Globalization and Labor
Globalization is a term used in a multiplicity of senses, such as the global interdependence of nations, the growth of a world system, accumulation on a world scale, and the global village (Petras Pp). All of these concepts, as well as many others, are rooted in the general notion that the "accumulation of capital, trade and investment is no longer confined to a nation-state" (Petras Pp). Globalization in the most general sense refers to the "cross-national flows of goods, investment, production and technology," and for advocates, the scope and depth of these flows have created a new world order, "with its own institutions and configurations of power that have replace the structures of nation-states" (Petras Pp). Globalization has deepened and extended the international division of labor, with everything from automobile parts to information collection and analysis now out-sourced to labor in distant nation-states (Petras Pp). Exporting labor to the Third World nations for the purpose of retaining a mass of low paid workers is increasingly advancing, and is merely a continuation of previous international division of labor between mining and agricultural workers in the Third World and manufacturing and service workers in the imperial countries (Petras Pp).
In "Globalization: A Critical Analysis" James Petras argues that social conditions at the dawn of the twenty-first century are reverting to the nineteenth century (Petras Pp). Health care now more precarious and more dependent on income levels, has left more than sixty million Americans with either inadequate health care or none at all, and over ten million children with no health coverage (Petras Pp). Job insecurity has increased as more companies resort to subcontract part-time and temporary work, forcing families to work at below subsistence minimum wage, and more hours than they did thirty years ago (Petras Pp). Moreover, retirement age is reaching nearly seventy years old, employers no longer provide pension plans, and the use of prison-labor by private employers is increasing (Petras Pp). Adding to this the fact that the number of children in orphanages growing, as well as the number of children living in poverty, "inequalities approach or surpass" nineteenth century levels, says Petras (Petras Pp). In both Europe and North America, the future for most of the younger generation looks insecure and fearful, making this the first generation since World War II that will be "down-wardly mobile," promising a prolonged work life under declining wages with no job security or social assistance (Petras Pp).
Politically the big push toward globalization was a result of a dramatic change in political power away from leftist, populist and nationalist regimes toward globalist governments (Petras Pp). In social term, the push resulted from the "defeat and retreat of trade unions, the declining influence of the working class, lower middle class and peasantry" (Petras Pp). The ascendancy of the social classes engaged in the international networks of CGT, particularly the financial sector, "set the stage for the gobalist counter-revolution (Petras Pp).
What began in certain Third World countries, such as Chile and Mexico, and imperial centers, such as the United States and England, spread throughout the world in an uneven fashion, leaving the greatest social crisis in precisely the countries that have advanced furthest in globalization (Petras Pp). The United States, followed by England, has the greatest number of workers without medical coverage, non-unionized workers, temporary or part-time labor force with no or minimum social benefits such as vacations and pensions (Petras Pp). The much vaunted low unemployment rate of the United States in contrast to Europe is counter-balanced by the highest rate of low wage, vulnerable workers, "conditions unacceptable to the European labor movements" (Petras Pp). A similar process is occurring in the Third World, with unemployment rates pushing twenty percent in Argentina and Brazil, rates that multiplied with the globalization of their economies (Petras Pp). Similar processes are occurring in Eastern Europe where living standards have fallen between thirty and eighty percent since the transition to capitalism began in the late 1980's (Petras Pp). Mexico, the model Third World country, has seen wage earning income levels plummet to thirty percent of their levels fifteen years ago (Petras Pp).
The structural power of the globalist classes is the cause and consequence of the structural adjustment policies, SAP, which have been informally and formally implemented (Petras Pp). In reality, SAP is a process of "income reconcentration" through cuts in social spending, corporate tax reductions and increased subsidies (Petras Pp).
The concentration of power in the hands of employers at the expense of wage workers (dubbed "flexibilization of labor")
leads to rigidities in the hierarchy...
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