Why Is the Global Divide Between Rich and Poor So Vast?

The core difference between the transition to capitalism in the Core (the US, Japan Western Europe) and the Periphery (the Third World) is the gradual development of a broad, middle class based internal market in the Core vs. very little such occurance in the Periphery. The Periphery developed very quickly in the late nineteenth century during the scramble for colonies whereby Core powers like England and Japan went in search of markets, raw materials, cheap labor and dumping grounds for surplus urban populations created by rapid industrialization. This search was itself generated by a rapid industrialization in the Core. The Periphery was integrated into a general global economy as a complimentary yet subordinate adjunct or "dependency" of the Core. Patterns of trade and investment were controlled by the Core and structured to mostly serve its interests to the exclusion of the Periphery. This phenomenon has shaped the economic and social development of the Periphery ever since and has been the bane of its existance serving as the basis of so many of its glaring economic problems from massive foreign debt to grinding poverty.

Though social class, and the idea of a supportive "Comprador Bourgeousie" in the Periphery is key to this model of global inequality, it is a Nation-State based model of international inequality. It has been eclipsed by the current globalization model of a transnational capitalist class.

In the Dependancy era, the Core exploited the Periphery. In the Global era national boundaries have less importance although wealth is still concentrated in the core. The Periphery is impoverished through debt and IMF stabilization restrictions which have entailed a massive transfer of assets and wealth from the core to the periphery. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, over 60 billion in public third world productive and infrastructural assets were transfered to private corporations in the Core through selloffs to pay public debts, although sometimes private interests in the periphery also benefitted monetarily through financial gains which brought them politically and economically closer to the interests of the Core in the transition to a global economy from one entailing efforts at national development in the periphery. This in part drove globalization and the rise of a transnationalized third world bourgeousie like the Mexican elite or the South Korean Chaebol. The latter, worth hundreds of billions, were promoted in the 1960s with government assistence as a mode of national development and have become more debt ridden and dependant on the Japanese manufacturers and US markets in the global era after the IMF was used to restructure the Korean economy and reduce traditional government protection and aid in order to reduce Korean economic independance. The Chaebol are still big global players and an even more concentrated significance in the Korean economy. The Chaebol's orientation has gone from being an engine of national development to global expansion and competition regardless of its overall effects on the national picture in Korea. They have become an example of a transnationalized bourgeousie in the global economy.

The globalization model of the world economy is based more on class than the nation-state. The "development of underdevelopment" experienced by much of the periphery through its relations with the core reflects this in the massive social inequalities seen in the periphery and in the entire world today.

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understanding of Economics as a structured field of study. However, Clark’s article created a train of thought that I responded to by writing down some of the ideas it provoked. I post them here because otherwise they’d just sit in the bowels of my hard drive, and maybe out here in the air of what is sometimes reasoned discourse, they might serve as a stimulant to better ideas.

First I think we need a definition of working that examines the very goal of work. What do we want to get out of work? What do we need from work? Might working be related as much to our inherent creativity as to the need to produce resources for life?

Given freedom to discover the world in a less culturally determined way—perhaps guided by wisdom derived from new understandings of human developmental stages (see Joseph Chilton Pearce)—we would be in a position to see our environment in a more whole form. By honoring and encouraging childhood capacities of , for instance, language acquisition (see Benjamin Whorf) while understanding the impact on world view of noun and verb based languages, we would experience a larger sensory, emotional and intellectual relationship with the material realm. What new—or ancient ways—of creating what we need in collaboration with—rather than in defiance of—the natural world might we discover—or create with these capacities encouraged rather than stifled by the narrow goals of enculturation?

Honoring the human urge to create art (see Rudolf Steiner)might lead to an ethics of aesthetics—a love and exploration of beauty to nurture our souls as a valid form of work. From this, it seems reasonable to conclude, we are capable of generating more loving, wise, and healthful ways of meeting our needs—both physical and non-physical—while exploring our vast untapped creative potential.

And of course happiness doesn’t come from economic growth! Why would it take a global study to show that? Don’t we already know that viscerally? It seems rather that cultural lack of validation for creative potential (often an intentional stomping out of creative urges) leads to the acquisition of money as a low-grade surrogate for personal power and creative expression.

In regard to fecundity and economics, it seems logical that the rich would have more children in that they could afford to feed, clothe and shelter their offspring while the poor could not. The rich could also afford medical attention—in whatever form it was available at given points in history—for instance, midwife assistance at births to reduce childbirth deaths or wet-nursing services to assure the infant adequate nourishment. Perhaps it’s not so much a question of fecundity as of resources which—in a wiser society would be available to all.

