Sociology Now, Census Update

call centers in developing nations like India and China. Then, production line jobs

began to move overseas where labor was cheaper and factories could be built with-

out bowing to environmental regulations. Now even white-collar jobs like sales and

service have also been outsourced.

Although research, development, production, and distribution occur in many dif-

ferent countries, the “knowledge labor” tends to occur in the wealthy countries of

United States, Europe, or Japan, while the unskilled and semiskilled factory work takes

place in poor countries like Mexico, Sri Lanka, or Tanzania. Even on the global level,

the gap between rich and poor is increasing as globalization reinforces or even

increases the stark inequalities of income and wealth around the world (Figure 13.2).

By linking different national economies together and by transforming labor into

a global exchange, globalization rapidly increases the integration of the economies

of the world. At the same time, resistance to globalization is likely to remain national

or local or regional, with either socialist ideas about the nationalization of wealth or

traditional religions as the only reference points of resistance.

Globalization links owners and managers into an interlocking system of a man-

agerial elite; often managers from Sri Lanka and Belgium will have more in common

with each other (consumption patterns, tastes in art and music, and so on) than either

will with the working class in his or her own country. However, while the elite at the

top become more integrated and cohesive, the working classes will remain fractured

and distant from each other, asserting local, regional, and cultural differences as a

way to resist integration. In this way, also, the globalizing rich become richer and the

globalized poor become poorer.

424 CHAPTER 13ECONOMY AND WORK

No data

Under $2,000

Wealth Per Capita

$2,000–$9,999

$10,000–$49,999

Over $50,000

FIGURE 13.2 World Wealth Levels in the Year

Source:From World Distributing Household Wealth,World Institute for Development Economic Research of United Nations University, December 2006.
Reprinted with permission.