Sociology 1301
Professor: Linda Cook
Global Stratification Notes
I)
Global Stratification is, by definition, an even more “macro” sociological
concept than societal stratification. Where societal stratification refers to the
inequalities between individuals and groups, global stratification refers to the
inequalities between nations, which are vast.
Consider the following:
 In 2012, the World Bank identified seventy-eight nations in the world
with annual per capita GDP income less than $5,000 (twenty-seven of
those were $1,000 or below) , forty-three nations with annual per
capita GDP income between $5,000 and $15,000, and forty-one
nations with per capita GDP income over $15,000.
 Over 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day and 80% live on
less than $10.00 a day (World Bank, 2008).
 Approximately 22,000 children die each day due to poverty (UNICEF,
2008).
 The poorest 40% of the world's people account for 5% of global
income while the richest 20% account for 75% (Human Development
Report, 2007).
 In 2010, 1/3 of the world's financial wealth was held by .001% of the
world's population.
However, no place on the globe is immune to economic inequality. The
United States, some European countries, and Australia also have large blocs
of poor people. With few exceptions, the incidence of poverty is higher in
rural than urban areas but is shifting towards the latter. Nearly everywhere,
women and girls suffer more from poverty than do men and boys.
A) Core nations/periphery nations – these are the nations at the extreme
ends of the Global Stratification System.
Core nations are the technologically advanced, fully industrialized and
postindustrial nations. If they were to be compared to a social class in a
society, they would be comparable to the upper class. Core nations
include the United States, Canada, Germany, Japan, etc.
Periphery nations are the nations that are just beginning to
develop/industrialize. They are comparable to the lower class in a society
and include many of the nations in Africa, South and Central America,
and much of Asia. There are far more periphery nations in the world than
core nations. Note: nations equivalent to the middle class are called semiperiphery nations and include nations like Costa Rica and South Korea.
B) Absolute poverty/relative poverty – living in relative poverty may or
may not also mean living in absolute poverty.*
Absolute poverty is life-threatening poverty; it means one lacks the basic
necessities of life (food, clothing, shelter).
Relative poverty means being poor compared to a set societal standard of
poverty such as the ‘poverty line’ in the U.S., defined as three times the
II)
value of a thrifty food plan devised by the Department of Agriculture,
adjusted for family size ($17,650 for a family of four in 2001).
*All countries do not have a set standard of poverty, especially those
with a great deal of absolute poverty. Even in countries with a standard,
they do not all calculate their standard the same way, some setting the
standard high, others setting it low. Therefore, cross-national
comparisons of poverty are flawed if official statistics are the source
used, and many people living in relative poverty in a nation with a low
standard or benchmark may also be living in absolute poverty, i.e.
missing meals or suffering bouts of homelessness. Finally, determining a
person’s or family’s level of poverty can be difficult within a nation. For
example, the U.S. poverty line is a national standard and applies
everyplace in the country. Clearly, the cost of living varies greatly in
different areas. If one is at the poverty line and lives in a place with a
lower than average cost of living, while still poor, they should be fine.
On the other hand, if one lives in an area with a much higher than average
cost of living, he or she will likely slip in and out of absolute poverty.
C) Multinational corporations/Transnational corporations – both are
companies that have physical operations (stores, factories, etc.) in more
than one nation.
Multinational corporations have a “mother country” or home base, a
country they have allegiance to and are strongly identified with.
Examples include McDonald’s (U.S.) and Toyota (Japan).
Transnational corporations are truly global and have no “mother” or home
base. They go wherever they need/want to in search of a profit.
They began as the result of mergers and acquisitions (combining of
companies) but are becoming more common as companies seek out
countries where the taxes are lower or the labor is cheaper, not only to
open new plants and facilities but even to re-locate their headquarters.
Examples include Archer Daniels Midland and News Enterprise
Corporation. Most oil companies and related industries, i.e. Halliburton,
are rapidly moving toward transnationalism.
Stop and think for a moment how quickly humanity has moved from local
individual or family owned businesses to regional to national to
multinational to transnational. We are truly becoming a global economy!
Sociological Perspectives on Global Stratification
A) Functionalist Perspective – Modernization Theory
Modernization theory is based on the term modernity, which means
patterns of social interaction based on industrialization and technological
development. These include things you know from Sociocultural
Evolution like democratic governments, universal education, and
religious choice. Modernization theorists expand on this in citing:
1) Four characteristics of modernity (a ‘modern’ society):
a) The decline of small traditional communities – as societies
industrialize, people move to the urban areas (cities), which grow
rapidly. Small rural communities where everyone is similar,
change is slow, and traditions are long standing, begin to decline.
b) The expansion of personal choice – tradition, or ‘that’s the way
it is because it’s always been that way’ declines as life becomes a
series of options/alternatives with no one ‘right’ choice. People
begin to choose many things they had not previously chosen, like
their own occupations and their own spouses.
c) Increasing diversity of belief patterns – with the transfer of
population to urban areas, people are exposed to diverse cultures
and religious practices. Unlike in the small, traditional
communities, everyone doesn’t think or believe ‘like them’. Also,
very importantly, people begin to adopt a new belief system, the
belief in science. This leads to the final characteristic.
d) A future orientation and the significance of time – the future
orientation is based on science and the belief that change is
progress. For example, many people in the modern world believe
that we will soon have cures for diseases like cancer and
Alzheimer’s. This is because they’ve seen that science has already
found cures for many other diseases and they expect that progress
to continue. Time becomes so important that it is often referred to
as if it was tangible. People “lose time”, “run out of time”, “waste
time”, “don’t have enough time”, and say, “time is money”! This is
because everything is scheduled. People no longer get up and go to
work because the sun comes up. They get up because the alarm
goes off and they have a specific time they have to be at
work/school. Even sporting events are timed to hundredths, even
thousandths, of a second (think the Olympics).
