Assault on Paradise: Perspectives on Globalization and Class Struggles

Chapter One: Historical Overview

1 Chapter One Historical Overview Overview Historically, social class and class inequality constitute a core area of study in sociology, and the social sciences in general, and are the basis of the study of class relations and class conflict on a global scale, especially under conditions of contemporary neoliberal globalization. Societies have been divided along class lines ever since the development of social classes several thousands of years ago. Based mainly on property ownership, but also income, wealth, and a number of other dimensions, social classes have developed and become a familiar feature of societies across the globe–from early despotic empires through slavery, feudalism, and modern capitalism. Introduction Social classes and class conflict have defined social relations ever since the division of society into hostile classes based on the exploitation and oppression of one class by another. This has become especially important in modern capitalist society through the globalization process, where class divisions have solidified with enormous inequalities in wealth and income that are the most glaring in the history of humanity. Class and Class Conflict in the Age of Globalization present a macro-sociological analysis of class and class conflict through a comparative-historical perspective. Focusing on class as the motive force of social transformation, let us explore class relations and class conflict in a variety of social settings, stressing the centrality of this phenomenon in defining social relations across societies in the age of neoliberal globalization. Historical Flashback Let us start by reminding our readers that globalization is not a novelty. Capitalism has been of a global character since the time Europeans began setting up colonies in the 1400s. Colonial economies were organized to suit 2 the needs of the core countries of the capitalist world system (Chase-Dunn, 1989; Frank, 1978; Wallerstein, 1974). Although the principles of globalization have been around for the “longue durée,” there are nonetheless several elements of globalization that are widely accepted as representing the current phase of global capitalist development. The increasing interconnectedness of markets, finances, goods and services, and the growing stature of transnational corporate networks heavily influence the economic, political, and cultural processes of globalization today (Chase-Dunn, 1999). Cvetkovich, et. al. (1997) notes that this influence involves creating a new world market, new transnational political organizations and a new global culture. This process of globalization is not linear, but rather involves a dialectical relationship between its economic, political, and cultural dimensions that often appears contradictory and chaotic. Economics The economics of globalization represents the contemporary process of capitalist accumulation. This process is manifest through global commodity chains and a global division of labour, the global mobility of capital, the increasing concentration of industries into a small number of transnational corporations, the development of global regulatory institutions, and a shift in world trade from goods and services to financial instruments. At the centre of this process are international elites who have been able to bring the world economy under the domain of multinational corporations without losing the national economic priorities of the leading core states (Arrighi, 1994). Although the relationship between governments in the core states and elements of the international elite (the majority of the latter are citizens of core states) has been mainly harmonious, at times it is prone to tension and overt disagreement. Economic globalization can be demonstrated empirically by looking at the increasing percentage of world trade as a percentage of world production (Chase-Dunn, 1999). The Human Development Report (HDR) notes this increase in international trade: “world exports, now $7 trillion, average 21 per cent of GDP in the 1990s compared to 17 per cent of a much smaller GDP in the 1970s” (UNDP, 2000:25). This growth in international trade is necessarily accompanied by increasing transnational linkages in production, which is further facilitated by technological improvements undertaken by transnational corporations in core capitalist states. Economic globalization has accelerated because of the post 1960s “electronics revolution,” which “transformed the quantitative possibilities of transferring cash and money 3 capital into qualitatively new forms of corporate and personal financing, entrepreneurship, and, crucially, the system of credit on which the global culture and ideology of consumerism largely rests” (Sklair,1995; 1999: 150). In 1980 average daily foreign exchange trading totalled $80 billion, “today it is estimated that more than $1,500 billion changes hands daily on the global currency markets” (Ellwood, 2002:72). Politics The politics of globalization is represented by the emergence of...