Democracy Citizenship & Globalisation

The concern of this book is to ask who are the winners and the losers of globalisation. Globalisation is currently being presented as something which is inevitable and to which there exists no alternative. However, present globalisation is increasingly defined in the context of market liberalism where the language of markets and competition has become interchangeable with the language of globalisation. This approach represents specific political decisions on liberalisation and privatisation. Present forms of globalisation have contributed to major shifts in income distribution both between and within countries. Wage earners in the advanced industrial economies have experienced stagnating ‘take home pay’, while the incomes of the top one percent of earners secured a larger share of income. There is now emerging a plutocracy that through financial contributions to political parties and the financing of academic think tanks are also distorting the democratic process. There is little evidence of the trickle down process. Market liberals continue to influence the definitions and the shape of globalisation. Increased integration and interconnectedness depends on the ability to listen and to honour alternative views of development.