This leads, of course, to the question of overpopulation with which the globe is currently faced. Perhaps a nurtured creativity would help us realize that fewer children—guided by emotionally healthy, wiser, more loving, creative adults would inevitably perpetuate adequate material resources as well as the happiness derived from personal creative contributions to production and maintenance of those resources.

And, yes, I know this is a circle requiring focus shifts to allow intervention, perhaps in earliest childhood education (not Education as the institution, but education in its etymological sense), “educere, ‘bring out,’ from ex- ‘out’ + ducere ‘to lead.’" Such a definition and practice of education would focus on drawing out that which we know—our individual perspective of the world.

Recall the story of the blind men and the elephant. Only by realizing that each has a single—but valid—perspective and by sharing those perspectives with good will and common intention will they come to some understanding of “elephant.”

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so this article isn't advocating or even attempting to understand the root of economic inequality. You can't begin your exploration with the industrial revolution, you must begin with the granting of exclusive title to the basis of all wealth, nature. Economics isn't difficult to understand, but the kind built to justify such a gross injustice in the midst of an otherwise open society is endlessly complicated. Did someone say Henry George?

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Income inequality is very simply explained. It is called "human greed." Look, in America, the top 1% owns over 30% of the wealth. The rich get richer, and the rich take from the poor to get richer. Without a framework of income redistribution and social welfare, it only gets worse. This applies not only within a country, but also between countries. Rich countries often try to get richer by hoarding their wealth and not sharing it. Authors like this one also try to use skewed population numbers to justify not giving aid and assistance to those in poorer countries. But, it has been shown that even in so-called third world countries, people want the best medical care and the best education. To short change them on the basis of so-called "for your own good," and "until you develop the infrastructure we think you should have," is just IMF and World Bank logic. Read "Mountains Beyond Mountains," by Dr. Paul Farmer about this. He mainly focuses on medical care and public health, but the message is clear. To really help other people and other countries, we have to get our elite from just being greedy little bastards in hoarding all the wealth, and not use academic jingo jango and population numbers to justify the greed and the repression.

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Get it together!

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Immigrants are not sending money home to their countries.
Emigrants are sending money to their home countries.
Our immigrants are their emigrants.
thank you,
W

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This article also has another mistaken premise that I want to comment on. It is simply not true that wealthier societies tend to have higher populations and birth rates. If you take China and India together, that adds up to just about 3 billion people. Or, just a bit shy of total world population. Also, the USA and Western Europe, along with Australia and Canada, have actually shown declining, not rising, birth rates. Poorer societies with an agricultural base have actually tended to have more children. This would make sense based on economic necessity and high rates of infant mortality. My point, the authors thesis is flawed. I think he twists the facts a bit to justify his own historical analysis, while negating more contemporary trends. He should have stuck with what I think is the major problem. Again, human greed, and a distinct elite that wants to own and control all the bennies and all the money. And, unless governments can effectively deal with this (and not simply be just an extension of such an elite) we are all screwed. Because the elite will always want more. The author of this article should read Marx and Freud before writing his next book.

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Because it is the rich keeping the poor poor, duh. It is the rich who can (and do) influence the law, to keep the poor suppressed.

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Dennis Kucinich sort of amazed me with his ability to cut through this issue. I asked him, in person, this same question: "How do we solve the problems of inequity caused by greed?"

He went right to the point: "Status must be made to depend on service, not consumption."

Think about that.

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The question posed by this article could well be put to rest if one were to anthropomorphize Europe and USA. If they could but speak their 600-year program the answer to the "global divide" would emerge in a rush of delirious, vainglorious, arrogant and greedy gushes from the depths of their well-fed and pious bowels.

But as we all know Universals can't speak and thus the recurrence and circulation of the Why? wearing thinner and thinner, like an old penny laying in a parking lot somewhere in front of a convenience store. And then all the others jump up: How? Where? When? Who? What?

When Bush says "international community" he certainly does not mean what the Non-aligneds and the Bandungs meant by international community. When Bush says "freedom" he certainly doesn't mean what the slave-worker in a Florida orange grove means by freedom. When Bush says "democracy" he certainly does not mean what a Burmese dissident means when he says democracy. So it is with Brown in England, Merkel in Germany, Sarkozy in France, etc.

The Why? is just as cyclical as the capital business-cycle. And it expands in depth and breadth just along with its companion. Can it transcend its limits this time and yet again pretend 'the gap is closing'?

Why ask why?

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I say we go back to Colonialism so we can make sure the huddled masses of the Third World do what they need to to be like us. They obviously can't do it on their own. Or maybe a good old fashioned Communist Revolution for a century can get them straightened out. If they don't want our Colonial help, we owe them nothing.

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