LESSON 12.

GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL CALSSES

SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
• All human societies are characterized by a social stratification
• “Stratificationcanbedefinedasthestructural inequalities that exist between different
groups of individuals” (Giddens)
• "System by which a society classifies groups of people hierarchically" (Macionis and
Plummer)

THE GEOGRAPHICAL METAPHOR

• Just as terrestrial rocks have different geological strata, social stratification would imply
that societies are made up of hierarchical "strata", with the most favored at the top and the
least privileged closest to the base

3 FORMS OF INEQUALITY THAT TEND TO INTERRELATE IN STRATIFICATION SYSTEMS

• Inequality of honor, status or prestige
• Inequality of wealth
• Inequality of power (military, political or bureaucratic)
• HIGHER STRATES HOLD MORE STATUS, PRESTIGE, WEALTH, AND POWER THAN LOWER
STRATES

SOCIAL PROCESSES LINKED TO SOCIAL STRATIFICATION (M. YOUNG)

• Social exclusion and marginalization (of the lower strata)
• Exploitation (from upper strata to low strata)
• Feeling of helplessness (from the lower strata)
• Cultural imperialism (from the upper strata to the lower strata)
• Violence (towards the lower strata)

THE JUSTIFICATION FOR INEQUALITY

• Each society has a method to justify its stratification system by consensus and acceptance
of its positions by all parts
• Gramscicallsthislegitimationofinequality"cultural hegemony" over the dominated and
Bourdieu calls it "symbolic violence"
• In the absence of these "ideological" methods (Althusser), the ruling classes would
require, in order to secure their domination, a use of physical force, very costly and in the
long run tending to failure
• The justifications can be based on meritocratic ideologies, religious beliefs, traditions,
customs ...

SOCIAL STRATIFICATION AND SOCIAL CLASSES

• In human history there have been many systems of stratification, such as slavery, castes or
feudal estates
• In modern society the stratification system is based on SOCIAL CLASSES

THE MARXIST THEORY OF CLASSES

• Two classes in the modern capitalist society: the CAPITALISTS who own the means of
production and the PROLETARIANS who sell their labor force to the former
• The capitalists exploit the work of the proletarians and their private benefits derived from
it exceed the costs of production and wages.
• There is therefore a fundamental contradiction between the productive forces and the
relations of production that leads to a class struggle

CONTEMPORARY NEO-MARXIST CONSIDERATIONS

• There are many social groups that find themselves in "contradictory class situations" (Olin
Wright) without being entirely capitalist or proletarian.
• There is a broad "consent in production" (Burawoy) that makes a large part of the working
class accept their situation without being immersed in any class struggle

UPPER, LOWER AND MIDDLE CLASS

• With the development of the social welfare state in Western countries after World War II
and the extension of social and labor rights, a notion of "middle class" between the
dichotomous extremes of the capitalist class and the working class is incorporated into
social theories.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE GLOBAL SPACE:
1. The global elites
2. The global working classes: Migrant workers at the Global North and manufacturing
workers at Export Processing Zones in the Global South
3. The global middle class: stagnated/declining in the West and emerging/rising in Non-
Western developing countries

1. THE GLOBAL ELITES

• White-collar transnational elites: they possess economic, cultural, social and symbolic
capital (Bourdieu). They move from developed countries to developed countries or from
developed countries to developing countries. Executive, investors and businessmen linked
to large banks and transnational companies and their local affiliates
• Mainly Westerns but also Asians (Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese, Hongkoneses) and most
recently some from emerging economies (China, India, etc.)
• The transnational elites compose the dominant positions in the global social space, with a
habitus of upper class, cosmopolitan and globalist
• They are still a numerical minority (the famous "1%" that Piketty talks about

2. THE GLOBAL WORKING CLASSES

• Globalization has produced an expansion of industrialization in many countries of the
South (China, India, etc.) and has led to the emergence of millions of proletarians and
industrial workers in the world (the majority coming from agriculture)
• There have never been so many factories and so many proletarians in the world as there
are today!
• We can distinguish within the global working class between migrant workers (the majority
in low-skilled and low-wage employment at the Global North) and local manufacturing
workers for multinationals (in Export Processing Zones at the Global South)

MIGRANTS IN THE GLOBAL NORTH

• Migrant working classes: they lack economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital. They
move from developing countries to developed countries mainly to cover low-skilled work,
from the Global South to the Global North.
• Remittances have an extraordinary impact on cross-border financial transfers and they are
one of the largest sources of economic income in many countries (ex: since 2000, between
the 10 and 12% of Philipines annual GDP, source: World Bank data)

MANUFACTURING WORKERS IN THE GOBAL SOUTH

Manufacturing workers in global supply chains in the Global South: lack economic, cultural,
social and symbolic capital. In developing countries for outsourcing companies supplying
multinationals (ex: Taiwanese company Foxconn in China, manufacturing Iphones for Apple;
textil manufacturing for Inditex in Southeast Asia) In the absence of global labor unions or
effective transnational labor legislation, they are subject to local labor conditions (low
wages, little or no social protection and labor rights, child labor, absence of hygienic and
healthy conditions at work, etc.). Work highly covered by women from rural areas of Asia
and Latin America.

