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Chapter 8
Millennial Reckonings (2000s --)
Chapter Summary:
This chapter highlights that while the globalization project still shapes development initiatives and policies,
there are signs that its claim (and ability) to represent the most rational development path is eroding.
This is best signaled by the arrival of the debt crisis in the North, which contradicts claims of universal
prosperity. The debt crisis of the North recycles the 1980s debt crisis in the South, the spread of the anti- state
syndrome to the North, a similar unemployment crisis in the North and finally, a slow- down or hollowing out of
Northern economies and the relocation of goods and services production to parts of the global South.
The Northern states have been unable to deal with this crisis, because among other things they have
surrendered their tax revenues to corporate profits. The financial crisis contradicts the claims of universal prosperity
of the globalization project. The question now is whether this version of “globalization” is sustainable.
There has been a loss of grounds of the Western economies to non- Western ones. The rise of the Group of
20 leading economies reflects new realities of power and authority. The leading edge of G-20- Brazil, Russia, India
and China contribute more than 50 percent to world-economic growth, and account for about 15 percent of the
world’s economy. These new realities of power are emergent and increasingly polycentric- the interests of the
Middle Income Countries do not necessarily converge.
Development is facing a legitimacy crisis. Despite a general reduction in the proportion of the world’s
population living in absolute poverty (the “China effect”), there has been a widely observed expansion of global
inequalities between and within countries. The legitimacy crisis is doubly expressed in the refusal, or inability, of
the development agencies (as in the MDGs) to address global inequality; to refocus on how neoliberal development
aids the rich more than, or at the expense of, the poor. Or in other words, the object of concern is not so much as
global inequality but global poverty, the instrument of analysis is economic data processing, and the bottom-line
remedy is freeing up market forces, now with a human face (such as with micro- finance). Moreover, as a regional
duo, China and India represent a counter-trend to the globalization project.
Public opposition to neoliberalism has been continuous, ranging from IMF riots through anti-free trade
agreements to the global justice movements, and mass citizen protests in individual nations. Examples include the
formation of World Social Forum, democratic revolutions in South America and Arab Spring, and citizen protests in
Greece. The food crisis and the ecological crisis further reinforce the inadequacy of the current development
paradigm, but the latter also represent long term structural crises.
Chapter Outline:
I.
The Globalization Project in Crisis
a. While the globalization project still shapes development initiatives and policies, there are signs
that its claim (and ability) to represent the most rational development path is eroding. The arrival
of austerity policies in the North raises some key questions:
i. What does this mean for northern “development”?
ii. Does this undo the conventional distinction between “Developed” and “Developing”
Countries?
iii. Is this signal crisis of the globalization project the beginning of a transition towards a
new project?
iv. Is peak oil a threshold for development, exiting the age of fossil fuels and entering an era
of energy constraint and conservation, upending development as we have known it,
ushering in a new regime based on militarized security or democratic resilience or
something in between?
b. To answer these questions, it is important to situate the economic crisis facing the global North
i. Debt crisis of the North recycles 1980s debt crisis in the South
1. Southern governments asked to privatize their public assets to stabilize the
financial sector
2. The latter ended the “development state,” a discipline of debt imposed a neoliberal model of privatization on the global South
ii. Anti- state syndrome spread to the North
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1.
Reduction in corporate tax in the 1990s means that states are left with fewer
resources
2. With the debt crisis, privatization and new financial discipline meant roll back
of public services in the North
3. Spending cuts exacerbated weakened economies
4. Decline in stable unemployment, meant reduced tax base for the state
5. These alternatives are not strictly mutually exclusive
6. They have ordered social change since the mid- twentieth century
7. Sustainability project, which is an emergent project, is yet to unfold itself
iii. Unemployment has become the great leveler across the North/South divide
1. Global unemployment at around 200 million, in addition to 1.4 billion working
poor
2. Half the world’s workforce holds casual jobs
3. More unemployment in the developed economies and the EU, than Central and
Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean
iv. Two distinct processes at work: a slow- down or hollowing out of Northern economies
and the relocation of goods and services production to parts of the global South
1. A distinctive bifurcation between a global consumer class and a large casual and
unemployed labor force across both world regions
2. Viability and security of the global middle class depends on containment of
socially deprived populations and access to their labor and habitats as resources
3. Unstable world; wealthy withdraw allegiance to their nation states and social
rebellions with growing shortages of jobs, etc. Multitude of responses to deal
with this crisis
II.
