Exurbia, Urban Sprawl, Slums, and Megacities

Richard Florida asks the question How should we define the suburbs? In a piece for CityLab (Florida, 2019). Florida notes:

Urbanists like to extoll the virtues of cities and urban living. But America remains a suburban nation, with the lion’s share of its residents residing in suburbs. Research shows that suburbanites are happier, reporting higher levels of subjective well-being than their urban counterparts. And as my CityLab colleague Amanda Kolson Hurley argues in her new book, U.S. suburbs defy Truman Show or Desperate Housewives stereotypes, and in fact come from a more diverse set of experiments than we give them credit for.

Florida’s piece opens with an image of “suburbia” (Figure 5.11) and points out the following: (1) Most Americans live in suburbs; (2) the vast majority of suburbanites own single-family homes; (3) more than 90% of suburbanites commute by car; (4) while suburbs are less dense than cities, they are denser than we might think (2,000 people/sq mile); (5) despite rising suburban poverty, suburbs are quite affluent; (6) suburbs are overwhelmingly white (~75%); and (7) suburbs do not revolve around children (married without children and single-person households are the majority in most suburban neighborhoods). Suburbs are a massive land use in the United States and other parts of the world. Florida argues that it behooves us to recognize their magnitude and significance as we hope to influence equitable and sustainable urban form moving forward. Beyond the suburbs of many cities lies a residential land use that is often called the urban-wildlands interface or “exurbia.”

[figure number=Figure 5.11 caption=Markham-suburbs Aerial filename=Fig_5.11.jpg]

Exurbia

A quick search of “exurbia” on the internet yields various definitions: “the region outside the suburbs of a city, consisting of residential areas (exurbs) that are occupied predominantly by rich commuters (exurbanites; www.wordreference.com/English); and the cryptically self‐referential “a typically exurban area” (www.bartleby.com). Nighttime satellite imagery shows expansive areas of low light surrounding all major metropolitan areas. These areas would be characterized as pure vegetation by moderate resolution satellite imagery, yet these areas contain large numbers of people who have significant social, economic, and ecological impacts (e.g., traffic congestion and problems associated with the urban–wildlands interface). There are many interesting questions to ask about exurban areas. (1) How big are “exurban” areas in the United States?; (2) What cities have relatively large exurban areas and what cities have relatively small exurban areas?; (3) How many people live in exurban areas?; (4) What are the costs and benefits of exurban areas and who pays for and/or receives them?; and finally, (5)Who lives in exurban areas? Conventional wisdom suggests that these “exurbanites” are rich commuters who choose to live in natural settings beyond the city and suburbia; however, astronomic increases in real estate prices in places like Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles suggest that many “exurbanites” may be middle-income teachers, police officers, and nurses trying to find affordable real estate. The COVID pandemic has also enabled many workers to telecommute from wherever they wish as long as they have a good internet connection. The nature of exurban living continues to evolve. This study based on nighttime satellite imagery brightness levels (Sutton et al., 2006) suggests that 37% of the U.S. population lives in exurban areas that account for 14% of the land area. Purely urban areas account for only 1.7% of the land area and house 55% of the population; and, rural areas (84% of the land area) contain only 8% of the population (Figure 5.12).

[figure number=Figure 5.12 caption=Urban, Exurban, and Rural Areas of the United States filename=Fig_5.12.jpg]

Urban Sprawl

“Urban Sprawl” is a growing concern of citizens, environmental organizations, and governments. Negative impacts often attributed to urban sprawl are traffic congestion, loss of open space, and increased pollutant runoff into natural waterways. Definitions of “Urban Sprawl” range from local patterns of land use and development to aggregate measures of per capita land consumption for given contiguous urban areas (UAs). Per capita land use consumption can be used as an aggregate index of “urban sprawl” for the spatially contiguous urban areas of the conterminous United States with a population of 50,000 or greater. Nighttime satellite imagery was used as a proxy measure of urban extent to characterize the urban sprawl of the larger cities in the United States (Sutton, 2003). The corresponding population of these urban areas is derived from a grid of the block group-level data from the Census. The “scale adjustment” mentioned characterizes the “Urban Sprawl” of each of the urban areas by measuring how far above or below they are on a “Sprawl Line” determined by a linear regression. This “Sprawl Line” allows for a fairer comparison of “Urban Sprawl” between larger and smaller metropolitan areas because a simple measure of per capita land consumption or population density does not account for the natural increase in aggregate population density that occurs as cities grow in population. Cities that have more “Urban Sprawl” by this measure tended to be inland and Midwestern cities such as Minneapolis–St. Paul, Atlanta, Dallas–Ft. Worth, St. Louis, and Kansas City. Surprisingly, West Coast cities including Los Angeles had some of the lowest levels of “Urban Sprawl” by this measure. There were many low light levels seen in the nighttime imagery around these major urban areas that could be regarded as “exurban” areas. These areas may represent a growing commutershed of urban workers who do not live in the urban core but contribute to many of the impacts typically attributed to “Urban Sprawl.” “Urban Sprawl” is difficult to define precisely because public perception of sprawl is likely derived from local land use planning decisions, spatiodemographic change in growing urban areas, and changing values and social mores resulting from differential rates of international migration to the urban areas of the United States. Nonetheless, the aggregate measures derived here are somewhat different than similar previously used measures in that they are “scale-adjusted”; also, the spatial patterns of “Urban Sprawl” shown here shed some insight and raise interesting questions about how the dynamics of “Urban Sprawl” are changing (Figure 5.12).

