Does globalisation aggrevate or reduce inequalities between nations Essay

Does globalisation aggrevate or reduce inequalities between nations - Essay Example This is undeniably most relevant in the current state of the world where any economic change cannot be unaccomapined by cultural and social changes in the society. Infact it would not be wrong to say that this has been the trend over the last century where subordinate or colonised society's cultures are infilterated by the dominant economic power. The Australian society stands out as one such example. In the colonisation era, the affect of european culture was consistently observed in autralia up until 1948, and this has now been replaced by a distinctive American influence (which can be attributed to the strong American Economy). However contemporary globalisation is increasingly being associated with trends of inequality and wage distribution diffrences both on an intra nation and on a wider internation scale. These structural political-economic changes are generating greater social-spatial inequalities. As Rober Wade has states; ''Global inequality is worsening rapidly.... Technological change and financial liberalization result in a disproportionately fast increase in the number of households at the extreme rich end, without shrinking the distribution at the poor end.... From 1988 to 1993, the share of the world income going to the poorest 10 percent of the world's population fell by over a quarter, whereas the share of the richest 10 percent rose by 8 percent. The richest 10 percent pulled away from the median, while the poorest 10 percent fell away from the median, falling absolutely and by a large amount.'' - Robert Wade, The London School of Economics, The Economist, 2001 Such analysis of the situation supports the existing hypothesis that globalisation is inextricably linked with inequality. A look at the percapita income bteween countries reveals that an increasing trend of unequality in recent decades. The reports of World bank confirm this trend. For instance, in 1960 the average per-capita GDP in the richest 20 countries in the world was 15 times that of the poorest 20. In 2003 this gap had become 30 times (World Bank 2003). However the question that is inadvertantly would need to be raised is whether this econmic trend reflects greater openness to trade when it has been predicted that openness fosters higher not lower incomes. A historical Perspective The increasing inequality, without doubt is one of the most challenging aspects of the current wave of globalization. None the less it it important to understand the significance of this aspect, in the context of a historical persepective of globalisation. Past several decades or infact phases of globalization have coincided with increasing inequality within countries but an inequlaity between nations was never observed. The world bank has esatblished three phases of glabalisation; the pre world war I, the post world war I and the present phase.The first two phases saw much disparity on an intra nation level but the third world did not catch up with the first world or even with the then existing second world. However increasing technology and communications which are vital part of the 3rd or presnt phase of globalisation has seen what may best be termed as a global and internation effect of trends of liberalisation. If they are far reaching, we do not know, but the nature of this exi siting association shall be discussed further on. The association between globalisation and inequality There are two