Legitimacy crisis
a. Development is facing a legitimacy crisis
i. Millennium Development Goals (2000) initiated with the key goal of halving world
hunger by 2015, as well as halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, addressing gender inequality
and providing universal primary education
1. 2010 MDGs report that despite gains in reducing malnutrition in the 1990s,
since 2000 such progress towards 2000 MDGs stalled
ii. Despite a general reduction in the proportion of the world’s population living in absolute
poverty (the “China effect”), there has been a widely observed expansion of global
inequalities between and within countries
iii. The legitimacy crisis is doubly expressed in the refusal, or inability, of the development
agencies (as in the MDGs) to address global inequality; to refocus on how neoliberal
development aids the rich more than, or at the expense of, the poor
1. “the object of concern is not global inequality but global poverty, the instrument
of analysis is economic data processing, and the bottom-line remedy is freeing
up market forces, now with a human face”
2. Exemplified in the fixation on “bottom billion,” which produces unequal
relationship; focus on poor rather than poor nations as development targets, and
targeting the poor with instruments of the rich, like micro- finance.
iv. Case Study: Relative Deprivations?
1. The global downturn has taken a disproportionately higher toll on the most
vulnerable sectors: viz., the informal sector workers
a. Reduction in wages
b. Longer working hours
2. Informal sector absorbs the casualties of neoliberal policies
3. Do southern scenarios portend northern futures?
b. Microfinance or Poverty Capital
i. Performs three tasks:
1. Providing credit to the poor as an entrepreneurial “leg up”
2. Deepening market relations
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c.
d.
3. Enlarging financial opportunity in the form of legitimacy repair
ii. Originated in non-profit organizations such as the Grameen Bank
iii. Has evolved as “poverty capital,” as commercial banks, investment vehicles and money
markets have embraced it
iv. An estimated 650 million clients at over 3,000 institutions across the world; India alone
has 180 million clients. Average loan is $250; interest rates often exceed 20 percent
v. Embodies the neo-liberal philosophy of devolving responsible for development to the
individual as the self- maximize
vi. Micro-credit reproduces the “bad state/good market” ideology of the globalization project
1. Simultaneously empowers and disciplines its recipients—an ideal form of
development as rule (financial opportunity by financial dependency)
2. Where it valorizes the poor as consumers of credit, consolidating the notion of
development as consumption, it also realizes Nobel Prize winner Yunus’
questionable claim that “credit is a fundamental human right
3. Appropriates alternative values and visions of social life: “indigenous forms of
production, markets and sociability are transformed into resources for
reproducing dominant forms of power”
4. “Empowerment debt”: A double edged sword, it replaces social networks of
survival, incorporates informal workers and crafts people into credit relations
that may create new enterprises and/or new individual dependencies
5. Sometimes debt is used to meet consumption needs and has inter- generational
effect such as children, particularly girls, are taken out of school to make loan
payments
vii. Enabling savings within poor communities is more effective than credit provision
(followed by debt):
1. Many examples of community- managed microfinance via local cooperative
banks and financial institutions with accountability to local savers and the wider
community
Post Washington Consensus?
i. Public opposition to neoliberalism (supported by the so-called Washington Consensus)
has been continuous, ranging from IMF riots through anti-free trade agreements to the
global justice movements, culminating in the formation of World Social Forum as a
counterpart to the World Economic Forum
1. WSF views itself as a process and not an organization
2. Under the slogan “another world is possible,” it is a broad movement dedicated
to social embedding of markets
ii. A crisis of confidence in the globalization project
1. Malaysia’s defiance of liberalization policy symbolized the general retreat from
IMF
2. Between 2005-08 Latin American states dramatically reduced their dependence
on IMF funding too
3. Migration of financial crisis to the global North by 2008 has turned a smoldering
legitimacy crisis into a full-fledged crisis.
