Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account Brock

There are some concerns about globalization and how it contributes to poverty and inequality in developed, and developing countries. First, let’s look at the ground rules set by the United Nation General Assembly. Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that equal and inalienable rights of all people of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.

Globalisation has considerably changed the face of how economies and countries operate in today’s world, enabling the openness of transactions with one another. It is due to the humanistic desires for the pursuit of prosperity that the concept of globalization paves a pathway to which economies can achieve this – facilitating the capacity to strengthen and condition existing relations between these countries.

In her piece, “Why Global Inequality Matters,” Nancy Birdsall argues that global inequality is an issue because it can negatively affect the social life, the political process and the economy of countries (especially developing ones). She looks at “how global integration affects poor versus rich countries (and people within countries), and on the resulting limits to poor countries’ (and poor people’s) ability to capture the potential benefits of globalization.” In order to argue her point further, she expounds on why global inequality matters and explores the possible role that globalization may have in perpetuating global inequality. Inequality matters, especially in developing countries with already weak institutions, because it may runs “the risk

Throughout the course readings, a lot of information was provided on how people talk about and engage with the word ‘race’. It is eye opening how people in power use ‘race’ to gain benefits without taking into consideration how different ‘choices’ impact the lives of racialize bodies. Furthermore, the articles provided others’ perspectives that help to understand and clarify why racialized people have been subjected to oppression and ‘racism’ in history. “Rethinking Global Justice” by Julia Sudbury is not different than the other course readings. The article provided an interesting point of view in relation to Black women’s experiences in the prison system in US and Canada and how this system supports these same ideas – exploitation of racialized

In Lisa L. Fuller’s paper, “Poverty Relief, Global Institutions and the Problem of Compliance,” Fuller argues that Thomas Pogge in his paper, “What Is Global Justice” has an ideal concept of justice in which he does take into consideration several factors at play including the process of implanting his solution as well as human nature. Fuller claims that although Pogge’s idea presents itself as the perfect solution to global poverty, Pogge is following an ideal conception of justice, meaning he makes several assumptions and does not take into consideration human nature. Pogge’s solution to global poverty is not realistically possible as Fuller argues. A non-ideal concept of justice, according to Fuller, is one that may not completely resolve global poverty but

The fact of the matter is, “The existence of global poverty helps to ensure the wealth of affordable goods for western consumers.” (Eglitis 224) The supply of these affordable goods and products that are so readily enjoyed by western consumers is a direct result of the benefits gained from participating in a global manufacturing

In most cases U.S. citizens who are in poverty are in relative poverty in relation to the rest of the U.S. population; whereas in the world as a whole a greater number of people are in absolute poverty and are barely able to survive on their income, or wages and earnings, and they have very little to no wealth since it is impossible to save any of their money. Ethnocentrism makes it difficult to obtain a clear picture of the conditions of poverty and inequality in other nations and cultures. There are many theories concerning the causes and solution for poverty in the global economy. The two major theories are the modernization theory which explains inequality in terms of technological and cultural difference between nations, and the dependency theory which explains poverty in terms of the historical exploitation of poor, or low-income, nations by rich, or high-income, nations. This theory has manifest itself in a new way in today’s world in the form of neocolonialism; economic exploitation by multinational corporations.

That this was also the decade in which globalization came into full swing is more than a minor inconvenience for its advocates” (Rodrick). If globalization is supposed to present an advantage to developing countries, why have there been so many setbacks? Indeed, both sides will have its winners and losers regardless of which side of the development coin they live on, but for the most part globalization has lifted millions out of poverty, improved the standard of living, and increased life expectancy rates all while keeping developed nations relatively competitive to their developing counterparts. Globalization’s value is that it seeks to create an economic equilibrium in the world, where parties are free from barriers and can benefit from one another through a more efficient allocation of resources. This allows all participating nations to contribute to an integrated economy and where all nations willing to embrace globalization have the potential to benefit. Regardless, the path to successful integration to the global economy has not always been easy. There is contention towards globalization as some argue that it is detrimental to developed nations, while many developing countries that were forced to hastily open up their markets and integrate failed. However, if implemented properly, globalization has proven that it can benefit all parties involved and that the potential gains outweigh the losses.

