IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/devchg/v42y2011i1p70-86.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Forum 2011

Author

Listed:
  • Ashwani Saith

Abstract

type="main" xml:lang="en"> Globalization has been accompanied by worsening inequality within core countries of global accumulation processes, as exemplified by China and the USA, where income and wealth inequalities have regained the stratospheric heights of the 1920s. In parallel, there are significantly diverging life chances for the rich and the poor. Extreme inequalities are deemed intrinsically toxic due to their potential for the subversion of regulatory and accountability institutions, the corrosion of societal norms, and the quality of democracy. The present conjuncture of crises provides credible evidence that inequality, especially extreme inequality, is not just a contextual feature or a downstream outcome issue, but a crucial upstream, causal factor in the pathology of the financial meltdown. This article introduces contributions elaborating causal pathologies connecting inequality, imbalances and instability, emphasizing the centrality of global interdependence. Beyond surviving the crisis through assorted fiscal stimuli packages of emergency resuscitation and life support, there are deeper structural policy issues to consider. The crisis briefly opened up democratic space for short-term protective, and long-term corrective interventions. However, this space was equally quickly shut down again, as the political and financial establishment resisted yielding permanent ground: witness the return to fiscal conservatism, the revival of the culture of bankers’ bonuses, and persisting international divisions over coordinated global action. There is an imperative to regulate rampant and dysfunctional financialization; to cooperate internationally for sustainable balanced economic growth; for an alternative politics to pull back from an inexorable slide into plutocracy, to let the people back in. Otherwise we risk lurching from one crisis episode to another, from tragedy to farce, and back again.

Suggested Citation

  • Ashwani Saith, 2011. "Forum 2011," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 42(1), pages 70-86, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:42:y:2011:i:1:p:70-86
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2011.01705.x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward N. Wolff, 2007. "Recent Trends in Household Wealth in the United States: Rising Debt and the Middle-Class Squeeze," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_502, Levy Economics Institute.
    2. Cripps, F. & Izurieta, A. & Singh, A., 2011. "Global Imbalances, Under-Consumption and Over-Borrowing: The State of the World Economy and Future Policies," Working Papers wp419, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    3. Davies, James B. & Sandstrom, Susanna & Shorrocks, Anthony & Wolff, Edward N., 2006. "The World Distribution of Household Wealth," Conference papers 331490, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    4. Alex Izurieta & Ajit Singh, 2010. "Does Fast Growth in India and China Help or Harm US Workers?," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 115-141.
    5. L. Randall Wray, 2009. "Money Manager Capitalism and the Global Financial Crisis," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_578, Levy Economics Institute.
    6. Engelbert Stockhammer, 2010. "Financialization and the Global Economy," Working Papers wp240, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    7. Cripps, Francis & Izurieta, Alex & Singh, Ajit, 2011. "Global imbalances, under-consumption and overborrowing: the state of the world economy & future policies," MPRA Paper 39049, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Global imbalances and the financial crisis: products of common causes," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Oct, pages 131-172.
    9. Edward N. Wolff, 2010. "Recent Trends in Household Wealth in the United States-- Rising Debt and the Middle-Class Squeeze--An Update to 2007," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_589, Levy Economics Institute.
    10. Yeva Nersisyan & L. Randall Wray, 2010. "The global financial crisis and the shift to shadow banking," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 7(2), pages 377-400.
    11. Michael Mah-Hui Lim, 2008. "Old Wine in a New Bottle: Subprime Mortgage Crisis—Causes and Consequences," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_532, Levy Economics Institute.
    12. Terry McKinley & Alex Izurieta, 2007. "The Gross Inequities of Global Imbalances," One Pager 30, International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Till Treeck, 2014. "Did Inequality Cause The U.S. Financial Crisis?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 421-448, July.
    2. Jon Wisman, 2013. "The Growth Trap, Ecological Devastation, and the Promise of Guaranteed Employment," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(2), pages 53-78.
    3. Edward N. Wolff & Maury Gittleman, 2011. "Inheritances and the Distribution of Wealth or Whatever Happened to the Great Inheritance Boom? Results from the SCF and PSID," NBER Working Papers 16840, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Klenert, David & Mattauch, Linus & Edenhofer, Ottmar & Lessmann, Kai, 2018. "Infrastructure And Inequality: Insights From Incorporating Key Economic Facts About Household Heterogeneity," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(4), pages 864-895, June.
    5. Rolf Pendall & Brett Theodos & Kaitlin Franks, 2011. "Vulnerable people, precarious housing, and regional resilience: an exploratory analysis," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 271-296, July.
    6. Mattauch, Linus & Klenert, David & Stiglitz, Joseph E. & Edenhofer, Ottmar, 2017. "Piketty meets Pasinetti: On public investment and intelligent machinery," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168156, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Ajit Singh, 2012. "Financial Globalization and Human Development," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 135-151, February.
    8. Jon Wisman, 2013. "Government Is Whose Problem?," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(4), pages 911-938.
    9. Alejandro Badel & Mark Huggett & Wenlan Luo, 2020. "Taxing Top Earners: a Human Capital Perspective," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(629), pages 1200-1225.
    10. Hager, Sandy Brian, 2013. "Public Debt, Ownership and Power: The Political Economy of Distribution and Redistribution," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 157991, September.
    11. Mark Setterfield & Yun K Kim, 2020. "Varieties of capitalism, increasing income inequality and the sustainability of long-run growth," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 44(3), pages 559-582.
    12. Mark Setterfield & Yun K. Kim & Jeremy Rees, 2016. "Inequality, Debt Servicing and the Sustainability of Steady State Growth," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 45-63, January.
    13. Frank P. Stafford & Erik Hurst & Bing Chen, 2012. "Diminishing Margins: Housing Market Declines and Family Financial Responses," Working Papers wp276, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    14. Bill Lucarelli, 2011. "The Economics of Financial Turbulence," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14252.
    15. R. Anton Braun & Tomoyuki Nakajima, 2012. "Uninsured Countercyclical Risk: An Aggregation Result And Application To Optimal Monetary Policy," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(6), pages 1450-1474, December.
    16. Linus Mattauch & Ottmar Edenhofer & David Klenert & Sophie Bénard, 2014. "Public Investment when Capital is Back - Distributional Effects of Heterogeneous Saving Behavior," CESifo Working Paper Series 4714, CESifo.
    17. Coveri, Andrea & Pianta, Mario, 2022. "Drivers of inequality: wages vs. profits in European industries," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 230-242.
    18. Jon D. Wisman, 2014. "Capitalism and Inequality Re-Examined," Working Papers 2014-12, American University, Department of Economics.
    19. Eckhard Hein, 2012. "The Macroeconomics of Finance-Dominated Capitalism – and its Crisis," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14931.
    20. Alina K. Bartscher & Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick & Ulrike I. Steins, 2020. "Modigliani Meets Minsky: Inequality, Debt, and Financial Fragility in America, 1950-2016," Staff Reports 924, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:devchg:v:42:y:2011:i:1:p:70-86. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0012-155X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.