The Latin Rebellion
i. The legitimacy crisis has been most pronounced in Latin America
1. Has the highest level of inequality for the world: three-quarters of Latin
Americans remain poor
2. Social movements have been mobilized against privatization, low wage labor,
etc.
ii. Democratic movements
1. Swept the continent at the start of the 21st century replacing market rule with
restoration of social rights and role of the development state.
a. New social-democratic presidents were elected in 11 countries
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2.
e.
Candidates from Mexico to Paraguay positioned themselves electorally against
the Washington Consensus, blocking a proposal for a Free Trade Area of the
Americas (FTAA) in the mid-2000s
3. “Postneoliberalism” gained traction in regulating capital (e.g., substituting
productive for speculative investment, supporting labor rights, and encouraging
fair rather than “free” trade) in three countries, Venzuela, Bolivia and Ecuador
4. Other political initiatives in Latin America:
a. Argentina: Workers occupy almost empty factories.
b. Bolivia: Indigenous people elect first indigenous president
c. Venezuala: Adopted a new constitution based on the theme of human
development
iii. Initiatives in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez
1. Used oil wealth to finance Bolivarian revolution, expanding health care and
education, subsidizing food and fuel, providing cash benefits for single mothers
and low-interest loans for small businesses, and encouraging farm workerowned cooperatives on ranches and sugar plantations seized by the state
2. New constitution guarantees all citizens the right to health and forbids the
privatization of health services. The government’s goal is to remake health care
via social and participatory medicine
a. Chavez’s social mobilization, which is financed by oil wealth, is
alternatively praised as “participatory democracy” or critiqued as
clientilist politics
2. To finance this revolution, Chávez instigated a new wave of “resource
nationalism” in Latin America in 2002:
a. Demanded that foreign oil companies enter into joint ventures, with
Venezuelan state holding at least 60 percent of the capital
b. Despite corrupting the state bureaucracy, resource nationalism taps into
a historic antipathy toward foreign control
iv. Greater independence from United States
1. South American Community of Nations: Contemporary movements demand a
second independence, from foreign corporations and banks, and U.S. military
involvement across the continent
a. 2007: Community evolved into Union of South American Nations, via
economic integration around a single currency (the sucre), destined to
be an international reserve currency.
b. By 2009, the Bank of the South (Banc del Sur) was established as an
alternative to the IMF (endorsed by Joseph Stiglitz)
c. An alternative regional economic bloc, the Bolivian Alternative for the
Americas (ALBA) under the initiative of Chavez and Castro has been
initiated based on the concept of “cooperative advantage”
Arab Spring?
i. The revolution in Tunisia reinserted “social inclusion” into the center of the development
debate
1. Regarded by the development agencies as a macroeconomic success with record
growth of 6.7 percent in 2007
a. But, persistent social and spatial inequalities were ignored.
2. The AfDB has responded by awarding soft loans to the Tunisian government to
implement a labor-intensive jobs program through the public sector, with
transfers of public services to impoverished rural areas
a. Public services such as education and healthcare were required to
submit to citizen evaluation
3. Egypt too received a loan package from the IMF with a “social inclusion”
shaped into the package
ii. Youth component of Arab Spring
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1.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
vii.
