Abstract
Although the European debt crisis dominated the 2012 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (January 25–29) in Davos, Switzerland, according to the Associated Press “for the first time the growing inequality between the planet’s haves and have-nots became an issue, thanks largely to the Arab Spring uprisings, the Occupy movement, and other protests around the globe.”1 The fifty or so World Economic Forum Occupiers, who camped out in igloos throughout the meeting, identified these inequalities not as haves and have-nots, but following other Occupy movements, as “the 1 percent” and the “99 percent.” Their “Call to Action” to Occupy the World Economic Forum, charged “This year, we will not let them exclude us, the—99%!” They called on others to join them “and stand up against the WEF and the 1% that are making the rules of this unfair global economy.”2
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Although the top 1 percent own 35.6 percent of US private wealth, the top 95–99 percent own 27.9 percent. Together the top 5 percent own almost two-thirds of US private wealth. The distribution of stock market wealth (which includes direct ownership of stock shares and indirect ownership through mutual funds, trusts, IRAs, Keogh plans, 401(k) plans, and other retirement accounts) is also disparate: the top 1 percent own 38.2 percent while the 90–99 percent owns 43 percent. The bottom 60 percent own just 2.5 percent. Together the top 10 percent own over 82 percent of stock market wealth, a figure that has hardly changed in the past 20 years. Economic Policy Institute, State of Working America, 2011, http://stateofworkingamerica.org/, accessed February 17, 2012.
Susan George, Whose Crises? Whose Future: Towards a Greener, Fairer, Richer World (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010), 6–8.
William I. Robinson, A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 37.
David Harvey, The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 40–41.
Economist Ha-Joon Chang refutes the claim that neoliberalism has created economic growth and reduced poverty in Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008).
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Cartographies of Struggle,” Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, ed. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 11–13, 38.
David Rothkopf, Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), xiv–xv.
Beverly W. Harrison, “The Role of Social Theory in Religious Social Ethics: Reconsidering the Case for Marxian Political Economy,” in Carol S. Robb, ed., Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), 78. Harrison does not discuss Niebuhr’s critique of communism. She argues that Marx never developed a theory of communism. Harrison is an advocate of economic democracy.
Salvatore Babones, “The Other 99%: How the US Compares,” Inequality News (December 3, 2011). See http://www.ips-dc.org/blog/the_other_99_percent_how _the_us_compares, accessed February 3, 2012. See also Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011).
Single female-headed families have the lowest median family income ($29,220), and the biggest drop in income of any group between 2007 and 2010 (2.8 percent). “Married couples with the wife in the paid labor force have the highest: ($87,485); their income dropped 1.3%. The lowest drop in income (0.6%) was for “married couples with the wife not in the paid labor force”; median income was $48, 858 (Economic Policy Institute, State of Working America, 2011).
United for a Fair Economy, State of the Dream: The Emerging Majority (2012), http://faireconomy.org/sites/default/files/State_of_the_Dream_2012.pdf, accessed January 15, 2012.
Isabella Ortiz and Matthew Cummins, Global Inequality: Beyond the Bottom Billion—A Rapid Review of Income Distribution in 141 Countries, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), New York (April 2011), 24, http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/files/Global_Inequality_REVISED_-_5_July.pdf, accessed February 11, 2012.
Branko Milanovic, Global Inequality: From Class to location, From Proletarians to Migrants, The World Bank, Policy Research Paper 5280 (September 2011), 7.
Scott Nova and Isaac Shapiro, Polishing Apple: Fair Labor Association Gives Foxconn and Apple Undue Credit for Labor Rights Progress, EPI Briefing Paper #352 (November 8, 2012), 10.
See the first person report from Jay Greene, “Riots, Suicides and Other Issues in Foxconn’s iPhone Factories” (September 25, 2012), http://news.cnet.com/8301–13579_3–57515968–37/riots-suicides-and-other -issues-in-foxconns-iphone-factories/
Jenny Wai-ling Chen, “Gender and Global Labor Organizing: Migrant Women Workers of Garment Industry in South China,” Paper presented at a conference hosted by Sweatshop Watch and supported by the Marianas Fund of the Tides Foundation, May 8–9, 2005, author’s files.
Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007), 405.
See Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (London: Verso, 2007) for an astute account of the global explosion of slums.
Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2005), 16–17.
Lourdes Beneria, Gender, Development, and Globalization (New York: Routledge, 2003), 151.
Ann Ferguson, “Feminist Perspectives on Class and Work,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2010), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-class/, accessed January 25, 2012. My discussion of these interests draws on Ann Ferguson; see my essay Pamela K. Brubaker, “Sisterhood, Solidarity and Feminist Ethics,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 9.1–2 (1993): 53–65.
Jane L. Collins, Threads: Gender, Labor, and Power in the Global Apparel Industry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 168–9.
Jody Heymann, Forgotten Families: Ending the Global Crisis Confronting Children and Working Families in the Global Economy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 189–190.
Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Hochschild, Global Women: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2003), 8.
U. Thara Srinivasan, Susan P. Carey, Eric Hallstein, Paul A. T. Higgins, Amber C. Kerr, Laura E. Koteen et al., “The Debt of Nations and the Distribution of Ecological Impacts from Human Activities,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 105.5 (February 5, 2008), 1768–1770.
Alan Durning, How Much Is Enough? (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992). There is a chart of these three classes at http://deoxy.org/korten_index.htm.
This statement, as well as documents from the AGAPE process, the Poverty, Wealth, and Ecology Project, and the Women and Global Economy Project are available at the WCC website, www.oikumene.org. They include policy proposals and alternatives. I have participated in some of the consultations of these projects. Also see Justice Not Greed, ed. Pamela Brubaker and Rogate Mshana (Geneva: WCC, 2010).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2013 Joerg Rieger
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Brubaker, P.K. (2013). Inequality, Class, and Power in Global Perspective: Feminist Reflections. In: Rieger, J. (eds) Religion, Theology, and Class. New Approaches to Religion and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137339249_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137339249_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-35142-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-33924-9
eBook Packages: Palgrave Religion & Philosophy CollectionPhilosophy and Religion (R0)