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At the dawn of the 21st century--when your author, who is now an educator, was in college--the United States was the sole global superpower. But the world changed with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as well as other events that remade the world in which current students now study. As an educator, I can explain that the structure of the world, termed "world orders," can subsist of underlying world "sub-orders," and "suborder traits" which even underlie them historically, and how students can outline them. In this way, while political-economic history looks to be constantly repeating itself, with the alignment of "traits" changing, what is considered "modern" and how we go about teaching it in history, political, and economic courses is the research aim of this article. Unlike the historian, whose job it is to identify such "traits," the social scientist should attempt to measure their importance; as educators, we need to point this difference out to students. These new ideas come from an educator with a background in both history and the social sciences. The article summarizes the current world order and concludes with a discussion of what "future" world orders might be, based on sub-orders, while offering ideas for educators to use for students, many of whom will be future scholars, on how to measure which world orders and "sub-orders" are generationally and empirically "modern."

This paper puts forth a new scholarly approach to trade negotiations, for practitioners of international agreements, or simply to business students attempting to understand Ricardian trade theory. The paper hypothesizes that matrices can provide a simpler conceptual framework for considering Ricardo’s comparative advantage, especially when multiple goods and multiple countries are involved, in order to determine which countries should produce which goods. Numerous theoretical examples are presented, singularly, and jointly, as are different possible flaws and assumptions, additional applications, and alternative uses of the matrices, such as employing matrices to increase production of certain goods needed during crises or shortages. The article also argues that “terms of trade” should not be “assumed” in trade models but be based upon indifference curves, and addresses other influencing factors such as neoclassical changes in utility or in production. Found valid, the paper applies this method of trade simplification to pressing international situations, the question of “Brexit,” the sobriquet for the United Kingdom’s effort to withdraw from the European Union, which creates interesting possibilities for new trade deals, and the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The conclusion conceptually compares bilateral and multilateral trade, singularly, and with all countries together.

Newly elected U.S. President Donald J. Trump has ushered in a new but debated era of global economic repositioning in which trade policies, particularly those pertaining to manufacturing, may drastically change in the form of new tariffs or renegotiated agreements. This era, which might be termed the Washington- Nationalist Ambivalence, may greatly affect the business environment for managers. At the same time, the world is witnessing a greater divergence of economic policy between developed and emerging nations. In light of this fact, do any of the President's ideas meet the test of economic theory, traditional or modern? This paper combines micro- and macroeconomics with an understanding of business and market share, through several related models. Specifically, it uses concepts from orthodox trade theory, as well as comprehensible evidence from the 1970s-1980s auto and manufacturing battles, to propose an original concept that, under certain circumstances beyond the "optimal tariff," tariffs in competitive industries with low import market shares are justified. Managers might appeal these ideas to the Trump administration. In addition, the paper proffers a new measurement called "choice purchasing power" to reconcile global trade divergences, which future research could validate, while offering a lukewarm hypothesized hope that the new U.S. administration will heed such reasonable policies and turn away from many of the flagrant misnomers made during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]