Informal Settlements—Slums and Shantytowns

Some inner-city areas are called slums, which are densely populated informal urban settlements that often consist of buildings that are not built according to any legal codes or standards. Informal settlements are areas where housing units have been built on land that the occupants have no legal claim to. The term “Informal Economy” represents that part of the economy that is neither taxed nor monitored by any form of government. The informal economy manifests in many ways ranging from street vendors to drug dealers. It varies dramatically from country to country as to how significant it is relative to the formal economy. Studies using nighttime satellite imagery have developed means of estimating the magnitude of the informal economy in some countries (Ghosh et al., 2009). Similarly, informal settlements house many people involved in the informal economy in housing that is neither taxed nor monitored by any form of government. Most slums lack proper sanitation services, access to clean drinking water, law enforcement, or other essential services typical of living in an urban area. There are increasing efforts to map these favelas, shantytowns, and informal settlements using earth observations (Kuffer et al., 2016; Sutton et al., 2010). In 2018, it is estimated that a staggering 24% of the world’s population lives in slums (Szmigiera, 2022). A shanty town, also known as a squatter settlement, is a slum settlement that usually consists of building material consisting of plywood, sheets of plastic, cardboard boxes, corrugated metal, and other cheap materials. They are often found on the periphery of cities or near rivers, lagoons, or city trash dumps. The reality of life in these slums is almost impossible to imagine without images or video. Robert Neuwirth’s book Shadow Cities attempts to build compassion for the resilient people who live in these cities (Video 5.16).

Megacities

A city with a population of more than 10 million people provides a rough definition for the evolving idea of “Megacity.” For centuries, Rome was the largest city in the world. Rome was likely the first city to reach a population of 1 million people. Rome’s population fell with the fall of the Roman Empire. The next city to reach a million is likely to have been Baghdad in the 700s and 800s CE. China and Cambodia (the Khmer Empire) likely had cities of over a million between the 9th and 15th centuries. London was the largest city in the world in the 1800s with the New York metropolitan area eclipsing London in the 1900s and reaching a population of 10 million sometime in the 1920s. New York in the 1920s likely became the world’s first megacity by reaching a total population of 10 million.

Defining a megacity as a metropolitan area with a population of 10 million is a crude definition because so many metropolitan areas exist as agglomerations of many distinct incorporated cities. For example, consider the population of Los Angeles. The county of Los Angeles (at last count) contains 88 cities (each with their own mayors, city councils, police departments, etc.). Some of these cities are Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Long Beach, Santa Monica, Inglewood, and so on. The greater Los Angeles area encompasses five counties (Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside, Los Angeles, and Orange County). According to the U.S. Census, the population of this greater Los Angeles area is 18.7 million making it the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States (after New York). The population of the actual city of Los Angeles is a mere 3.967 million (2019). Los Angeles is universally regarded as a megacity. The example of Los Angeles characterizes the fuzziness associated with ascertaining the population of these massive cities. There are numerous lists of the most populous megacities of the world (Figure 5.13). Not surprisingly they do not always agree on the order or ranking of the list let alone the estimated populations of the megacities themselves (Table 5.1).

