CULTURE AND ECONOMICS OF AMERICA

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

SEMESTER I – 2023

Walter Rivera
Professor
walrivera@poligran.edu.co
AGENDA – MARCH 7th, 2023
1. Important dates
2. Presentation: Main characteristics of South America by
Ana María Trujillo.
3. A short review about What is culture?
4. Colonialism in America
5. Independence in America and its consequences
6. Development during the 19th and 20th centuries.
7. Formative Research Project
1. Dates: Formative Project, Test N°1, and
activities

A. Formative Project 35% - ONLY First Draft - March 17th,

2023.
B. Test No 1 – 35% - March 14th, 2023.
C. Presentations and activities – 30 % / Extra Points for
Reading News about:
* Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, United States and
Canada* but you can select other American countries
2. Presentation
Main characteristics of South America
by Ana María Trujillo.
 3. What is Culture?

• In our last class we watched the video Introduction to sociology: culture

https://youtu.be/vW2nFd3i2bo Dr. Kelly Damphousse.
We took notes about the video
• Answered the following questions (activity in class)
➢What is culture?
➢What are the two main parts of the culture? Explain and give some examples related with
international business
➢Define all the 3 types of rules, then give some examples
➢Why do you consider norms are important in international business?
Some ideas about culture
▪ Thelearned and shared behaviours, beliefs, attitudes and values that characterize a
particular society.
▪ Culture is shared, we learn it from other people, it´s transmitted from one generation
to the next, and it´s always changing.
▪ See the evolution of culture over time- Culture and economics of America
Culture is composed of two main parts:

- Material culture: the things that are created by the people who live in a society.
- Non – material culture: it is the attitudes, and the beliefs and the symbols that
represent something that is only understood by people in that culture.
Some ideas about culture
Culture is composed of two main parts:

- Material culture: It is related with all

the things that are created by the
people who live in a society.

Money, tools, weapons,

utensils, machines, clothing,
ornaments, art, buildings, and
monuments.
 Some ideas about culture
Languages and words, dress
- Non – material
codes, etiquette, rituals,
culture: It is the business and social
attitudes, and the transactions, religion, laws,
beliefs, and the punishments, and values.
symbols that
represent something
that is only
understood by people
in that culture. Spanish and 69
languages.
Some ideas about culture
▪ It is the share interpretation of things that are created or things that symbolize the
culture.
▪Culture is also about those set of rules that explain how people in that culture should
act.

3 types of rules. These rules are called norms, the way we should act.
1. Folkway: it is the minor violation that if you violate these rules, people are maybe
disappointed but not very angry about it.
2. Mores: Traditional customs and ways of behaving that are typical of a particular (part
of) society.
3. Law: rule, usually made by a government, that is used to order the way in which a
society behaves.
 4. Colonialism in America- what is Colonialism?
Ronald J. Horvath (1972). Assistant Professor of Geography at Michigan State University. He gives a definition of
Colonialism:

• Colonialism if a form of domination – the control by individuals or groups over the territory
and/or behavior of other individuals or groups.
- It has also been seen as a form of exploitation, with emphasis on economic matters.
- Colonialism is a culture-change process.
- It is important to mention that the idea of domination is closely related to the concept of power.
- The domination of Latin America, North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the
Asian part of the Soviet Union by European powers all involved the migration of permanent
settlers from the European country to the colonies.
- Colonialism refers to intergroup domination in which settlers in significant numbers migrate
permanently to the colony from the colonizing power.
4. Colonialism in America
➢The history of colonial North America centers primarily on the struggle of England,
France, and Spain to gain control of the continent.

➢Settlers crossed the Atlantic for different reasons, and their governments took
different approaches to their colonizing efforts.

➢France and Spain were governed by autocratic sovereigns whose rule was absolute;
their colonists went to America as servants of the Crowns.

➢The English colonists enjoyed far more freedom and we able to govern themselves if
they followed English Law and were loyal to the king.
 4. Colonialism in America
The American colonies were the British colonies
that were established during the 17th and early
18th centuries in what is now a part of the
eastern United States.

Jamestown Colony, first permanent English

settlement in North America, located near
present-day Williamsburg, Virginia. Established
on May 14, 1607, the colony gave England its
first foothold in the European competition for
the New World, which had been dominated by
the Spanish since the voyages of Christopher
Columbus in the late 15th century.
4. Colonialism in America
The principal component of the immigrant ▪Fishing
population in the British colonies was of English
origin, and the second largest group was ▪Cash crop farming (cotton)
enslaved people of African heritage.
▪ Small farms of fruit and vegetables
The economy in the colonies, which varied
▪Tobacco
regionally, was mostly centered around
agriculture and exporting materials back to ▪Grains
England. The southern colonies had large
plantations that grew tobacco or cotton and ▪Mining
required slave labor, while northern colonies
had small family farms. ▪Lumbering

▪Whaling
4. Colonialism in America
❖Spain’s colonization goals were to extract gold and silver from the Americas, to stimulate
the Spanish economy and make Spain a more powerful country. Spain also aimed to
convert Native Americans to Catholicism.