According to Richard N (2006), the free movement of goods due to free market or trade has led to globalization. Though the effects have been assumed to benefit all, there is a large inequality among the poor and the rich both within the countries among the nations. Capitalism is contributed to technological advancement, which has then influenced free trade. The uncontrolled globalization has resulted in more developed societies becoming rich. The rich economies are able to exploit the market by producing at lower price due to their level of technology and advancement in research. They are also able to protect their economy through export subsidies and production subsidies to their farmers. This translates to lower prices for their goods in the global market hence controlling it. The poor countries despite having comparative advantage in production of some commodities they also suffer from competitive advantage from the developed countries they are forced to sell their commodities at a lower price than their expected. They suffer a lot in global trade, which is mainly controlled by the wealthier nations. There are regulations, which restrict the flow of goods in the world market from poor societies. This makes

Globalization is the process of integration arising from the interchange among people, ideas, and culture. Globalization shows that international trade between other countries has impacted the way the U.S is now. Most of the products we use today is made in other countries such as China, Indonesia, and South Korea. As beneficial it may sound to have products made cheap in other countries and sold in the United States at a much higher price. This is also known to have a problem to the factory workers.

The rise of globalization following WWII generated three important factors that define today’s world. McNeill and McNeill agree with Pollard, Rosenberg, and Tignor that multiple economic changes, such as the creation of financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) contributed to the globalization of the world economy. Carter and Warren further this argument by claiming that globalization has caused shifts in the modern economy, namely the rise of Asian economic powers. However, all three historians agree that the rise of globalization goes hand in hand with the rise of inequality in today’s world. Gaps in power, wealth, and access to information have only widened due to the trend of globalization. The final key factor defining our world today are the ongoing processes affecting development countries. McNeill and McNeill argue similarly to Carter and Warren that the end of imperialism generated new nations who quickly realized the free market was a pathway to stability. However, Pollard et al. and McNeill and McNeill place importance on financial institutions like the IMF forcing developing nations to reform their economies to be subservient to the world’s economy. Together, these historians argue that the trend of globalization following WWII caused factors like the modern global economy, the rise in inequality, and the development of new, decolonized nations to be key determiners in the world today.

Global stratification can be defined that globe countries and areas are not on an equal footing in the process of economic, political and cultural globalization (Andersen & Taylor, 2006). The economic globalization has exacerbated the imbalance of world economy and has widened the wealth gap. Globalization has brought unfair relationships between developing countries and developed countries. Gao (2000) noted that economic globalization has expanded the gap between South and North. And it has brought huge shocks to national economy of developing countries. The international economic organizations like the Word Bank, IMF and WTO are in the hand of developed countries (El-Ojeili, C. & Hayden, P., 2006.). All the principles, institutions and sequences for the world economic operation are made by them. (Sklair, 2002)What’s more, the economic, technical and management advantages that is owned by Western countries cannot be easily and fully surpassed by developing countries.

The world is a far more connected place today than 150 years ago. The rapid rate of technological advancement which in turn accelerated international trade has led us to an age where states are politically, economically and culturally interconnected. Now, to many, this seems like a good thing, and in many cases it is: the ability to talk to someone instantaneously from the other corner of the planet, to buy something from china and for it to arrive within a week… are all positive things that stem from globalization, but underneath these superficial changes the world has seen a pretty big economic shift since the dawn of the neoliberal era and the rebirth of globalization. To be able to properly analyze the effect globalization has had on inequality we have to look at how we define it: Most neoliberalists tend to look exclusively at extreme poverty as the reference point for inequality and therefore the only objective to eliminate, in fact the World Bank’s online entries about poverty (http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview,2016) talk only about the extreme type of poverty, whereas most critics of neoliberalism underline the need for economists and politicians to also focus on relative poverty and the fast growing gap between the rich and the poor. There is also the question of who we are referring to when talking about inequality; inequality can be discussed both at state level and at an individual level.

When investigating the global state of poverty and prosperity there is clear difference between the wealthy nations and impoverished nations. In the past decades there has been an increase in economic polarity between the developed and developing nations of the world. Some nations are prospering greatly while others countries are still struggling to achieve, economic, political, and social stability. The book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson attempts to explain why some nations have seen great success in their economic and political development, and why other nations are still failing to develop in this way. The arguments derived come from the key themes in chapters 3, 8, 9 and 15 of Acemoglu and Robinson’s book.

If we take a look at Cross country studies presented by Harrison we see a different take on globalization. It takes a look at the relationship between poverty, inequality and globalization. Easterly finds that increasing trade integration is associated with Falling inequalities within developed countries and greater