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Consider one or more of the following questions to reflect on at the end of Subtopic 7.1. Discuss with another student or in a small group, or record (written, audio, video) your response.
Section 7.1.1 describes how globalisation can increase both resilience and fragility at the same time. Thinking about recent events — pandemic supply shortages, the Ever Given blocking the Suez Canal, new tariffs, wildfire smoke crossing borders — where do you see your own country sitting on that resilience–fragility spectrum? What would make it more resilient?
Section 7.1.2 describes core and periphery and dependency theory as one explanation for why some countries stayed poor while others grew wealthy. A different explanation, based on the type of institutions colonisers built, won the 2024 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. What does each explanation treat as the "part" that really drives inequality, and what relationships does each focus on? Which do you find more persuasive, and why?
Some economists argue that globalisation's shape is a political choice, not something technology makes inevitable — pointing out that earlier eras had comparably advanced technology but were organised very differently depending on government policy. Does the evidence in Section 7.1.2 support or challenge that view?
Kate Raworth's Doughnut model (Figure 1) asks whether human needs are met within planetary boundaries. Looking across this subtopic — from colonial extraction, to industrial-era pollution, to today's demand for critical minerals like cobalt and lithium — do you think today's system of global exchange is moving the world toward the safe and just space in the Doughnut, or away from it? Which flow discussed in Section 7.1.3 worries you most, and why?
Figure 1. The Doughnut Economics model showing the 'safe and just space for humanity' where human needs are met within planetary boundaries
(Credit: Raworth (2025), CC-BY-SA 4.0)
Section 7.1.4 explains that the stages of a supply chain closest to design, branding, and retail often capture the most value, while raw-material extraction and manufacturing capture the least, even though workers there add real value. Why do you think value capture works this way? Who would need to act, and what would need to change, for this pattern to shift?
(For students who have covered Section S.2) Using the DSRP framework, compare how a 'core and periphery' perspective and a "supply chain" perspective each carve up the same global economy. What different systems (parts/wholes) do they draw the boundary around, and what different relationships do they treat as most important?
Section 7.1.5 describes five roles through which people act on global exchange systems: consumer, employee, investor, citizen, and role model. Which of these roles do you think gives you the most influence in your own life right now? Which gives you the least? Has anything in this subtopic changed how you'd answer that?
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