Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization, de Branko Milanovic

Abstract

Introduction: This is a book about global inequality. Throughout the book, I look at both income inequality and political issues related to inequality from a global perspective. Because the world is not united under a single government, however, we cannot dispense with the need to look at individual nation-states. On the contrary, many global issues are played out politically at the level of the nation-state. Thus, greater openness (commercial interchange between individuals from different countries) will have political consequences not at some imaginary worldwide level but within actual countries where the people who are affected by trade live. As a consequence of globalization, for example, Chinese workers might ask for free- trade- union rights from their government, and US workers might ask for protective duties from their government.