High unemployment among the youth in Arab nurtured a simmering crisis of the
globalization project
a. Over half of the 350 million Arabs are under 30, with dim job
prospects, and youth unemployment as high as 80 percent in some
areas
2. In Tunisia, the revolt began among the working class youth, spreading to the
middle class as police brutality came in view
3. Social networking sites were used as well
Use of violence against protesters
1. Less in Egypt, but more so in Bahrain, Libya and Syria
2. Egypt, despite its horrendous police state behind the scenes, was more open
institutionally via the media and the electoral system
a. Its people drew on a democratic tradition that flowered during the late
decolonization period (1919-1967)
Pre- history of the Egyptian revolution
1. Date of the Egyptian revolution is 25 January but prehistory includes years of
labor struggle
a. Labor protests in the 2000s were subject to less repression by a
government anxious to attract foreign capital
b. Opened possibility of open/mass struggle against an autocratic regime
to the Egyptian populace
2. Bread protests against export of wheat during the era of globalization project
3. Retaking of public space laid bare the deprivations of the majority, the savagery
of state apparatus, and the profiteering of the ruling and military elite that
controlled most Egyptian businesses and contracts
Oil regimes in Arab world exhibit a “resource curse:” a one-sided specialization in
extractive production of a resource with “magical” powers in short-circuiting productive
economic diversification by reliance on oil revenues
1. Arab states less industrialized in 2007 than in 1970
2. Contrary to Venezuela, oil revenues have not been redistributed to contain
and/or mobilize popular classes
a. Rather have supported rentier economies that will be difficult to
transform, especially given the strategic significance of this region
Geo- political strategic importance of Arab states also critical to the success of the
revolution
1. Security of the region remains paramount to the US and its allies
a. Alliance allows Arab regimes to disregard their responsibilities in the
social contract. Such regimes termed as “Arab exception”
b. Bahrain provides the most oil to the global economy, and the revolution
there was quickly crushed with Saudi Arabian forces
c. While Egypt is not a significant oil producer, it is the strategic state,
and has relied on revenues from the Suez Canal, tourism and foreign
aid tied to its peace treaty with Israel.
Unfolding of the Arab Spring, then, as an expression of the crisis of neoliberal austerity,
must also contend with its location in the vortex of geopolitical security of the global
political economy
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III.
Geopolitical Transitions
a. Formation of G-20
i. Formed as fall-out from the Asian financial crisis of 1997
ii. Combined original members of G-8 with significant states from the global South,
including Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa,
S. Korea, and Turkey (accounting for about 90 percent of the global economy)
iii. Assumed significance as its key southern states, Brazil, India and China led an effective
opposition to northern attempts to retain unequal economic power via WTO protocols
1. Met at 2001 Doha “Development Round” and then Cancun in 2003
2. Issues of concern were the undemocratic procedure of the North, its attempt to
dominate Southern markets, and the hypocrisy of continuing farm subsidies in
the North, while the WTO outlaws them in the South
b. Rise of the G-20 economies reflects new realities of power and authority
i. Brazil, Russia, India, and China contribute more than 50 percent to world-economic
growth, and account for about 15 percent of the world’s economy
ii. In 2010, China surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest economic power (although
the US produces 2.5 times more)
iii. These new realities of power are emergent and increasingly polycentric
1. Interests of the Middle Income Countries (MICs) do not necessarily converge
2. Example: Rising commodity prices benefit Russia (oil, wheat, minerals) and
Brazil (soy, oil, sugar, orange juice), but not India and China
iv. First BRIC summit (2009) raised the question of replacing US dollar as the world’s
principal trading currency and reforming financial institutions to reflect the balance of
power
v. South-South aid is matched by South-South alliances, especially among the BRICS
1. IBSA: A forum to:
a. Amplify the presence of India, Brazil and South Africa in the UN,
WTO and IMF
b. Develop “minilateral” commercial relations, including technological
collaboration in malaria and AIDS research, nanotechnology, biofuels,
wind energy and oceanography
2. BASIC: Includes China, created to negotiate on climate change
vi. Globalization does not look so much an extension of US capitalism as a delimitation of it,
by the rise of China and India.
