The Process of Globalization Has Become Solidified as a Central Political Agenda - Essay Example

Consideration will be paid to living conditions and the exploitation of labour as evidence of greater inequality and a worse situation under globalization. INTRODUCTION: In the past decade, the process of globalization has become solidified as a central political agenda in the developed or Western world.

That this phenomenon has led to the “polarization” between the “rich” and “poor” is substantiated in countless studies [Rapley, 2003: 87; Murshed, 2002: 2; Beck, 2000: 57; McGrew and Poku, 2007: 7]. It will be argued in the following analysis, that there is greater inequality precisely because of the structural conditions that have created globalization. It will be argued that the neoliberal agenda, in theory, practice, and influence are precisely what makes inequality an indisputable problem.

Thus, inequality due to globalization is systemic in nature and measured in impact by an increased degree of polarization between the rich and poor. It will be argued that globalization increases inequality. NEOLIBERAL BACKGROUND: Globalization is largely a post-war (1945 -) phenomenon. It describes the process whereby ‘trade’, ‘economies’ and ‘communication’ become more integrated on a world scale [Ohmae, 1991: 192]. Largely speaking, it has been facilitated by a marked increase in a variety of technologies, such as progress in the areas of transportation and telecommunications, and it has been also facilitated by relative political stability and a consensus of market capitalism.

As a term, it was coined in the early 1950s but did not come into prominence in political literature until the late 1960s [Hopkins, Ed., 2004: 4ff]. One of the defining features of this process is that it is largely market-driven, and as Moody [1998] argues, legitimated by the rise of neo-liberalism coinciding with the decline of Keynesian economic models [Moody, 1998: 119]. That is, and in brief, Keynesian economic theory, posited that the means of creating economic growth was to centrally control an economy to some extent, and this entailed establishing a social infrastructure that placed money directly into the hands of individuals within a society.

The theory suggested that by increasing the amount a government spent in areas such as social programs, the greater the prospects that the benefactors would generate revenue for the economy in general or a “believe that money earned by the richest would trickle down to the poorest” [Boyle and Sims, 2009: 27]. By contrast, neo-liberalism maintained that by cutting social programs, and in turn, reducing government spending and therefore taxes, more wealth would be generated through the reinvestment of income which would have been paid in taxes: “This new policy approach was neoliberalism: a mixture of neoclassical economic fundamentalism, market regulation in place of state guidance, economic redistribution in favor of capital (known as ‘supply-side’ economics)[Moody, 1998: 119].