Sociology Global Village or Global Pillage Review
...countries that will provide the lowest wages and the least amount of environmental control. “The race to the bottom” refers to this phenomenon that causes the world’s economy to be taken down to the level of the poorest and most desperate nations. There is no regulatory system to keep the practices of these corporations in check. The World Bank, The International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization are institutions that control the global economy. Instead of the governments of poor, developing nations making decisions, these institutions decide their economic futures. These institutions are unaccountable to democratic process. Corporations are searching for the workers who will take the least amount of pay. They are also skirting environmental regulations. The pollution not only hurts the local people in developing nations, but it affects people everywhere through global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer, deforestation, and the extinction of species. Globalization contributes to inequality in the United States. For example, when Westinghouse left its production center in Indiana for Mexico, hundreds of citizens were left jobless. The unemployment and poverty levels are being contributed to, in this way, in the United States. The working class in the United States is not able to fight for the workplace rights they deserve because their employers can always move to another nation for production. When Bridgestone-Firestone Company, which is Japanese-owned wanted the American workers to go to 12-hour shifts and take a 30% pay cut, the workers struck. Bridgestone-Firestone fired all of these workers. American, Brazilian, and Japanese Bridgestone-Firestone employees protested in a joint effort, and in this case, the American workers had their jobs restored. Others are not so lucky. Inequality of the poor workers in developing nations to the powerful institutions deciding their futures is evident. These peoples are subordinate to the will of the powerful and rich core nations. Institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund decide if funding is given to these nations. The nations must comply with their will to receive the aid they need. Inequality is most apparent in the case of sweatshop workers around the world. Factories exploit low-paid workers and force them to work in inhumane conditions. The opposition to sweatshops throughout the world is an example of the “Lilliput Strategy.” The “Lilliput Strategy” implemented by activists opposed to the devastating aspects of globalization, refers to the tiny people in “Gulliver’s Travels” who were able to capture Gulliver by tying him up with thousands of threads, even though they were much smaller than him. If workers and nations unite against powerful, multinational corporations that are exploiting them, they can create change. ...