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GLOBAL STRATIFICATION
Inequality on a world scale
Training Handout
Wealth, power and prestige differ between countries
There
are four main theories of global stratification.
The idea of global stratification
is one that looks at inequality or stratification between whole
countries.
We have a range between rich countries
and poor countries, but stratification means much more than relative per
capita income.
The relations between countries is
related to where they are ranked on a stratification scale.
Those relations are mainly economic,
but also political and have elements in all six dimensions.
These are the four main theories
and explanations for global stratification patterns: (1) imperialism, (2)
world system, (3) culture of poverty and (4) dependency theories.
While imperialism goes back in history
to the empires of China, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Rome, it is with the advent
of global interaction and colonization by European countries of the rest
of the world where this theory rests.
Exploitation of colonies set the
scene for continued exploitation of natural resources from them.
Technically Canada was a colony,
but it also has participated in the exploitation of colonies in the British
Empire.
Wallerstein proposed world systems
theory identifying the rich countries as core nations, and those around
them as semi periphery and periphery states that depend upon core nations
for trade, providing raw materials for the core nations to use in manufacture
and sell back as finished products.
External nations, mainly
in Asia and Africa, were left out of the trade.
Dependence theory attributes the
low income of least developed nations to the dominance of most developed
nations.
Single crop economies
are associated with least developed nations.
Canada has elements of both, but
being wealthy, tends to benefit from a world system in spite of being a
producer of raw material.
Galbraith suggested that nations
at the bottom of the stratification structure remain there because they
have values, customs, traditions and ways of life that hinder them from
taking risk from breaking out of the constrictions of poverty, and hold
them in place at the bottom.
This resembles a “blame the victim” theory.
The simulation game, the
Power
of Suns, is a good "doing" method to learn about inequality.
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2011.08.16
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