[figure number=Figure 5.13 caption=Urban Agglomerations of the World filename=Fig_5.13.jpg]

Megacity	Country	Estimated population
		City population	Demographia	UN DESA
		2020	2020	2018
Guangzhou-Shenzhen	China	46,700,000	n/a	n/a
Tokyo	Japan	40,400,000	37,977,000	37,468,000
Delhi	India	30,300,000	29,617,000	28,514,000
Shanghai	China	33,600,000	22,120,000	25,582,000
Sao Paulo	Brazil	22,400,000	22,046,000	21,650,000
Mexico City	Mexico	23,000,000	20,996,000	21,581,000
Cairo	Egypt	21,000,000	19,372,000	20,076,000
Mumbai	India	25,100,000	23,355,000	19,980,000
Beijing	China	19,800,000	19,433,000	19,618,000
Dhaka	Bangladesh	20,200,000	15,443,000	19,578,000
Osaka	Japan	17,700,000	14,977,000	19,281,000
New York	United States	22,100,000	20,870,000	18,819,000
Karachi	Pakistan	17,800,000	14,835,000	15,400,000
Buenos Aires	Argentina	16,400,000	16,157,000	14,967,000
Chongqing	China	8,150,000	7,739,000	14,838,000
Istanbul	Turkey	16,000,000	15,154,000	14,751,000
Kolkata	India	16,800,000	17,560,000	14,681,000
Metro Manila	Philippines	25,700,000	23,088,000	13,482,000
Lagos	Nigeria	19,400,000	15,279,000	13,463,000
Rio de Janeiro	Brazil	13,200,000	12,272,000	13,293,000
Tianjin	China	12,700,000	10,800,000	13,215,000
Kinshasa	DR Congo	12,400,000	13,528,000	13,171,000
Guangzhou	China	n/a	20,902,000	12,638,000
Los Angeles	United States	17,700,000	15,402,000	12,458,000
Moscow	Russia	17,300,000	17,125,000	12,410,000
Shenzhen	China	n/a	15,928,000	11,908,000
Lahore	Pakistan	13,000,000	11,021,000	11,738,000
Bangalore	India	12,200,000	13,707,000	11,440,000
Paris	France	11,400,000	11,020,000	10,901,000
Bogota	Colombia	9,600,000	9,464,000	10,574,000
Jakarta	Indonesia	31,300,000	34,540,000	10,517,000
Chennai	India	11,300,000	11,324,000	10,456,000
Lima	Peru	10,100,000	9,848,000	10,391,000
Bangkok	Thailand	18,800,000	17,066,000	10,156,000
Seoul	South Korea	24,800,000	21,794,000	9,963,000
Nagoya	Japan	10,500,000	9,113,000	9,507,000
Hyderabad	India	10,200,000	9,746,000	9,482,000
London	United Kingdom	14,800,000	10,979,000	9,046,000
Tehran	Iran	15,300,000	13,633,000	8,896,000
Chengdu	China	9,600,000	11,309,000	8,813,000
Ho Chi Minh City	Vietnam	8,600,000	13,312,000	8,145,00
Johannesburg	South Africa	13,900,000	9,505,000	5,486,000
Xiamen	China	10,00,000	4,773,000	3,585,000
Table 5.1 Megacities of the World

 

The populations of the megacities listed in Table 5.1 vary depending upon who is measuring them (Brinkhoff, 2022; Cox, 2021; or the United Nations DESA, 2019). Note that Brinkhoff regards Guangzhou and Shenzhen in China as having merged into one megacity. According to Brinkerhoff, this makes Guangzhou-Shenzhen the largest megacity in the world. Note that the estimates of the population of Los Angeles vary from 12.4 million to 17.1 million; all three estimates of which are lower than the U.S. Census Bureau’s population of 18.7 million. Tokyo is usually listed as the largest megacity in the world. Clearly, it is evident that these lists evolve with time. One in eight people on the planet currently live in a megacity. Most megacities are in the Global South with an anticipated 2.5 billion more people being added to the global population by 2050. Only three countries (India, China, and Nigeria) are expected to account for 35% of the projected growth of the world’s urban population between now and 2050. Megacities are not going away and present human civilization with many challenges and opportunities with respect to managing their continued existence and future development (Video 5.17).

5.4.3 Challenges and Opportunities Associated With Urbanization

Urban challenges in the developed world are often distinct from urban challenges in the developing world. There is increasing recognition that the levels of inequality that exist in the developed world are neither just, equitable, or efficient; and, actually reduce levels of human well-being and happiness (Pickett & Wilkinson, 2010; Piketty, 2017). Inequality in the developed world manifests in housing provision, access to services, environmental quality, access to open space and green space, and unequal levels of safety and security. In London people who live in inner London have higher rates of unemployment, higher loss of work due to illness, and higher likelihood of living without central heating (Niall & Savage, 2017). Governments in developing countries make a variety of attempts at reducing inequality, improving quality of life, and achieving environmental sustainability. As populations shift and grow, strategies such as park and ride schemes, bicycle paths, congestion parking schemes, carpooling lands, subsidized housing, and a variety of infrastructure projects are implemented to address these issues.

