The Pros And Cons Of Global Inequity

Globalization is the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale. According to economic and political writer Doug Bandow, “Some critics of globalization have contended that the process has helped the rich and hurt the poor. However, the best research indicates that this is accurate: ‘Poverty is falling rapidly in those poor countries that are integrating into the global economy.”. In both documentaries “The True Cost” and “Living on One Dollar” we can see how companies exploit their employees for consumer benefit, as well as the social and economic inequalities that are attached with globalization.

The insurgents of globalization are exacerbating income inequality, within developing and developed nations. One of the most powerful country’s in the world the United States an Industrialized nation are allowing large corporations to seek maximize profits without regards for the local

Big corporate companies’ exploitation of workers in developing countries are driven from the basis of treating the world as a tool to gain profit; in other words, dehumanizing workers. Unemployment, dehumanization, and poor working conditions lead to detrimental health effects that are further exacerbated by the face that these individuals who face the dire consequences are not financially stable or competent to receive medical treatment or medicine. In addition, it can also be deduced that due to the unequal distribution of wealth and the health impacts that arise from the various aspects that stem from economic globalization, it results in the inequality in health and living. Thus, globalization seems to neglect the poor nations and populations as they continue to plummet down the social ladder. Though globalization has opened up opportunities for developing countries and has improved our lifes through advancements made, it is a process in which bears both negative and positive consequences, like any process or situation. However, it is important to acknowledge the injustice and inequality that some of the world’s population still faces. As such, corporations, being global citizens in an interconnected world, realize their responsibilities and collectively create a national agenda to implement policies in which would accommodate and provide nations and populations the necessary resources and accommodations to integrate themselves successfully into the globalization process

Often times the very workers that make globalization possible are the ones being mistreated and are being adversely affected by it. Steps must be taken to fix the moral oversight of globalization. Specifically I would like to look at the use of illegal immigrants to reduce the wages of workers. I want to look at the use of unfair competition to put the workers, farm workers in particular, in a very disadvantaged position. Steps can be taken to make the situation more just for all parties, but it may take a change in Mexican-American border policy.

Many of the products that are used and consumed in the United States are made in other countries. One of the main reasons for multinational corporations to produce goods in countries other than the United States is the cost of production. It is far cheaper to produce goods such as blue jeans, paper goods, and plastic toys to name a few. In recent years the conditions in sweatshops in China, Japan, and elsewhere have garnered public outcry from Countries like the U.S. and most of Europe. The main contention, child labor in dangerous and horrid conditions. However one often overlooked example of child labor in sweatshop-like conditions exists were many people never thought. The chocolate we eat. “From 2013 to 2014 more than 1.1 million children in the Ivory Coast were engaged in the most common Worst Forms of Child Labor as recognized by the United Nations… up from 791,181 children from 2008 to 2009” (Berman, 2015). The benefactors of this child labor are huge multinational enterprises such as Nestle, Mars Inc., and The Hershey Co.

Globalization has led to a growing gap between those who have access and opportunities by which to thrive and those who do not. There are now 793 billionaires (as of 2009)—representing an essentially unimaginable amount of wealth. At the same time, there are millions of workers laboring in conditions we would likely consider inhumane, and doing so for starvation level wages. And still, there are those who do not even have access to jobs whose conditions are even worse. Globalization can benefit some but leaves other nation further and further behind.

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

Generally, globalism has been attributed to better worldwide communication, advanced technological development, and a higher international standard of living, and rightfully so. However, with all these new worldwide advantages comes a new type of human exploitation. Many companies, specifically American ones, have been quick to take advantage of the cheap and dangerous labor available in most of the undeveloped world. Countries who are working through their period of Industrialization are being siphoned off and used to maintain America’s economy, while their developing country reaps no reward from the low paying, dehumanizing jobs that American companies offer their low class workers. This type of inhumane job outsourcing can only be compared

It is very sad that our civilization place the human rights of companies or corporations to profit over human and labor rights. In the Western World, some of the working condition and wages are not the best for any human being to experience. This types of conditions hurts the poor and the richer keeps getting richer. Bottom line the globalization is not up to par with what was intended to be,in fact, it is a major problem that what it was expected.