1. While US corporations still dominate, the Financial Times charts a decline from
57 percent of its top 500 corporations in the late 1990s to 36 percent in 2008
c. Case Study: Trans-local Developments
i. Development theory has lost its hierarchical national moorings in a global age
1. New image is of nations arranged horizontally and selectively depending on
markets responsiveness to shareholders
2. Recipe of deepening inequality
a. India’s super rich account for 25% of GDP and 0.00001% of the
population.
b. Selective prosperity among the Chinese too (e.g., luxury cars, obesity,
largest Barbie emporium)
3. Development is about creating a single trans- national elite
a. Is the Rostovian stage of “high-mass consumption” both uniquely a
post-WWII phenomenon in some First World states, and now a
phenomenon of no country in particular, but a global class of affluent
consumers?
d. Phenomenon of “Chindia” has the attention of the business community, whether as an investment
opportunity or a threat to northern businesses or jobs
i. China: An economic revolution with global economic and ecological implications is
underway
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1.
2.
3.
4.
ii. India:
1.
Transformation is a part of the globalization project: its economic opening
coincided with late-1980s deregulation of capital flows, targeting exportprocessing zones consolidated by China’s entry to the WTO in 2000
a. Majority of the investment is regional, coming from Japan and the
“East Asian tigers” (or NICs), as they have disaggregated
manufacturing and shifted labor-intensive production to China
b. Final assembly station in TNC commodity chains, which account for
60 percent of products manufactured globally
Upgraded from low-value to high-value products, particularly electronics and
information technology goods, but still assembles components designed and
made elsewhere, or uses copied designs
Model is in transition though because of:
a. Labor disputes
b. New low cost production sites such as Vietnam, Bangladesh, and India
c. Chinese government investment in the hinterland as a redistributive
mechanism
d. Legacy of China’s “one- child” policy
This has also encouraged China to outsource to Africa
A shift from producing global services to domestic manufacturing: Indian
education unable to cope with the demand for software operatives
a. There is a consequent 30- 40 percent increase in wages, eroding India’s
hi- tech cost advantages
2. Policy makers have shifted gears focusing on domestic market of middle class
consumers, requiring expanding employment of low skilled labor
3. Global manufacturers have also shifted manufacturing to India in anticipation of
the demographic squeeze in China
4. Distinct worlds at play within India
a. Two- thirds of Indians are largely agrarian
b. A rising middle class of 300 million constitute a sizeable consumer
market
c. Creates tension such as between global retailers operating in prosperous
urban markets versus livelihood security of small shopkeepers.
iii. As a regional duo, China and India represent a counter-trend to the globalization project
1. They have not fully embraced neo-liberal principles, but retain capital and
investment controls
a. China’s currency is not freely convertible; the government still controls
at least half of its industrial assets and heavily invests in infrastructure
b. Mid- 2000s, the Indian government re-focused on inclusive
nationalism, targeting small farmers displaced by industries, highways
and agro- industrial estates
i. National experiment to facilitate channeling of public largesse
to the poor via “social audits” helps reduce corruption and
safeguard public finance allocated to stimulate employment
and circulate purchasing power
c. Popular unrest against land acquisition by large business groups led the
Central government in India to put a freeze on all land acquisition for
establishing SEZs
d. Land seizures by the Chinese government too have generated rural
resistance. The government has sought to head off rural unrest by
repealing agricultural taxation and local fees, providing minimal rural
health insurance, and increasing compensation for loss of land
iv. “Beijing Consensus”
1. Chinese and Indian forms of development echo Latin American initiatives to
bring markets under social control
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2.
Given a stagnant global economy and mounting socio-ecological crisis, there
might be a revival of the development state and departure from the universal
claims of neoliberalism
v. China as threat?
1. The West views the rise of China as a threat, but the future is unclear
2. Domestically, China faces growing unrest as class inequalities deepen and an
emergent middle class takes the lead in demanding political rights and
democratization of the state
3. Internationally, the Chinese government enunciated a New Security Concept in
2004 rejecting hegemonism
a. More focused on securing resources from various world regions and
constructing a Chinese-centered regional political economy
4. The U.S. government and its European allies are more focused on India’s
potential role as a counterpoise to China in Asia
IV.