Note: All of the characteristics of modernity can be viewed in both
positive and negative ways, sometimes depending on one’s
perspective. For example, most people who grow up in a modern
society would not like to have their spouses or jobs chosen for
them. They very much like the individual freedom that comes with
choice. However, some Sociologists say we face an ‘option glut’
and point out how stressful it can be to constantly have to make
choices about so many different aspects of life and to have so many
alternatives from which to choose. Clearly, it is easier when
tradition rules and there is only that one ‘right’ choice.
So, how does a society become modern? Walt Rostow, a
Modernization theorist, who taught at UT, provided an explanation:
2) Rostow’s four stages of modernization:
a) Traditional Stage - at this stage, the cultural values of the nation
oppose technology. There are very real cultural reasons why this is
the case. Example: Many people in developed nations look at
people in some developing nations and can’t understand why they
might resist using birth control. They live in poverty, food is
scarce, and many of their children die. A quick (ethnocentric) look
would make it seem logical to have fewer children so as not to have
so many mouths to feed. However, this may ignore several cultural
issues. Extra children mean extra hands to help on the farm and
grow enough food to eat. Lacking Social Security and pension
plans, it makes sense to have more children to help care for you in
old age. If some children die, you need to give birth to that many
more for these things to happen. Also, in many nations, women are
valued largely for childbearing. To ask a woman to bear fewer
children is to ask her to reduce her value in her society.
b) Take-off Stage - the nation is beginning to industrialize so
specialization increases (more new different kinds of jobs are
available). This sparks an individual achievement orientation so
tradition is weakened.
c) Drive to Technological Maturity – the nation is now sustaining an
industrial based economy. It is experiencing increasing
urbanization, increasing specialization, and increasing interest in
individual rights. However, birth rates decline. This is because
children are no longer an asset (contributing labor); instead, they
are an economic liability because they must be supported while
going to school. Also, life expectancy goes up so it is not
necessary to have as many children as most will survive.
d) High Mass Consumption – at this stage, the nation has a wide
range of consumer goods and services.
*If you think of nations that have gone through these stages, you
will realize they include all of the core, or developed, nations. So
Modernization theorists like Rostow have simply tracked the
process that the current core nations went through. No one, not
even the Conflict theorists, disagrees with them, though they do
disagree with some of their conclusions, especially regarding the
process the current periphery, or developing nations, are going
through.
3) Three Conclusions of Modernization Theorists:
a) You can place a nation in the Global Stratification System simply
by knowing its level of technological development. This means
you don’t need to know anything else about the nation, not even its
name. If a nation is in the traditional stage, it will be a periphery
nation; if a nation is in the high mass consumption stage, it will be
a core nation. If it is in the two stages between, it will be semiperiphery nation.
b) ALL nations will eventually go through these same stages and
come to resemble the current core nations.
c) If a nation is not rapidly moving through the stages, it is because of
internal problems in that nation. The idea here is that this is a
transparent process which so many nations have already gone
through that it’s obvious what needs to be done. If a nation isn’t
doing so, there’s something wrong in that nation.
B) Conflict Perspective – Dependency Theories (World Systems Theory)
Conflict theorists believe that to understand the current relations
between core and periphery nations, it is necessary to take an historical
view. They say when you do so, you see the some nations developed at
the expense of others. Throughout the past millennium, a handful of
European nations (England, France, Spain, etc.), due to superior
technology (boats, weapons), were able to colonize much of Asia, Africa
and the Americas (north, central, south). The colonies were established
as sources of wealth for the mother country, providing material resources
(ivory, gold, spices, tea, etc.) and sometimes, human resources (slaves).
Centuries passed and most colonies gained their political
independence. However, most former colonies are now periphery nations
and former colonial powers are now core nations. This is because of
neocolonialism. This means that, while there is no longer political
dependence, the situation has evolved into a form of economic
dependence. This is in the form of multinational and transnational
corporations that trace their roots to the core nations. These corporations
are external forces developing and exploiting the periphery nations.
They open plants/factories in the periphery nations to take
advantage of cheap labor and natural resources. In doing so, they may
actually impede local economic development. (Ex: A village in a
periphery nation has one weaver who weaves all of the cloth used by the
members of the village. If the village has no external influences and
continues to grow, the weaver will eventually hire workers to keep up
with increasing demand for cloth and will be developing a local cottage
industry. Instead, a large corporation opens a textile plant in the village.
The weaver is out of work. The weaver and/or other villagers may be
hired at the plant but only at the lowest levels of employment. Personnel
from the core nations(s) of the corporation’s origin fill all jobs paying
good wages. Also, villagers from the periphery nation have absolutely no
stake of ownership in the corporation and no ability to move up through
the company’s ranks.)
Additionally, the corporations will utilize any available natural
resources to make finished products. Since finished products are more
expensive than raw materials, the periphery nations may be forced to
borrow from the IMF (International Monetary Fund) or World Bank, both
also controlled by the core nations. This debt leaves the periphery nations
with even fewer funds to invest in local economic development and
furthers their economic dependence on the core nations.
So, conflict theorists see this as a development process very
different from the one the current core nations experienced. The current
core nations were able to industrialize internally with the process shared
by all members of the nation, most of whom were ultimately able to reap
some of the benefits. They contrast this with the external development
occurring in the periphery nations and do not see the same opportunities
available. They see exploitation and deepening inequality between
nations. Short of global peripheral revolution, conflict theorists believe
global stratification will remain and perhaps become even more
entrenched.