The challenges in developing countries are often quite different. Cities in the developing world are experiencing rapid population growth due in large part to rural-to-urban migration that results from lack of employment opportunities in the rural areas. Cities offer better paid jobs that lure in many rural residents, even though many of them come to the city and remain unemployed (Harris & Todaro, 1970). These rural-to-urban migrants are typically younger and consequently have higher fertility rates, which also increases the population growth and dependency ratio of the city. The survival of these new rural-to-urban migrants is higher because of better health care in the city. There are many problems associated with this rapid population growth including unplanned squatter settlements and shantytowns, waste streams with no infrastructure for treatment, fires, oversupply of labor and resulting unemployment, disease from the lack of sanitation, overcrowding and related traffic congestion and air and water pollution. John Vidal, writing for The Guardian, asks the question The 100 million city: is 21st century urbanisation out of control? (Vidal, 2018). The challenges for achieving cities that are ecologically sustainable, and socially just, and appealing to live in for a large fraction of the world’s population are formidable. Researchers, Citizens, and Government officials are beginning to formulate goals and agendas for meeting these challenges (Video 5.15).

Building Sustainable Urban Environments

Sustainable Development Goal #11 is “Sustainable Cities and Communities.” It is a laudable and formidable goal. It is increasingly being argued that if we are going to save the world, we need to start with our cities. It is becoming critical that humans make a conscious effort to create sustainable cities that address issues of poverty, segregation, environmental pollution, urban landscapes, and transportation. Urban planners have created a series of models that try to analyze and predict how cities have developed in the past and use this information to project urbanization trends. However, critics suggest that perhaps we need to create and envision a completely different urban system than the one we are currently failing with. Kent Larson has an interesting historical perspective on urban form with some interesting design ideas for fitting even more people into our existing cities (Video 5.18). Larson’s ideas are fairly mainstream, and they are either supportive of growth or assume that population growth is inevitable. These mainstream ideas note that the majority of the world’s roughly 8 billion people currently live in urbanized areas, thus making it ever more important to design cities to efficiently, attractively, and comfortably fit dense populations of people. This must be done in a way that is healthy and sustainable for the people and the environment. This includes more efficient transportation systems, walkable communities, green building projects, shared spaces and vehicles, and urban gardening. There are other visions for achieving SDG 11. Buckminster Fuller’s advice with respect to change was “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Jason Hickel argues that “Degrowth” is a truly new model that just might make our existing model obsolete (the current model that requires perpetual growth; Hickel, 2022). Numerous other visions are provided by people who are routinely regarded as Utopian. There are too many to describe; however, a famous one is the Venus Project envisioned by Jacque Fresco (Video 5.19).

[Insert Quick Check 5.7]

Chapter Summary/Key Takeaways

This chapter describes a variety of economic systems, the history of actual economic growth and development, and modern economic development patterns and theories. We explore how we have historically evolved from traditional economies to agrarian economies to industrial economies to service-oriented economies. Rostow’s historical description of The Stages of Economic Growth is juxtaposed with the Core–Periphery model of economic development. Corporatocracy is introduced and described as a modern phenomenon that suggests that economic development is intentionally prevented in many parts of the world to enable the cheap extraction of resources and exploitation of labor in the developing world while simultaneously serving the purpose of maintaining the established corporate hegemony.

The evolution of human settlement patterns and styles is described generally as the process of urbanization. Urbanization is often used as a proxy for the idea of economic and cultural development, although there is increasing criticism of the way humans live in cities for a variety of reasons ranging from our disconnection to nature, our inefficient use of energy for our buildings and transportation, and inequitable distribution of environmental quality. We explore the demographic drivers of urbanization, urban sprawl, suburbanization, exurbanization, residential segregation, and food deserts. We conclude with several alternative visions of just, equitable, sustainable, and desirable urban living for the future.

Comprehensive Questions

• What is a traditional economic system?
• When and where did feudalism exist and how was it practiced?
• What is the difference between economic growth and economic development?
• What is a “Bullshit Job” as suggested by David Graeber?
• Explain “Import Substitution” and “Export oriented” as development strategies.
• Summarize Piketty’s concern about the relative power of capital and labor.
• What is our understanding of the relationship between population growth and economic growth?
• What is an “economic hit man” and how does James Perkins suggest that they influenced economic development?
• What is corporatocracy? What evidence is there that corporatocracy is a real phenomena in the world today?
• How and why is rural-to-urban migration changing global settlement patterns?
• What is a megacity and how many exist in the world today?

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