 I'm Salvatore Bobonis and today's lecture is the World System Semi-Privary. The semi-privary of the world system consists of the countries that are neither very rich nor very poor. Semi-privary countries are the ordinary countries of the world. Life in the semi-privary is typical of the kind of life lived by human beings in the world today. Semi-privary countries are also known as emerging markets countries because of their attractiveness to foreign investors. But there's nothing emerging about them. They've been fully integrated into the world market for at least 500 years. The middle income tier of the global economy is the heart of the semi-privary, the group of countries that are neither rich nor poor. As with the core, the semi-privary is really a structural position, not an income level. But most semi-privary countries have middle income levels of $5,000 to $20,000 GDP per capita per year. Some semi-privary countries are richer like the oil sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf. Some semi-privary countries are poorer like India, which has a GDP per capita of around $1,600 per year. India may not be as financially well off as most semi-privary countries. But India shares the characteristics of other semi-privary countries. In particular, it has functioning state institutions that may not be strong enough to support a leading global economy, but nonetheless basically deliver services to most people most of the time. A defining characteristic of semi-perferral states, however, is that even if they are basically functioning most of the time, they are highly vulnerable, and they are especially vulnerable to fiscal crisis, to government budget crises. Semi-perferral states simply don't generate enough tax revenue to be able to pay their bills on a regular basis, in particular in times of crisis, semi-perferral countries often have trouble paying their bills and may experience bankruptcy or come close to bankruptcy, have to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and other international organizations. Semi-perferral states also experience repeated currency crises, because they tend to borrow in US dollars instead of being able to borrow in their own currencies. As a result, when a crisis hits, the country is unable to finance its own deficit and has to turn to international organizations, again primarily the International Monetary Fund, in order to meet their financial needs. Semi-perferral countries share many economic attributes besides just middle income levels. They almost all have high levels of income inequality, they have endemic corruption at all levels of government, a dependence on indirect taxes, so instead of taxing income directly, they tax people indirectly through sales and value-added taxes. And they tend to have underdeveloped private sector economies. They have economies characterized by high level of foreign ownership, high level of state ownership, with local investors preferring the security of putting their money overseas in government bonds and foreign stock markets instead of investing in entrepreneurship in their own countries. Investment companies have created two acronyms to represent the largest of the semi-perferral countries as emerging markets for investors. The first is the BRICs. The BRICs were originally the BRIC BRIC and then plural S BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa was later added to the grouping making it the BRICs with a capital S. The Mints are Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey. All nine of these countries are very large semi-perferral economies. Some of them are a little bit poorer than middle income level like India and Nigeria, but nonetheless all nine of these countries share the basic attributes of semi-perferral economies. Since semi-perferral countries constitute most of the world, they're also home to most of the world's social problems. So for example, migration crises are mainly centered in semi-perferral countries. The European Union is currently experiencing what it considers a massive migration crisis of some 1 million refugees and asylum seekers coming to the European Union from the south and east. But consider that the number of Syrian refugees alone in neighboring semi-perferral countries numbers 4 million. And these countries are much smaller than the European Union. The European Union has a population of 500 million people and is incredibly wealthier than Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. Yet Turkey and Lebanon individually have each taken more Syrian refugees than the total migrant flow to the European Union in 2014 and 2015. Other refugee crises are also concentrated in semi-perferral countries, in part because they don't necessarily have the ability to police their borders to keep people out, but also because they come under strong pressure from core countries to accommodate refugees. This is very much a case of do as we say, not as we do, when countries and organizations based in core countries try to persuade or bully poorer semi-perferral countries into accepting the refugees that rich countries don't want to accept. A very clear example of this is in Australia, where Australia tries very hard to persuade Indonesia and other southeast Asian countries to accept refugees instead of allowing them to travel on to Australia. Another example of a global social problem that is endemic in semi-perferral countries is high levels of pollution, air, ground and water pollution. Here I'll pick on India instead of China, this is a photo from New Delhi, and usually we're used to hearing about the catastrophic pollution levels in Chinese cities, but in fact New Delhi has worse pollution than any major city in China, worse air pollution than any major city in China. High levels of air pollution are like those found in New Delhi and Beijing are pretty typical of cities all around the world. The few cities that enjoy blue skies and clean air are concentrated in core countries, most of the urban dwellers of the world live in cities like New Delhi, not in cities like Sydney and San Francisco. Semi-perferral countries may be the most common victims of global social problems, but they're also complicit in the creation of those problems. Social problems are not only created by the core and pushed out to the semi-perfery, the semi-perfery is part of the problem as well. A big reason is that most semi-perferral states lack transparency and have poor accountability to their own people. Corruption is endemic at all levels, at national, state, provincial and local levels, as well as within corporations, and states are governed in the interests of small, ruling elites. In this situation, it's no surprise that many semi-perferral countries are complicit in taking on the problems of the world as long as those problems can be shoved down to the majority of the population who are not adequately represented in the government and in the state. Most semi-perferral states allow or even encourage powerful companies from core countries to take advantage of their physical territories and of their people. Simply put, when studying global social problems, the semi-perfery is where the action is. Since most of the world is in the semi-perfery, it's inevitable that most of the world's problems will be too. The semi-perfery represents the typical experience of life on Earth, thus global social problems are really just the problems of the semi-perfery. It can be difficult for people who live in core countries to comprehend that. To give an example, the pollution levels found in China and India are typical of the world. They're not actually extreme levels of pollution. China and India alone make up more than one third of the world's population, so one third of the people of the world automatically live at Chinese and Indian levels of pollution, and most of the rest do as well. The core experience of life on Earth is normative. We consider it normal to have blue skies and clean air and drinkable water and electricity 24 hours a day and responsive government, but even if that is normal, it's nonetheless unusual. And I should stress that it's not just us who consider it normal. I've heard over and over again in my travels in semi-perferral countries, people say that they simply wished they lived in a normal country, by which they mean a country like those in Western Europe and North America. Well, they want to live in a normal country where government functions and the environment is livable, but that's not a typical country. In fact, the typical country of the world is quite pathological. Key takeaways. First, semi-perferral countries have functioning state institutions that nonetheless fall short of ideals on many dimensions. Second, semi-perferral states are often complicit in social problems due to a lack of transparency, poor accountability, and corruption that lead to governments that represent only a small minority in the country instead of the broad majority. Finally, the semi-perferral life experience is typical of the world but is not considered normal, even by inhabitants of the semi-perfery. Thank you for listening to this lecture. 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