Although economic inequality is the result of numerous factors, it is
nourished to a large extent by the difference in access to technology.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, developed countries held
97 percent of patents, while the United States alone contained more
computers than the rest of the world.^46 At the same time, half the
population in the South had never placed a telephone call.^47 Clearly,
the promises of greater and more equitably shared prosperity often
associated with globalization have remained a long way from being
fulfilled. In fact, since the acceleration of globalization in the early
1990s, the world GDP per capita growth rate has slowed relative to
the previous three decades.^48 The 1990s were particularly dramatic
050001000015000200002500030000350001960–62 2000–0220 poorest countries 20 richest countries2121141726732339Figure 3.3GDP per capita in the poorest and the richest countries, 1960–1962
and 2000–2002
Source:World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization,A Fair Globa-
lization: Creating Opportunities for All, Geneva, ILO, 2004, p. 37, Figure 11 (www.
ilo.org/public/english/wcsdg/index.htm).
(^46) See Oxfam-America, “Essential Facts about International Trade,” 2004
(www.oxfamamerica.org/advocacy/art6417.html) and Kofi A. Annan,“We the
Peoples:” The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century, New York,
United Nations, 2000, p. 32.
(^47) Ibid., p. 15.
(^48) World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization,A Fair
Globalization, p. 35, paragraph 174.
70 Left and Right in Global Politics