Massaro, Section 5 and 6

In section 5 it states how the Catholic tradition benefits individual ownership and be able to care for the goods of God. This section also talks about the teachings that the Catholic Church has on private property and working rights. "To expropriate property means to take it from its present owner, a course of action not normally recommended in the documents of Catholic social teaching."(page92) It brought up one interesting point on how property is not yours unless it came from God. It is good to own private property but to be able to help the ones in needs is that insight that the Catholic Social teaching had in mind. In Section 6 it then begins to talk about labor unions. Catholic Social teaching believed in labor unions and felt that they were an important role in the economic justice. Yes, there were cons about labor unions on how they were driving up cost and there were excessive demands on wages. One thing that labor unions had on people were human rights in the work force. In the US today labor unions are becoming less. They are now hiring part time workers because they don't get paid as much, don't get as many rights as if you were full time worker because it is cheaper to pay just minimum wage. This results in many people having to get multiple jobs just in order to attain money in order to live a sustainable life.

Strayer, Chapter 22 (pp.659-674)

The beginning of communism was first established in Europe in the end of World War II. In the 1970's most of the world population was governed by communist. Communism had a major threat on the western world with the cold war, third world between United States and the Soviet Union and nuclear arms race. Whoever was for communism was a supporter of revolutions. "..Communist revolutions were distinctive as well. They were made by highly organized parties guided by a Marxist ideology, were committed to an industrial future, pursued economic as well as political equality, and south the abolition of private property."(Strayer 662) In other words this quote is stating that the communist government was in this sense of industrializing the world, equality with people financially and politically and having no such thing as private property be given. Once the communist came into power the Soviet Union and China went out to start a socialist society. The first step to do this was to modernize the world and industrialize. Attacking of social and gender classes starts the separation and discrimination in the world. One part of the chapter that really caught my attention was communist feminism. This was state directly. Prior to World War I there were series of laws set regarding women. "They declared full legal and political equality for women; marriage became a civil procedure among freely consenting adults....."(Strayer669) With this being said the freedom of women was finally established. They finally had a voice and were able to live their life not just under the care of their husbands. Women were able to make independent decisions. I feel like this probably took so much of my attention, because one it took a while for women to ever be able to have these rights, and still to this day women and men are still not treated equally no matter what laws are passed.

Strayer, Chapter 21

History is known as a repetitive cycle. For many things such as wars have regularly repeated which have shaped the way the twentieth century is. In this chapter it talks about Europe and how it recovered from its collapse. By the 1900s Europe controlled majority of the world with having such a strong growing military and scientific and industrial revolutions. What collapsed Europe, was World War I or other wise known as the Great War. "At the beginning, most military experts expected a war of movement and attack, but it soon bogged down on the western front into a war of attrition, in which "trench warfare"."(Strayer,pg630) For many years Europeans didn't see in wrong in the war until the outcome was coming out to be economically a problem. This was a comparison to the enlightenment. After the war was over the aftermath was known as the great depression. Meaning social and cultural changed to the Americans and the Europeans. Tradition was looked s a new way, for instance mothers day was now a profound holiday during the great depression and has now stuck with the Americans till present day. But the most that the great depression showed was the failing of the economic system. Unemployment began to rise and the rich were now trying to find new ways of making more money. Prior to this was the Holocaust which was ran by Hitler and was the plan on getting rid of all Jews. The main three factors that led to the recovery of Europe were: industrial society, bettering the economy and thirdly extension with the United States of America.

Strayer, Chapter 20 (pp.607-614)

While the colonial era was going it erupted into cultural changes. For instance education, religion and race became a major impact in their countries. "..western education, obtained through missionary or government schools, that generate a new identity." (pg 607) This help them obtain a great education that they were able to communicate with government officials and try to import goods. "Moreover, education often provided social mobility and elite status within their own communities and an opportunity to achieve, or at least approach, equality with whites in racially defines societies." (pg 607) The next thing was religion. This started the religion of "african reformation" where christianity became Africanzied. Not only did they allow Christianity into their culture but they began to make it apart of them. In India they made christianity into Hinduism. The last impact was "race". This was when Africa defined themselves as "Africans".

Strayer, Chapter 20 (pp. 589-606)

Colonial Encounters. This was the notion of the "Americans and Asians being ruled by the British, French, German, Italians, Belgians, Portuguese, Russians or Americans." (pg 590) The first phase were the Europeans taking over the Americans. The preferred informal control because it was cheaper and didn't provoke wars.  Eventually through out the years the Europeans had advantage due to firepower, rifles and machine guns. This was their ability to conquer more because other places weren't well developed.  The main thing that was affected by colonial rules were the way people work. "The colonial state- with its power to tax, to seize land for European enterprise, to compel labor, and to build railroads, ports and roads-played an important role in these transformations." (pg598) Having money be an outstanding factor, by raising prices and increase production of products made it harder for workers. This is the kind of process that is going on today. Taxes are raising in the United States but minimum wage is still not acceptable in a lot of places which makes it harder for people to live because they have to get more jobs in order to survive.