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It seems clear that globalisation has coincided with and probably caused increased inequality within the US, but has it decreased inequality within the global system - i.e. by enabling China/India and their workers to move up the food chain?  

It isn't workers that benefit from this the most.

Remember that while the relative distance between China and India and the developing world is closing, inside of India and China, inequality between rich and poor is rapidly increasing.  I know more about China than India.  To give an example in 1980, China's gini coefficient was in the 20s, it was similar to the Scandinavian countries.  Now it's in the upper 40s, and it approaching Latin American levels.   India, I don't have stats for.

So what we are witnessing is the growth of inequality within nations, at the same time that inequality between them is shrinking.  (And don't forget that Africa is falling ever further behind.)

So there is no birth of a global middle class.  Instead there is the segregation of the world into rich and poor.  The difference is that this class system is no longer quite so color coded......

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Sat Jan 10th, 2009 at 04:38:13 PM EST
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Looking at the ranking of countries by Gini index there appears to be a  correlation between high inequality and low economic performance which confirms your basic thesis.  However rapid increases in average GDP/Capita also seems to correlate with increasing Gini within a nation.  Whether this is a temporary phenomenon which occurs during a growth spurt and which stabilises as an economy stabilises (and the increased income is gradually re-distributed) is an interesting question, and one which I do not have the data to answer.

However the clearest correlation appears to be between a high degree of correlation between democratic political development and lower inequality as it takes strong governance answerable to the greatest number for income redistribution to be enforced through the state.

As capital is a lot more mobile than people it is natural for capital to gravitate to areas of lowest re-distribution - e.g. tax shelters and trading hubs such as Singapore - thus giving the appearance of a correlation between aggregate wealth and low regulation/re-distribution.

Only a system of global re-distribution/governance can prevent capital flows from systematically reinforcing inequality.

notes from no w here

by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Sun Jan 11th, 2009 at 10:14:37 AM EST
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... since reversion to a system of regulatory permission required for large cross-border capital transfers would also prevent capital flows from systematically reinforcing inequality.

That is, after all, what was in effect during the 1950's and 1960's, when persistent systematic declines in national income inequality was far more common than today.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Sun Jan 11th, 2009 at 11:50:23 AM EST
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However a reversion to national regulation also assumes that the economy can be renationalised.  However if the global economy is dominated by global corporations with opaque internal transfer pricing etc. it is doubtful whether that genie can be put back into the bottle.  A standard global corporation profits tax payable wherever the profit is generated would remove the incentive to to cook the books or divert resources for purely tax avoidance reasons..

notes from no w here
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Sun Jan 11th, 2009 at 12:49:07 PM EST
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Don't forget that its the second age of globalisation, not the first ... we reverted to national controls on capital flows after the first age of globalisation drew to a close with the rise of the trading blocs in the early 1900's.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Sun Jan 11th, 2009 at 02:44:44 PM EST
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Most of the transnats wouldn't survive two seconds of determined trust-busting. Most of them are monopolies and oligopolies on the style of the railroad robber barons.

And besides, any company with a turnover equivalent to the GDP of a moderately sized African republic needs to be either nationalised, broken into itty bitty pieces or taken out behind the woodshed and shot. To prevent it from buying politicians like they were toy cars, for no other reason.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Jan 11th, 2009 at 05:34:29 PM EST
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That should be "if for no other reason."

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Jan 11th, 2009 at 05:35:57 PM EST
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