Global Inequality In Sociology

Chapter nine Global Stratification, in our text book Sociology in Our Times by Diana Kendall gives us a deep insight on the perspectives and theory’s that help us to view wealth, poverty, and global inequalities from different sides. Having a global perspective on wealth and poverty allows members of society to think about a situation as it relates to the rest of the world. With this we also look into global inequality through two different theories, the world systems theory and the new international division of labor theory. Wealth can be defined in our society as having a lot money, disposable income, or just being able to live that high level of standards, poverty however is the complete opposite. Poverty is defined as the state of being …show more content…
One way to look at this global inequality is in relation to the world systems theory. Global inequality occurs when inequalities exist between countries and therefore exist within countries. Poverty stricken countries need to establish a source of wealth in order to strive like wealthy countries do, but poverty stricken countries don’t really get that opportunity. The world systems theory is defined in the text as “a perspective that examines the role of capitalism, and particularly the transnational division of labor, in a truly global system held together by economic ties” (Kendall pg. 269). Thus, not all countries have the resources needed to run a country that can become wealthy, like perhaps that country is or has been in a continuous war, or the environment lacks the natural resources needed to grow crops, and or can’t simply hold or build in fractures or supply the thing necessary to create factories. This being said under the world systems theory countries take advantage of the citizens within that country in order to gain economically, rather than shame or exploit another country. This theory also goes by a hierarchy method, consisting of “core nations which have high amounts of industrialization and urbanization, semi peripheral nations which are for the most part developed and rely more on providing labor and raw materials to core nations, and peripheral nations which depend on core nations …show more content…
According to Kendall, this theory states that “commodity production is being split into fragments that can be assigned to whichever part of the world can provide the most profitable combination of capital and labor.” (Kendall pg. 271). With the new international division of labor theory roles get completely reversed in the fact that high income nations depend on low income nations. This dependency comes with the abundance of cheap labor in low income nations. This being said, because some citizens are willing to work for lower incomes, bigger businesses and companies are able to exploit people from other countries causing the income gap of inequality to widen as years