Global Inequality
systematic differences in wealth and power between countries.
Differences in health, hunger, malnutrition, famine
rich gets richer, poor get poorer
newly industrializing economies (NIEs)
Developing countries that over the past 2 or 3 decades have begun to develop a strong industrial base, such as Hong Kong and Singapore.
Market-oriented theories
Theories about economic development that assume that the best possible economic consequences will result if individuals are free to make their own economic decisions, uninhibited by governmental constraint.
Modernization Theory
Argues that low-income societies can develop economically only if they give up their traditional ways and adopt modern economic institutions, technologies, and cultural values that emphasize savings and product investment.
W.W. Rostow
economic growth going through several stages:
1. traditional stage (low saving, lack of work ethic)
2. takeoff to economic growth (poor countries start to invest for the future)
3. drive to technological maturity (with help and advice from wealthy countries)
4. high mass consumption (achieve high standard of living)
neoliberalism
belief that free-market forces, achieved by minimizing government restrictions on business, provide the only route to economic growth.
dependency theories
marxist theories of economic development arguing that the poverty of low-income countries stems directly from their exploitation by wealthy countries and the multinational corporations that are based in wealthy countries.
colonialism
the process by whereby western nations established their rule in parts of the world away from their home territories.
world-systems theory
immanuel wallerstein;
emphasizes the interconnections among countries based on the expansion of a capitalist world economy. This economy is made up of core countries, semi peripheral countries, and peripheral countries.
core countries
most advanced industrialized countries
peripheral countries
countries that have a marginal role in the world economy and are thus dependent on the core producing societies for their trading relationships.
semiperipheral countries
supply sources of labor and raw material to core countries but are not fully industrialzed themselves.
global commodity chain
a worldwide network of labor and production processes yielding a finished product.