In the race to the bottom, as Mark promptly points out, when price is a priority, workers’ safety is not. However, due to wide unemployment and lack of alternatives in Bangladesh, the workers are ready to work for wages that are next-to-nothing. These workers or proletariats, according to Karl Marx, who have nothing to offer but their labor, are boldly exploited by the bourgeoisie, the owners, to accumulate profits for themselves, disregarding the poor condition of the workers. It also agrees with the conflict view that offshoring leads to further global inequality and the case in question clearly provides an empirical evidence for the argument. Barry however deserves appraisal because unlike his competitor giants, he cares about his workers, paying them three times the minimum wage and checking up on them every few months.

Globalization and its economic, cultural and technological effects characterize the modern international political economy. As the world has become increasingly integrated both winners and losers have emerged in the international system. The benefits of globalization are disproportionally enjoyed by the developed nations of the Global North. This is evidenced by the income inequality that exists between the Global North and the Global South. So the question then arises of what can be done to help decrease income inequality in developing countries. One approach that we will study is will be the adoption of organized labor. Some believe that organized labor could be a powerful catalyst for stimulating economic growth in developing nations. As wages are kept low and labor standards either do not exist or are not enforced, workers in developing nations seem to be doomed to perpetual oppression and exploitation by the advanced industrialized countries. However, as we shall see, organized labor is not the answer. The adoption of organized labor would not decrease income inequality in the Global South, as doing so would be counterproductive to employment growth in a climate of increasing globalization. Instead, countries in the Global South may want to consider social protection and educational initiatives that would

“Globalization means different things to different people,” so therefore individuals have their own standpoints regarding various things. In this case, an issue that has arisen is the allegation of mistreatment of employees in developing countries. Slimline is an apparel manufacturer in Sri Lanka, which does business disparately. The company employs 5000+ employees, whom help produced $50 million worth of apparel annually. In this company, the entry level wages are set higher than the local markets and to mention that some of their employees have undergraduate and graduate degrees. Slimline does not have the typical

From an average American's perspective, globalization is a win-win situation for everyone involvedt. But we fail to see the other end of this situation, where lower-class families around the world are faced with troubles. In countries such as Indonesia and India, American companies purposely set up factories and take advantage of the population by giving them wages below minimum wage to manufacture their products. Families are forced to send their children to work in these factories in order to make enough money to survive. When there is only enough money to put food on the table, living conditions are poor and necessities such as clean water are not as available as they are for us Americans. In other countries such as Colombia, the drug

In the United States, child labor and sweatshops are illegal, and society frowns upon any business that exploits children in the production of goods. Though most would say that they would not support a company that uses child labor to produce its goods, almost everyone has, in fact, knowingly or unknowingly, supported these businesses in one way or another. Children are involved in the production of many of the everyday goods we import from overseas, including the manufacturing of clothes, shoes, toys, and sporting equipment, the farming of cocoa, cotton, sugarcane, and bananas, and the mining of coal, diamonds, and gold (The U.S. Dept. of Labor). Often, we are blinded to this fact.

Globalization can be seen as a major threat for manufacturing jobs in the developed world, however, can also be a benefit for developing world citizens who receive thousands of jobs a year although they don’t receive a high salary. Maurice Allais, a French economist states that this unemployment, of course, has only been able to develop because of the existence of low salaries and insufficient flexibility in the labor market (April 10th, 1999). This indicates that globalization has jeopardized Western countries jobs because companies are moving their establishments to developing countries where they don’t need to pay employees as much and where land is cheaper so overall businesses benefit from this. Also, employees in the developed world are at risk of becoming redundant as they are susceptible to face pay cuts in jobs. Employees are less skilled in the developing world as they don’t receive the benefit of an education like developed countries do. So a company may want to build factories in these countries because environmental laws aren’t as strict. Establishments in these areas provides promising jobs for the local people and allows them to learn new skills, however they are set on minimum wage which in developed world countries, this would not be enough to live on, wherein third world countries this is still a low amount so this is not enough to bring them out of poverty meaning that the only one who benefits from this is the company. Although there have been several arguments against exploitation and oppression, the majority of developing countries do not have existing laws which take minimum wage