Globalization and Injustice

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Globalization and Injustice

• November 2, 2005
• PSC 300.301

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Todays Class

• Housekeeping
• Discussion
• Lecture (short)
• Video
• Discussion

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(In)Justice

• Central Issue Equity ? Equality
• Equity
• About starting points, not outcomes, ie
• Same conditions in life
• Minimum entitlements
• Absence of arbitrary privilege exclusion
• Your birth situation doesnt dictate later life
• That is, structural hierarchies
• Domestic level solutions in the past
• Redistribution of wealth
• Taxation, subsidies, social welfare, social
  policies (health education)
• Affirmative action
• Civic organizing, advocacy and activism
• Unions
• lobbyists

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Structural Inequalities

• Claim
• Structural inequalities pre-date globalization
• Qs is the effect of globalization on pre-existing
  inequalities
• mixed effects not because of globalization, but
  approach to neoliberal implementation
• Effects of Supraterritoriality
• Unequal opportunities to access free spaces
• Undermining redistributive mechanisms
• International Regimes favoring the advantaged
• Domestic social movements disadvantaged
• Types of Inequalities
• Class
• Country
• Gender
• Age
• Rural/Urban
• Race
• (Others?)

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Broad Theories

• Dependence theories
• Metropole periphery
• World systems
• Core, periphery and semi-periphery
• Marxist Theories
• Class structures
• owners of capital,
• Army of labor owners
• (Neo)Gramscian Theories
• Structure (economic production)
• Superstructure (ideological hegemony)
• Conflict and consent
• State as implicated

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Summary of Inequalities

• Class Inequalities
• Definition division of labor in a specialized
  capitalist society
• Services, extraction, industrial, manufacturing
• Sector agriculture, management
• Type of activity white collar, blue collar
• Type of job full time, contractual, casual
• Evidence
• In North, South East
• Income gaps increased
• Particular jobs more rewarding (investment,
  management, etc)
• North benefited more the South and East
• Effects
• Class Stratification class difference
  hierarchy
• Restricts social mobility, education
  opportunities, access to public services

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• Gender Inequalities
• Definition Role differentiation on the basis of
  biological traits
• A social, not biological fact
• Patriarchy subordination of women relative to
  men
• Feminism activist involvement in gender issues
• Evidence North, South and East
• Relative to their past (women)
• Improved access to paid work
• Access to manufacturing jobs
• Equality in transnational NGO policy influence
• Hybridity empowered activists
• Relative to Men
• Lower positions, lower pay
• Masculinization in order to succeed
• Affected more by removal of social policy
• Less representation participation in democratic
  spaces

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• Country Inequalities
• Definition core, semi-periphery periphery
• Country level urban rural
• International level North, South and East
• Regional?
• Evidence (see printouts)
• North benefited the most from neoliberalism
• East some benefits (NICs)
• South least benefits
• Effects linked to class stratification
• Agriculture, manufacturing and service jobs
• Social justice mechanisms (ODA) doesnt
  compensate neoliberal effects
• Effects
• Social stratification based on country of birth
  remains
• Costs (recovery and correction) paid by the South
• New of global approaches (public private
  partnerships)

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Other Inequalities

• Age (children and aged)
• More disadvantaged
• Both groups malnutrition, illness, violence,
  abuse
• Aged Job lay-offs absence of lack of
  opportunities to re-tool
• Children have an opportunity to improve
  (e-schools in Africa)
• Most vulnerable during restructuring
• Racial Inequalities
• Global apartheid
• White have greater life chances
• Whites higher incomes
• Institutional racism
• Rural versus Urban Inequalities
• Rural more deprived than urban
• Higher costs of doing business
• Production systems being trumped by biotechnology

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Current Measures

• International Regimes
• CEDAW
• Convention on the Rights of the Child
• Lomé IV Agreements
• EU African, Caribbean Pacific countries
• Global Public Goods (due to market failure)
• Global Public Private Partnerships
• On Malaria vaccine
• On HIV/AIDS GAVI and UNAIDS
• Official Development Assistance
• International Social Movements
• Criticisms
• Regimes not legally binding compared to WTO
• Partnerships problematic
• Aid is decreasing and conditional
• Collective action problem with social movements
  (Videos Roger Me, Walmart)

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Conclusion to consider

• Effects of Intersectionality of these inequities
• Gender
• Country
• Class
• Age
• Race
• Location (urban/rural)
• Effects of Supraterritoriality
• Identity
• Hybridity
• Homogenization
• Cosmopolitanism
• Capitalism
• Consumerism, commodification
• Type of markets finance, cyber markets,
  oligopolies
• Knowledge
• Rationality, religious revivalism,
  post-modernism, social constructivism
• Governance
• Supraterritoriality