Financial Crisis
a. The severe financial downturn (near meltdown) in 2008 was a signal crisis of the era of
“financialization”
i. Financialization means investment shifts into financial transactions (mergers,
acquisitions, derivatives) away from good or services production
ii. Huge financial profits in the US and Britain made possible by financial deregulation in
the late 1990s
1. Economic power shifted to financiers—exemplified by the largest merger
between Citicorp (banking) and the Travelers Group (insurance and securities)
iii. Most common, derivative financial instrument created was a security anchored in
mortgage debt, then packaged and repackaged as the debt was sold and resold by
financiers recycling risk
1. Mortgage debt ballooned, enabled by loosening credit
2. As a result “high mass consumption” was un-tethered from its material
underpinnings, so that supply soon outstripped demand, housing prices fell, and
sub-primes led to rising mortgage rates and a foreclosure crisis in the U.S.
b. Northern governments not able to response to the crisis
i. Did not have funds on hand, having already surrendered revenue to corporate and wealth
tax cuts
ii. Oversight of the financial sector had all but disappeared, and only returned to bail out
(some of) the deeply troubled banks to avoid complete economic collapse
iii. The northern debt crisis crystallizes several trends, both short- and long-term:
1. Counter-mobilization by business interests against restraints of the welfare state
2. Higher unemployment in countries like US with institutionalized flexible labor
markets
3. Policy responses have uniformly focused on reducing government spending
while as claimed by neo-liberal theory, the private sector has not stepped in to
fill the gap
4. Result: a growing proportion of the working population, “whose jobs are
insecure, who have limited access to secure housing, and who juggle jobs and
child-rearing in a frantic effort to keep up,” represent, in Guy Standing’s terms,
a new “precariat” and politics of frustration
c. Case Study: Limiting assumptions of the Shock Doctrine
i. Shock Doctrine:
1. A wholesale implementation of neoliberal policies requires an exceptional
moment of social destabilization, following a war, military coup, natural
disaster, or financial crisis
2. Far-reaching transformation, like shrinking the public sector can be
accomplished under the guise of reconfiguring an economy to save it
3. But when governments downsize, citizens and especially women bear the cost
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4.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
V.
Citizens are fighting back with alternatives, reclaiming the public sector
a.
British trade unions compete with MNCs for tenders
Unlike the 1980s Third World debt crisis, the northern debt crisis morphed from unsustainable
private debt, encouraged by deregulation, into “an alleged sovereign debt crisis”
i. It is, however, represented as a crisis of the state, rather than as consequence of
unregulated capitalism
Sovereign debt crisis in Europe
i. States required to use the euro, a currency they do not issue, which forces them to borrow
to cover their deficits
ii. Financial crisis exposed the vulnerability of weaker states (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and
Spain), subjecting them to austere loan conditions imposed by the European Central Bank
and the IMF to preserve the union, the value of the euro, and the viability of the Eurozone
1. Example: Greek bail out by German and French governments in return of
massive public sector cuts
a. Greek bail-out exposes the limitations of the EU: lacks European-wide
institutions “with sufficient powers to coordinate the economic policies
of the member states effectively,” thereby amplifying taxpayer
“liability for the budgetary risks of each of the other member states”
b. Taxpayer resentment in stronger states (Germany, France) at having to
pay for the (perceived) profligacy of the (citizens of the) weaker states
i. Taxpayer vulnerability and resentment in the weaker states
subject to draconian cutbacks
c. Huge citizen protests in Greece: not so much directed against the states
but the politics of debt regime and its privileging of the Banks
Interpretations differ regarding the meaning and significance of the Northern crisis:
i. Conventional American view: Europe, with low birth rates and longer life expectancy,
can no longer afford its generous welfare benefits
ii. Alternative view: The refocus on sovereign debt represents neoliberal or corporate
interests to completely dismantle the welfare state in its various forms
1. Example: In US the recklessness of financial institutions in bringing about the
nation’s economic collapse did not result in convictions, but rather bailouts
iii. A third view: This is now a permanent state of crisis. Capitalism thrives on deregulation
and risk, destined to be borne by citizens
1. Focuses on the separation of economics and politics implicit in the institution of
private property
2. Liberal democracy is the arena for struggle over regulatory powers and austerity
choices, but corporate and financial interests remain insulated from ultimate
political sanction
The financial crisis contradicts the claims of universal prosperity of the globalization project
Question now is whether this version of “globalization” is sustainable
Food Crisis
a. Rising basic food prices led to food riots across the world in 2007–2008 and again during 2010-11
b. Food riots protest neoliberal policies, insofar as they dismantle public capacity (specifically food
reserves), and deepen food dependency across the global South through liberalization of trade in
foodstuffs
i. Under the neoliberal food system, the South exports high-value foods at the expense of
its own local food supplies, requiring imports of cheap staple foods, which destabilize
local food producers, and reduce their ability to produce more when prices rise
c. Northerners do not feel the price rise as keenly as southerners
i. Food accounts for a larger share of the budget of poor household in developing countries
than in the US.