THE GLOBAL NON-WESTERN WORKING CLASS: EXPLOITED BUT BETTER THAN

BEFORE?
• The global working classes make up the dominated positions in the global social space,
with a working class habitus, still attached to their countries of origin, local culture and
traditions
• This does not however imply that their condition has not improved in recent decades due
in large part to globalization: both migrant workers from the South in the North and working
classes in the South on the assembly lines of international trade
have improved their material situation.
• Always remember the Milanovic curve: both the elite of the Global North and the poor
classes of the Global South have improved their income level due to liberalization and
globalization!

THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM

• However, in a global context of «systemic chaos» (Arrighi) no improvement in the working
conditions of these workers is foreseen as long as there are no effective regulations at the
global level and no effective international unions of workers
• Countries compete with each other in the so-called "race to the bottom" to offer lower
wages, fewer environmental regulations or lower tax rates, to attract global capital.
• Thishasgeneratedthewidespreadphenomenonof SWEATSHOPS in countries of the Global
South, with labor conditions of overexploitation and often illegal (sometimes including child
labor

THE DECLINING WHITE WORKING CLASS

Due to the processes of deindustrialization in the Global North (Western Europe and the
United States) and manufacturing relocation in the Global South the western white working
class has decreased very significantly in size and in well-being

SOCIAL PROCESSES IN THE GLOBAL CLASS SYSTEM TOWARDS THOSE ON THE BOTTOM
 Social exclusion, marginalization, confinement of migrants
 Cultural imperialism: Islamophobia in Germany against Muslim migrants
 Exploitation: African migrant laborers in Andalusian greenhouses; Women
 Manufacturing Workers, Cambodia
 Violence: use of tear gas against refugees by Greek police, separation of mothers and
children on the USA / Mexico border
 Feelings of helplessness: manifestation of "manteros" from Lavapiés protesting the
death of a colleague after a police chase; anti-suicide nets in Foxconns factories,
China

HOW DOES GLOBALIZATION AFFECT WORKERS?

• When capital and goods are able to move freely, firms can produce in the most efficient
locations, often far from the locations where goods are ultimately consumed.
• Classicaltradetheory(i.e.,Hecksher-Ohlin, Stolper-Samuelson) posits that labor-intensive
activities will locate in labor-abundant countries, whereas capital-rich countries will
specialize in capital-intensive production.
• Trade openness therefore should benefit workers in relatively labor-abundant nations but
harm workers in relatively capital-abundant (and labor- scarce) societies (see Milanovic’s
Elephant Curve)

MORE LABOR EXPLOITATION BY LOCAL SUBCONTRACTING THAN BY GLOBAL

MULTINATIONALS
• Countries that produce globally via involvement in directly owned production (in which
multinationals retain ownership and control of their affiliates abroad) are likely to
experience improvements in workers’ rights (Kucera 2002). An empirical analysis of labor
rights violations in 86 countries covering the 1985–2002 period and conducted at the
national level supports this theoretical claim (Mosley and Singer, 2015)
• Subcontracting is generally more prevalent in labor-intensive activities, whereas FDI
occurs more in capital- and technology- intensive industries.
• Multinational corporations (MNCs) tend to offer higher wages and better working
conditions than their domestically owned counterparts (Flanagan 2006, Moran 2002

3. THE GLOBAL MIDDLE CLASS

A global middle class?
• Even if the "middle class" is questioned by many
sociologists, we could say that in western countries globalization has generally contributed
to its
impoverishing and making it more precarious (see Guy Standing's concept of the "precariat”
describing temporary, poorly paid,
overqualified jobs in many service sector jobs in Western countries)
• In countries from the Global South such as China, India, Brazil or others, due to
globalization a "new middle class" in these countries has generally emerged from the lower
strata, although not still at the same income level as the western one, with increasing
material security and sense of good prospects
• Milanovic's famous "elephant curve" describes this trend
• The countries of the Global South have seen the emergence of a new working class and a
new middle class due to the industrialization processes that globalization has generated in
their predominantly agrarian economies, with a horizon of good expectations
• The countries of the Global North have seen their economic structure centered on the
service sector and increasingly in relation to the information and knowledge society,
producing scarce and precarious work in large sectors of the population apart from smaller
segments of high-skilled professionals, with an uncertain horizon between robotization and
the so-called collaborative economy

The trend of rising middle classes in Asia and the Global South continues with entrepreneurs
in the high-tech sector for example; while more segments of the western middle class fall
into precarious jobs (sporadic)

A FINAL REFLECTION: ARE ALL SOCIAL CLASSES ALREADY GLOBAL?

• It seems that in today's “world-economy” (Wallerstein), all social classes in most countries
of the world are affected in one way or another by the processes of globalization.
• The classic concept of social class was inscribed in the economic structure of a nation-
state, but we can now speak as Saskia Sassen of "denationalized" social classes in an
ambiguous position between the global and the national.
• We can thus argue that all social classes, not only the managers of multinational
companies or the migrant workers, but also the national middle and working classes, are
already all to a greater or lesser extent global social classes.