The uneven wealth
distribution that has occurred throughout human history has more
often than not resulted in economic inequality. And one of the key
drivers of uneven wealth distribution would be globalisation, which
have brought us closer than ever through increasing speed in which
we exchange ideas, goods, technology but has ironically widened the
wage gap between people of different social strata. Take the plight
of textile sweatshop workers as an example. Due to globalisation
opening up international markets for a diverse range of clothing
products and skyrocketing demand, wealthy manufacturing companies
based in core/developed countries have sourced for labour in
periphery/less developed countries such as Vietnam and Thailand.
These companies pay each of them a meagre sum every month while the
company swims in cash as the cheap manpower hired in bulk are able
to churn out thousands of clothes per day which would then be sold
at a jacked up price in other countries, including the very country
of origin. Meanwhile the workers save up just to buy these products
(not just clothing, it happens in almost every industry), feeding
the little money they earn back to the manufacturing company. The
rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
Q: "How are wealth and inequality related to each other? How
does globalization fit into the relationship?"
Is this really within the history syllabus for Sec 4 in Singapore?
Unbelievable! The answer given is about economics, not history.
Even the professors in Harvard cannot answer definitively. So how
are the 16 years-old suppose to answer; unless there are paragraphs
within a recommended textbook that deal exactly with such topics
and the students faithfully memorized and reproduce them to score
marks. Is such "education".
It is better to teach the Bible version that, because of the
original sin when Eve offered Adam the forbidden fruit, man is
punished thereby having problems after problems for all their life
living in this world - uneven wealth distribution, laboring the
soil to eek out a livelihood, etc. Nothing to do with
globalization! A punishment from original sin!
Who knows? Those very poor textile slave laborers "exploited" by
the multinationals might have met their savior in the rich
capitalists, otherwise they could have died early and be out of the
national statistics.
Best regards,
Chan Rasjid.