• describe the debate over globalization and inequality
• summarize the main arguments of each side in the debate
• state your position in the debate
• support your position

The war on terrorism -- and the rupture in the Western alliance produced by the Iraqi war -- might sharply slow down the international movement of capital and people for an extended period. This will please the more extreme critics of globalization and immigration, but it will greatly reduce the opportunities for poor nations to grow out of poverty.

• give examples of countries that grew out of poverty thanks to globalization
• explain how globalization helps poor countries reduce poverty
• argue that the “more extreme critics of globalization and immigration” are wrong

Anybody interested in the wealth and poverty of nations must be interested in what is happening to the global distribution of income, one would suppose. A lot turns on the question. If the world's income distribution has become more equal in the past few decades, this would be powerful evidence that globalisation works to the benefit of all. It would give developing countries good reason to integrate their economies closely into the world economy, as the IMF and the World Bank--and their mostly rich-country shareholders--urge them to do. It would answer some of the fears of the anti-globalisation protesters. And it would help to settle a crucial and long-standing disagreement in economic theory, between the orthodox view that economic growth naturally delivers "convergence" of rich and poor countries, and alternative theories which, for one reason or another, say the opposite.

Despite its importance, this issue has received rather little attention within the fields of development studies, international relations and (until very recently) international economics. Neither the World Bank nor the IMF has devoted significant resources to studying it. Many analysts apparently take it for granted that global inequality is falling. Others think it sufficient to focus on poverty, and ignore inequality as such. Both these views need to be challenged. New evidence suggests that global inequality is worsening rapidly. There are good reasons to worry about that trend, quite apart from what it implies about the extent of world poverty.

“Globalization" has become today's buzz word. It has also become a battle ground for two radically opposed groups. There are the "anti-globalists" who fear globalization and stress only its downside, seeking therefore powerful interventions aimed at taming, if not (unwittingly) crippling it. Then there are the "globalists" (a class to which I belong) who celebrate globalization instead, emphasize its upside, while seeking only to ensure that its few rough edges be handled through appropriate policies that serve to make globalization yet more attractive.

Many anti-globalists consider the central problem of globalization to be its amorality, or even its immorality. But these critics have too blanket an approach to globalization. The word covers a variety of phenomena that characterize an integrating world economy: trade, short-term capital flows, direct foreign investment, immigration, cultural convergence et al. The sins of one of the above cannot be visited upon the virtues of another. Some are benign even when largely unregulated whereas others can be fatal if left wholly to the marketplace.

In particular, the freeing of trade is largely benign: if I exchange some of my toothpaste for some of your toothbrushes, we will both be better off than if we did not trade at all.

Student essay

The environmental effects of globalization involve international organizations, countries, and multinational corporations in an ongoing system of negotiations, lawsuits, and discussions on a global scale. Some argue that globalization helps the environment in the long term because as countries acquire wealth, they can buy technology to clean up the pollution caused by the onset of industry. Others feel that most of the wealth from industry goes to large transnational corporations which have little interest in investing in environmental projects. Indeed, global corporations have a poor track record on the environment. So globalization does have a negative impact on the environment in poor countries.

None of this addresses another of Mr Wade's arguments: that inequality is a bad thing in itself, regardless of the extent of poverty. Many people would agree with that--though it has some strange implications. One is that you could regard a country with more equality as a greater success than another, even if the egalitarian country had not merely lower incomes on average, but also more people in absolute poverty. Mr Wade's points about inequality and social stress are well taken. Yet pulling up the poor still seems a nobler calling than pulling down the rich.

A confidante of Republican powerbroker James Baker made the following comment to the Washington Monthly on the considerations that had led Baker to agree to head the ISG: “Baker is primarily motivated by his desire to avoid a war at home—that things will fall apart not on the battlefield but at home. So he wants a ceasefire in American politics.”

This militarist response is another indication of the declining US influence in Africa and globally. The Los Angeles Times pointed out that the US had been increasing aid to Africa. “So far, however, the Chinese approach, focusing on economic cooperation, appears to be gaining ground. Bush has not visited Africa since his first term. By contrast, top Chinese officials have relayed across the continent every few months, winning points with no-strings-attached promises of economic support,” the article commented.

"The dramas that contained the seeds of today's rebellion played out in obscurity, as yet imperceptible to the naked American eye," Sweig writes in the course of her sweeping and pungent review of abrasive American foreign policies.

Kuznetsdid not feel the same about the rise as he did about the fall of inequality. That inequality tended to decline at some advanced stage of development, he seemed quite confident. . . .He emphasized the role of sectoral shifts as an engine of inequality, and mused more vaguely about the possible importance of the demographic transition.

Similarly, interest groups in developed nations benefit from favorable treatment by their governments, but these favors victimize people in developing nations who are trying to compete. It is bad enough, Stiglitz says, that thousands of wealthy American cotton farmers get billions of dollars in government subsidies; it is even worse that this depresses the world price of cotton, further impoverishing millions of African cotton farmers.

There's no proving Sweig's contention that Bush's "policies and nonpolicies . . . stripped bare the latent structural anti-American animus that had accumulated over time," but Kohut's Pew Research Center polls show that global opinion of the United States has plummeted under Bush — not just since its unnatural post-9/11 high, but since he took office.

Brooks claims that this reduction in poverty "supports the argument that we are seeing a drop in global inequality" and goes on to make the oversimplified, unqualified and unwarranted (by the data cited) argument that globalization "explains all this good news."

Is growth in fact shared "up and down the income ladder" under globalization? According to Korzeniewicz and Moran's analysis of World Bank data, "The share of world income accruing to the poorest 40% of the world's population diminished over the 1965-1990 period from 5.1% to 3.2%."

Charles states that globalization leads to “rising affluence” which is an important prerequisite to environmental improvement. Though economic growth through industrialization causes air and water pollution in the beginning stages, countries later become rich enough to purchase corrective technology. Mander disagrees and points to evidence which shows that most of the benefits of industrialization goes to the global corporations which have no motivation to invest in studies. Mander’s argument seems to be more realistic because corporations which invest in developing countries only do as long as it serves their gain.

Charles claims that global corporations, when setting up their facilities, consider it more important to go after access to markets and low labor costs than to search around for “low environment regulations.” Also, that managers of global corporations tend to maintain high environmental standards. Mander refutes this argument by establishing that one agent of globalization, the World Trade Organization,has repeatedly challenged laws protecting the environment. The WTO’s first action was to challenge the US Clean Air Act which contained a clause against polluting gasolene. So it seems that even though global corporations put up a façade of only seeking markets and labor, they are working through their agents like the WTO, to soften stringent measures supporting the environment before attempting to set up shop.

So, in examining these two opposing viewpoints on the impact of globalization on the environment, we see that, superficially, they both have strong arguments. Charles claims that the increased wealth of countries, through global industrialization, will lead to clean air and water, eventually, through the introduction of corrective technologies. Mander states that this is not so because the foreign corporations reap the major profits from these business ventures, and if anyone should spend to clean up the mess it should be them; but they have little need to spend money for this. If a country has a natural resource but does not have the financial capabilities to exploit it, then it could allow a foreign corporation to help. However, it should maintain the protective measures to preserve its ecological status quo and force that corporation to operate within those guidelines, for the welfare of it citizens. Mander’s criticism is valid because he shows how global corporations exploit foreign countries for profit and disregard environmental considerations.