Global Inequality

Global Inequality

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Global Stratification

• Global inequality is concentrating resources in certain nations and is significantly affecting the opportunities of people in poorer and less powerful countries.

• Global stratification is the unequal distribution among nations.

• Moved from cold war terms to world systems

• World Bank classifications -> gross national incomes: high income nations $12,746, middle income nations $1045-$12,745, and low income nations less than $1,045

Problems for high income nations

• Capital flight is when capital moves from one country to another. For example, GM closing factories in the US and going to Mexico

• Deindustrialization happens when capital flights occurs because no new companies open to replace jobs lost to foreign nations
  

Middle income nations problems

Debt accumulation is the build up of external debt, wherein countries borrow money from other nations to fund their expansion or growth goals

Theories

• Dependency theory argues that low income countries are exploited by wealthy countries and multinational corporations

• World Systems Theory believes that countries are connected in a global capitalistic system into core, semi-periphery, and periphery countries.

• Modernization theory claims that low income countries can improve their status by adjusting their cultural values and attitudes of work and implement policies around industrialization and economic growth.

• Global Commodity theory focuses on how products are made around the world. There are worldwide networks of labor and production to finalize a commodity.
  

Where Do Commodities Come From?