❖In order to extract natural resources from the Americas, European colonizers created
labor systems, like the encomienda system, to exploit Native American labor. When Native
Americans began to die from diseases like smallpox (viruela), the Spanish and Portuguese
began capturing and sending enslaved Africans to the Americas as a labor force.

❖Spanish colonizers attempted to integrate Native Americans into Spanish culture by

marrying them and converting them to Catholicism. Although some Native Americans
adopted aspects of Spanish culture, others decided to rebel.
5. Independence in America and its
consequences
▪ In 1764, the English Parliament sought to increase taxes in the
colonies and have control over trade that took place in America.
▪While the army of the American colonies, commanded by George
Washington, went to war against the army of the British crown, the
new Congress of Representatives drafted, in 1776, the declaration of
independence.
▪There, inspired by the values ​and principles of the Enlightenment and
self-government, the link with Great Britain was broken and the
formation of a new independent country, the United States of George Washington was an
America, was declared. American military officer,
statesman, and Founding Father
▪It was written by Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin who served as the first president
of the United States from 1789 to
Franklin. 1797.
5. Independence in America and its
consequences – Latin American countries
▪ Problems - power
▪External example of the United States.-1776
✓Nationalism around the independence of Great Britain
✓Equal rights for the American people
✓Political organization and vertiginous development of the
republic
✓Model of freedom, democracy and sovereignty

▪ Example of French revolution- 1789

✓Diffusion of new ideas: freedom, equality, fraternity and
sovereignty. /ˈsɑːv.rən.i/
✓Promulgation of the rights - citizen
✓Possibility of social revolution for the people
 5. Independence in America and its
consequences – Latin America
▪ The reforms imposed by the Spanish Bourbons in the 18th century provoked great
instability in the relations between the rulers and their colonial subjects in the Americas.

▪Many Creoles (those of Spanish parentage but who were born in America) felt Bourbon policy
to be an unfair attack on their wealth, political power, and social status.

▪ These policy changes, known collectively as the Bourbon Reforms, attempted to curb
contraband commerce, regain control over transatlantic trade, curtail the church’s power,
modernize state finances to fill depleted royal coffers, and establish tighter political and
administrative control within the empire.

▪Trade with America was one of the areas to which the Bourbons devoted the most attention,
since it was the main engine of the recovery of the Spanish economy.
5. Independence in America and its consequences
– Latin America
▪From 1808 to 1826, there was a period of history in Latin
America called the Wars of Independence.
▪Independence of Haiti: It was the first country in Latin
America to gain independence from European powers in
1804.
▪ Political models and the search for authority
▪ Propensity to produce political constitutions
▪ Much of the conflict that characterized these years consisted
of simple power struggles.
▪ New governments were commonly in financial straits. Its
resulting weakness contributed to political instability, which
in turn prevented the reorganization of economic systems.
6. Development during the 19th and 20th
centuries.
▪ The independence wars brought
with them a deep economic crisis
due to the destruction of productive
structures, the lack of labor and the
fiscal crisis.
▪In Latin America, the agro-export
system was formed. This term means
that the economy of the new States
was based on agriculture and
livestock farming in order to produce
raw materials that could then be
exported to the large industrial
centers of Europe.
6. Development during the 19th and 20th
centuries.
▪The connection with Europe meant the purchase in
Latin America of numerous manufactures, harming
local production.
▪On the other hand, not all agricultural products
were successfully marketed, which generated an
imbalance in the Latin American economies,
preventing the payment of the debts contracted by
the new States.
▪Faced with this situation, rigorous controls on trade
were imposed on governments through taxes and
some protectionist policies.
6. Development during the
19th and 20th centuries.

America for the Americans!

