INT 200: Global Capitalism and its Discontents

Inequality and AlterGlobalization

Ideologies of Globalization• Market Globalism

– to endow globalization with free-market, neo-liberal meanings– 5 ideological claims

• Globalization is about the liberalization and global integration of markets• Globalization is inevitable and irreversible • Nobody is in charge of globalization• Globalization benefits everyone• Globalization furthers the spread of democracy in the world

• Justice Globalism– globalization based on egalitarian ideals of global solidarity and

distributive justice• Both articulate and translate the rising global imaginary into

concrete political programs and agendas

Anti-Globalization• Nationalists and economic protectionists

– MNCs, WTO, IMF, WB, and UN Undermines sovereignty– Cultural Aspects too: “globalist advocates of multiculturalism” – Protectionism – Mercantilism?– Cling to a weakening national imaginary

AlterGlobalization• a.k.a. Justice Globalism or Global Justice Movement

– Globalization based on egalitarian ideals of global solidarity and distributive justice

– accuse neoliberal policies of • leading to greater global social inequality, • high levels of unemployment, • environmental degradation, • the demise of social welfare• escalation of global conflicts and violence• weakening of participatory forms of democracy• proliferation of self-interest and consumerism

– “global civil society” dedicated • to the establishment of a more equitable relationship between the wealthy

nations and poor nations• to protect the global environment• to advocate for fair trade and international labor issues• to demand human rights• “another world is possible”

– I.e., a world based on a global redistribution of wealth and power

AlterGlobalization• World Social Forum

– “… opposed to neo-liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a planetary society directed towards fruitful relationships among Mankind and between it and the Earth.”

– “Another World is Possible”– 9 demands:

• A global plan for forgiveness of all Third World debt• Tobin Tax: a tax on international financial transactions to benefit the global poor• Abolition of offshore tax havens for individuals and corporations• Implementation of global environmental agreements• Implementation of a more equitable global development agenda• Establishment of a new world development institution financed largely by the global

wealthy nations though such measures as a financial transaction tax administered by the global poor nations

• Establishment of international labor protection standards perhaps as clauses of a profoundly reformed WTO

• Greater transparency and accountability provided to citizens by national governments and international institutions

• Making all governance of globalization explicitly gender sensitive.

– Not against globalization but against the neoliberal form of globalization

Inequality• Gini Coefficient

– 0 (complete equality) to 1 (complete inequality)– steady increase in global income inequality Gini score from 1820 to

2002, with a significant increase between 1980 and 2002

Inequality

• Thomas Piketty: Capital in the Twenty-First Century– central thesis: when the rate of return on capital is greater than the rate

of economic growth over the long term (r > g), the result is concentration of wealth, and this unequal distribution of wealth causes social and economic instability

– since the 1970s both wealth and income gaps have been rising again– the free-market system has a

natural tendency towards increasing the concentration of wealth, because r > g

– Recommendation: adopting a global tax on wealth, to prevent soaring inequality contributing to economic or political instability in the future

– Critiques?