Global Inequalities Essay

Each year income increases in the United States. Economic inequality and political inequality may have a connection where our democracy could be affected but americans have the ability to solve this problem. Economic inequality refers to wealth or income between different groups or a society as a whole. There have been past social movements that have tried to improve this problem such as women's suffrage and more. We are still trying to resolve this issue of economic inequality.

Africa has had a long and tumultuous road of colonization and decolonization the rush to colonize Africa started in the 17th century with the discovery of the vast amounts of gold, diamonds, and rubber with colonization hitting a fever pitch during World War I. However, the repercussions of colonization have left deep wounds that still remain unhealed in the 21st century. Early on, European nations such as Britain, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany and Belgium scrambled for territories. Countries wanted land so they could harvest the resources, increase trade, and gain power. The European colonization of Africa brought racism, civil unrest, and insatiable greed; all of which have had lasting impacts on Africa.

Which of the following perspectives offers the most convincing explanation for the existence of global inequalities: modernization theory, dependency theory or world-systems theory?

The land of freedom, the United States, is the Promised Land for all. Its citizen can be much as prosperous as they want. Nonetheless, a phenomenon has occurred gradually that has changed the economy, social levels, income, and wealth of all Americans. This is called inequality. Inequality has become a social problem since people has not raised their voice take advantage of voting, large corporations as CEOs who take instead of give.

When the colonies become ruled by a mother country this means the natives will most likely become slaves (Document 2). The European countries will benefit from their labor. In Africa missionaries came and the natives didn't like them (Document 4). The Africans thought of them very negatively because they used religion as means to gain trust so they could conquest the natives land. Also, new diseases were introduced to the natives by the Europeans. There were many more negative effects of imperialism in Africa like their loss of dignity and their ability to lead themselves (Document 6). This is because the Europeans taught them that their culture was inferior to theirs. In the political cartoon in Document 7, it shows a cartoonist implying that Europeans work the natives in the colonies very hard all for the money. They don't care about the natives well being. In India, the British took over and many bad effects occurred as result to this. Like, Indian resources going straight to Britain. Also British manufactured good replaced Indian local industry. Farmers were forced to grow cash crops like tea and cotton and Indians went hungry. Also, top jobs were reserved for the British. This left many Indians unemployed. The Indians were treated as inferiors in their own country. Many wars broke out due to racism and which mother country wanted which colony. Like in Africa the Boers War in 1899 was a confrontation between the English and the Dutch when England wanted to take the Cape Colony from the Dutch. Another war in Africa caused by Imperialism is the Zulu war. The Zulu war was caused by British aggression. In China the Opium war was between Great Britain and China. It began in 1839 as a conflict over the opium trade that ended in 1842 with the opening of five Chinese ports to foreign merchants. But the worst effect of Imperialism is when the mother country tries to replace the culture of the

In chapter one of Savage Inequalities, by Jonathan Kozol, he speaks of the disastrous state of East St. Louis. He describes in horrific detail, the condition that many school children from grades K-12 are forced to learn in. East St. Louis is one of the worst ghettos in Illinois, and Kozol goes into great detail about the multitude of problems facing the city and more importantly, the school children living there. The economy is too weak to pay for any type of necessity for the schools. Therefore, the school system is compromised. There is absolutely no money for proper

The documentary film, “Inequality for All”, addresses the overall problems of income inequality within America. The documentary follows a former Labor secretary and all around American political economists, Robert Reich. Throughout the film Reich focusses on problems that many people already know about: the struggle that the middle class is facing, how the top 1% of society within America has seen a dramatic increase in income for themselves, education costs rising. His overall goal is to try and figure out what exactly Americas problem is within income inequality and how it can be fixed.

Income Inequality in the United States has been a problem for decades. Since the year 1913 the gap in income inequality between the rich and poor in the U.S. has widened and has been a hot topic for debate. The rich keep getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Thomas Pogge a German philosopher and a professor at Yale University argue that we live in a world where income and wealth are very unevenly distributed throughout society, thus leading to widespread poverty. Amartya Sen an Indian economist and philosopher of Bengali ethnicity argues that really freedoms should be both the ends and means of human development. Robert Reich a professor at Berkeley University and former secretary of labor under Bill Clinton, makes an fluent and impassioned

African’s are forced to be slaves, deprived of their own resources in their own country, just imagine if you took a walk in their shoes for a day. King Leopold II enslaved African people in their own country. Africans were treated inhumanely by King Leopold II and other colonizing rulers. Europe and American countries took Africa’s resources away for their own profit. Africa’s interactions with colonialism have negatively impacted African cultures.

One of the social issues concerning power, status, and class in American society today is income inequality. The income gap between the social classes has increased drastically throughout the last few decades, creating a significant gap between the wealthy and the poor. This gap has become so large that the middle class has nearly diminished, creating a social class comprised of the rich and the poor. The significant gap between the two social classes is unhealthy for the economy because it provides too much power in the hands of those with high social status.

Income inequality has affected American citizens ever since the American Dream came to existence. The American Dream is centered around the concept of working hard and earning enough money to support a family, own a home, send children to college, and invest for retirement. Economic gains in income are one of the only possible ways to achieve enough wealth to fulfill the dream. Unfortunately, many people cannot achieve this dream due to low income. Income inequality refers to the uneven distribution of income and wealth between the social classes of American citizens. The United States has often experienced a rise in inequality as the rich become richer and the poor become poorer, increasing the unstable gap between the two classes. The

Currently there are many problems and flaws with the way the Canadian government’s policies deal with healthcare, income inequality and poverty. Time to time changes in policies have been made, perhaps to improve these issues, however, the gap between rich and poor keeps increasing and there is very little improvement in healthcare and the economy. In fact, healthcare keeps on becoming costly. Major issues like income inequality and poverty are not being taken care of by the government. According to Dr. Raphael (2002) poverty is caused by several reasons such as inequality in people’s income, weak social services and lack of other social supports (p.VI). He states, “Poverty directly harms the health of those with low incomes while income

Income inequality is a phenomenon that is undeniably real in our current world, and more specifically, the present United States. Canon describes how the gap between the elite and the poor has been consistently growing for many years and continues to widen (189). Whether the differences between the top and the bottom are a threat to current society is another story. Does income inequality undermine a democracy? Ray Williams argues that societies are strongest when they have a higher rate of equality while George Will challenges that inequality is the very basis of what make democratic processes. A. Barton Hinkle takes a Libertarian approach to the idea that inequality is threatening to democracy and how it can be fixed. Some threats that each article addressed were economic impacts, civility, and fairness. Overall, there is a definite need to evaluate whether the United States democracy is being threatened due to the continuous rise of the elites and the fall of the working class.

Although imperialism had several negative impacts on certain regions, it lead to the introduction of a better government system and improvement in technology. The efforts put in by Europe to colonize weak countries resulted in improvement of education and sanitation in the colonized countries. Africa specially gained a lot from Imperialism. Schools and hospitals were built,

Colonialism, which was a major cause of the north-south gap that occurred in the period following the Second World War, is the takeover by a nation of foreign territories; making them part of it to aid its own economical, social and political structures. The mother countries succeed in doing that by using the colony’s natural resources, money savings, and their lands, which leads the colony to rely on the mother country and therefore, leaving the country underdeveloped. Hence, the world wide scramble for colonies, particularly in the late 19th – early 20th century, had a tremendous negative effect on the economic, social, and political structures of indigenous, non-industrialized peoples.