ii. Rising hunger rates in sub- Saharan Africa
iii. The majority of the hungry (65 percent) are in India, China, the Democratic Republic of
Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia.
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d.
e.
VI.
Rising food prices signal the intensification of energy and food demand under conditions of peak
oil by a class of 1 billion new consumers in 20 MICs
Age of cheap food is widely regarded as over, with “agflation” bringing the world to a “post-foodsurplus era”
Ecological Crisis
a. Richest countries have generated 42 percent of global environmental degradation while paying
only 3 percent of the resulting costs
b. Much of it is the consequence of a fatal separation over the last two centuries of the natural from
the social sciences
i. Development theory has been shaped as if human societies have no ecological basis.
ii. The loss of biodiversity suggests that the problem is deeper than what can be simply
attributed to population growth and colonization of the earth.
c. A looming water crisis
i. A rising gap between demand and supply of water
1. China and India, with one–third of the world’s population, have less than 10
percent of global water supply
2. The problem is exacerbated by melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas and
future increases in the demand for water
3. Agriculture is the flashpoint, since it uses 90 percent of India’s and 70 percent of
China’s water
a. Water-intensive agriculture adds to the global water crisis
4. Water is predicted to play a similar role to that of oil in geopolitical resource
conflict
d. While the 2010 oil spill in America received much worldwide attention, another one of greater
proportion went largely ignored in the Niger Delta
e. Current levels of consumption are unsustainable and inequitable
i. The key issue of our time is irreversible global climate change
1. The world must rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90 percent
ii. Those least responsible for climate change are most likely to suffer its effects
f. There are 3 obstacles to overcome to create a global response to climate change
i. Objective inequality between and within nations
1. Wealthy citizens can ensure they are least affected
2. 97% of natural disaster-related deaths occurred in the global South
ii. Subjective consequence of uneven development
1. Countries of the global south claim the right to exploit forests
2. Growth rivalries between countries prevent agreements on equitable and
sustainable paths
a. The developing world refuse to accept mandatory emission cuts as it
would adversely affect their economic growth. The rationale for this
argument is that the global North after all followed a similar path of
development
iii. Economism, or the framing of solutions to social and ecological crises in terms of
economics.
1. Development was founded in economic language, institutions and rules.
2. Economic measures are overwhelmingly privileged as measures of
development, as opposed to cultural practices or values of people and places
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VII.
Conclusion
a. The globalization project is not over, but it appears to be in transition to another project of
ordering the world: the sustainability project
b. The series of crises outlined here are not uniformly coordinated so much as expressing the uneven
and combined development of global political-economy
i. Some are specific to the globalization project (the financial crisis, political rebellions, and
institutional paralysis)
ii. Other crises are long-term structural crises, such as the food crisis and of course the
climate crisis– registering an era of fossil fuel dependence
c. There is another shift underway as the West loses ground to the non-West
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