The Monroe Doctrine was articulated in
President James Monroe's seventh annual
message to Congress on December 2, 1823.
The European powers, according to Monroe,
were obligated to respect the Western
Hemisphere as the United States' sphere of
interest.
President James Monroe’s 1823 annual
message to Congress contained the Monroe
Doctrine, which warned European powers
not to interfere in the affairs of the Western
Hemisphere.
6. Development during the 19th and 20th
centuries.
▪Manifest Destiny, a phrase coined in 1845, is
the idea that the United States is destined—by
God, its advocates believed—to expand its
dominion and spread democracy and
capitalism across the entire North American
continent.
▪The philosophy drove 19th-century U.S.
territorial expansion and was used to justify the
forced removal of Native Americans and other
groups from their homes. The rapid expansion
of the United States intensified the issue of
slavery as new states were added to the
Union, leading to the outbreak of the Civil War.
6. Development during the 19th and 20th
centuries.
▪On September 2, 1901, United States Vice President Theodore
Roosevelt outlined his ideal foreign policy in a speech at the
Minnesota State Fair in Falcon Heights, Minnesota: “Speak softly, and
carry a big stick.” Two weeks later, Roosevelt became president and
“Big Stick diplomacy” defined his leadership. Big Stick diplomacy is
the policy of carefully mediated negotiation ("speaking softly")
supported by the unspoken threat of a powerful military ("big
stick").
President Roosevelt used Big Stick diplomacy in
many foreign policy situations. He brokered an agreement for an
American-led canal through Panama, expanded American influence in
Cuba, and negotiated a peace treaty between Russia and Japan. For
this, Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.
6. Development during the 19th and 20th
centuries.
▪The Kemmerer Mission consisted of a series of
proposals to redevelop the monetary, banking and
fiscal systems, which were later turned into laws
(some of which survive to this day). "La Misión" -
which in reality were several- developed mainly in
Latin America, between 1919 and 1931.
▪The works were led by Edwin Walter Kemmerer,
American economist, professor of Economics at
Princeton University, hired as a financial adviser
and by the governments of Bolivia, Chile,
Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru,
in order to consolidate monetary stability.
6. Development during the 19th and 20th
centuries.
▪Although the nations of Latin America had won their political
independence during the nineteenth century, they continued to
remain subordinate to external economic forces.
▪Between 1929 and 1933 the world economy collapsed. In
country after country, although not in all, prices fell, output
shrank, and unemployment soared. The Great Depression, was
extremely damaging to the economies of all the Latin American
countries.
▪Latin American exports were sharply reduced in terms of both
quantity and value and dropped to low levels not seen since
World War I. Agriculture and mining were seriously affected
throughout the region, ranging from the sugar industry in Cuba
to the extraction of tin and copper in Chile.
6. Development during the 19th and 20th
centuries.
▪Mexican Revolution, (1910–1917), a long and bloody
struggle among several factions in constantly shifting
alliances which resulted ultimately in the end of the 30-
year dictatorship in Mexico and the establishment of a
constitutional republic.
▪The Cuban Revolution was an armed uprising led by
Fidel Castro that eventually toppled the brutal
dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The revolution began
with a failed assault on Cuban military barracks on July
26, 1953, but by the end of 1958, the guerrilla
revolutionaries in Castro’s 26th of July Movement had
gained the upper hand in Cuba, forcing Batista to flee
the island on January 1, 1959.
6. Development during the 19th and 20th
centuries.
▪Alliance for Progress, former international economic development program established by the United
States and 22 Latin American countries in the Charter of Punta del Este (Uruguay) in August 1961.
▪Objectives stated in the charter centred on the maintenance of democratic government and the
achievement of economic and social development; specific goals included:
a) Sustained growth in per capita income,
b) More equitable distribution of income
c) Accelerated development in industry and agriculture
d) Agrarian reform
e) Improvement of health and welfare
f) Stabilization of export prices, and domestic price stability.
6. Development during the 19th and 20th
centuries.
▪What Is Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI)?
Import substitution industrialization (ISI) is a theory of economics typically adhered to by developing
countries or emerging market nations that seek to decrease their dependence on developed
countries. The approach targets the protection and incubation of newly formed domestic industries
to fully develop sectors so that the goods produced are competitive with imported goods. Under ISI
theory, the process makes local economies, and their nations, self-sufficient. However, the policy lost
its momentum in the latter half of the century.
6. Development during the 19th and 20th
centuries.
▪Neoliberalism in Latin America must be understood within the contexts of 20th-century
Latin American history. Neoliberalism promoted individualism, consumerism, and intense
economic competition. It involved the privatization of the health care, education, and
pension systems, the sale of public lands and other state-owned resources, low wages, and
the elimination of workers’ rights.
▪These policies were embraced in response to the deep economic crisis that prevailed in Latin
America in the 1980s, dubbed “the lost decade” due to massive public debts, currency
devaluations, and dramatic increases in poverty across several countries. “The lost decade”
epitomized the failure of nationalist economic policies that had been popular in the region
since the 1950s.
▪Latin American economists who trained abroad and financial institutions like the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank became the main promoters of
neoliberalism in Latin America, and US-backed authoritarian regimes ushered in these
policies during the Cold War.
7. Formative Research Project

Be aware about the following information:

A. Characterize the American markets, their geopolitical
challenges and to evaluate the potential opportunities of
trade growth.
B. My recommendation: select one of the following countries:
Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, United States and Canada. /
or a country of your preference.
C. 1 Group: 3 students / 2. Group: 2 students.
D. Cite properly with all the references, search official websites,
and academic papers. (APA standards)