Understanding State Types, Global Economics, and Labor
What is a Federal State?
In a federal state, power is divided between the federal government and the territories of the federation.
How are Democratic States?
Their main characteristic is that citizens make decisions. They choose their representatives through free elections or assemblies. These representatives in democratic states can be part of parliaments. Democratic states can be republics or parliamentary monarchies. In republics, the head of state is a president elected by the people through elections. In parliamentary monarchies, the head of state is a monarch who has reached the throne by inheritance.
What is an Authoritarian State?
In authoritarian states, people lack freedom, and power is exercised by a person, group, political party, or other organization. The most common form of authoritarian regimes is a dictatorship. In this system, the population is suppressed by using violence, in many cases leading to genocide. In military dictatorships, the army holds power. In totalitarian dictatorships, a one-party government takes over.
What Dominates Latin American Indigenous People? In What Countries is the European Origin Population Dominant?
- Indigenous People: In Central America and Andean countries (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru), the indigenous population is very important. In Brazil and many Caribbean islands, there is a predominance of mixed-race individuals between indigenous and African descent.
- European Origin Population: The southern states (Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay) have a population mostly of European origin.
What Challenges Exist in Africa?
Africa is the global space that suffers greater financial difficulties, and it contains the poorest countries on the planet. A large part of its population is stricken by famine, epidemics, and wars. Social and economic inequalities are very pronounced in each of the states. In many cases, a minority group accounts for all the wealth of the country, allowing it to control decision-making. Many African states have initiated processes of democratization, but the right to participation has not been achieved in all social groups. This political instability, coupled with extreme misery, has led large numbers to emigrate from Africa towards Europe.
Problems of Minorities in the Middle East
Some minority populations have been marginalized from states or have been divided between several countries. This applies to the Kurds living in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey; the Azeris in Syria; or the Pashtuns in Afghanistan.
What is Economic Activity?
Economic activity is the process of providing material goods and services that meet needs, using limited resources that can be used in different ways. It includes both the production of goods and services and their consumption.
Name Economic Operators and Explain One of Them
- Companies or Production Units: Using a range of resources and human labor, they produce the great quantity and variety of goods and services we know.
- Families or Consumption Units: They receive income for their work and use it for consumption or savings.
- The State: It is responsible for establishing standards governing the behavior of producers and consumers. It is also involved in the goods-producing economy through public enterprises.
What are Consumer Goods?
Consumer goods are all resources that are produced, processed, and distributed to meet the needs of both food and service.
What are the Main Producing Areas of the World? What About Spain?
The capacity of production is very uneven, and that can be verified on different scales. Among regional groupings, North America, the European Union, and the Asia Pacific (Japan, China, South Korea) account for almost 85% of global production of goods and services. Among the nearly 200 countries in the world today, only 10 of them account for 85% of the total production, with the U.S. (26%) far above the rest. Within Spain, the autonomous communities of Madrid, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Andalusia, and Valencia produce 66% of the total wealth.
What Establishes an Economic System?
An economic system varies in each country based on the power or influence of different operators, how work is organized, and how the goods and services obtained are distributed to the population.
Main Features of the Capitalist System
The current capitalist system has changed over time, although some key features remain:
- Private ownership of companies and most of the inputs, while the state has high economic importance.
- Individual pursuit of profit as the main engine of economic decisions, although it does not always coincide with the collective benefit.
- Competition among firms to increase these benefits, which causes the success and growth of some, while others face failure and disappearance.
- Division of labor and increasing specialization to increase profitability. Each person is generally engaged in a single activity; firms produce only one type of goods or services; territories also specialize in terms of their benefits.
What is the Offer?
Offer is the number of goods that producers want to market at a certain price. If the price increases, the offer will rise as it will be more profitable for firms.
What is the Demand?
Demand is the quantity of a commodity that consumers want and can buy at a fixed price. If the price falls, demand will increase due to people’s increased purchasing power, while it will decrease if the price rises.
Define Workforce
The workforce includes those of legal working age (16 to 65 years) who have jobs or are looking for one.
What Influence do Demand and Labor Supply have in the Labor Market?
- If labor demand is very high with respect to supply, wages will be low, as happens with low-skilled labor in poor and populous countries.
- If the job supply is higher than demand, wages will be higher, as in the case of highly skilled workers.
List the Labor Rights Established by the ILO
The International Labour Organization (ILO) establishes several labor rights, including the prohibition of child labor, freedom of association, minimum wage, the right to strike, and equal rights for working women.
Explain the Primary Sector
The primary sector applies to most activities of direct extraction and exploitation of natural resources, such as agriculture, livestock, fishing, etc. They are fundamental activities to obtain food and raw materials for industries, like cotton or wool for textiles, wood for furniture, etc.
Explain the Tertiary Sector and its Types
The tertiary sector includes all activities that do not produce material goods but offer different types of services to other companies or individuals.
- Rural Services: Such as trade, transport, and communications.
- Business Services: Such as banking and insurance, computer services, design, etc.
- Social Services: These cover needs considered essential for society, and in many countries, they are partly provided by the state. Examples include the economy, healthcare, and so on.