Globalization (Without Regulation) Gone Wild

A glut of globalization without adequate regulation hurt the world’s working-class poor.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.

In our age of post-globalization, the world has seen unprecedented economic growth and connectivity. Goods and services flow across borders like never before, bringing undeniable benefits in terms of increased trade, technological progress, and economic expansion.

Globalization has not been without its dark side, however, particularly when it comes to the working-class poor of the world. The rapid expansion of globalization without proper regulation has exacerbated income inequality to unprecedented levels.

Wealthy corporations have taken advantage of lax labor standards and a lack of environmental regulations in emerging nations to amass an obscene amount of wealth, leaving the global working class struggling — as ever — to subsist.

To understand the magnitude of the issue, we must first recognize the scale of income inequality today. The wealth gap is larger than ever in history, with a tiny fraction of the global population controlling an astronomical portion of the world’s wealth.

“Richest 1% bag nearly twice as much wealth as the rest of the world put together over the past two years,” revealed Oxfam in January.