Globalization is the coming of the 'triumph of capitalism,' the growing ascendancy of economics over politics, of corporate demands over public policy, of private over public interest. It represents the approaching completion of the capitalization of the world, carried out by 'self-generating capital' in the form of transnational corporations within an increasingly coherent transnational regulatory regime. Neo-liberal policies at the national level, argues the author, represent the policy side of globalization, the political requirements of global capital, the harmonization of the national with the global. They mark the transition between two eras, from a world of national corporations and nation states to a world of transnational corporations and supranational regulatory agencies. The author examines the postwar conditions that gave rise to the modern welfare state and the politics of social democracy throughout the industrial world. He traces the transformation of these conditions in the 1970s with the coming of a computer-based mode of production and the consequent necessity for global relations of production. In the face of global assertions of the rights of corporate private property, he makes the case that the world's subordinate classes and peoples will have to create global means of resistance.

Gary Teeple examines the transformation of the economic and political conditions that allowed for the rise of the welfare state and the politics of social democracy. He critically analyzes the neo-liberal policies that are being introduced by governments everywhere, arguing that they are the policy counterpart to the globalization of the economy. If globalization represents the "triumph of capitalism" and the decline of the welfare state, then it also carries negative consequences for working people around the world. As liberal democracy declines and political legitimacy fades, the world is confronted by the unmitigated assertion of the rights of corporate private property.

A text examining the change from the economic and political conditions that led to the welfare state and the politics of social democracy. It analyzes the neoliberal policies that governments are adopting, arguing that globalization means negative consequences for working people around the world.

Gary Teeple examines the transformation of the economic and political conditions that allowed for the rise of the welfare state and the politics of social democracy. He critically analyzes the neo-liberal policies that are being introduced by governments everywhere, arguing that they are the policy counterpart to the globalization of the economy. If globalization represents the "triumph of capitalism" and the decline of the welfare state, then it also carries negative consequences for working people around the world. As liberal democracy declines and political legitimacy fades, the world is confronted by the unmitigated assertion of the rights of corporate private property.

Over the past two decades, the percentage of the world’s population living on less than a dollar a day has been cut in half. How much of that improvement is because of—or in spite of—globalization? While anti-globalization activists mount loud critiques and the media report breathlessly on globalization’s perils and promises, economists have largely remained silent, in part because of an entrenched institutional divide between those who study poverty and those who study trade and finance. Globalization and Poverty bridges that gap, bringing together experts on both international trade and poverty to provide a detailed view of the effects of globalization on the poor in developing nations, answering such questions as: Do lower import tariffs improve the lives of the poor? Has increased financial integration led to more or less poverty? How have the poor fared during various currency crises? Does food aid hurt or help the poor? Poverty, the contributors show here, has been used as a popular and convenient catchphrase by parties on both sides of the globalization debate to further their respective arguments. Globalization and Poverty provides the more nuanced understanding necessary to move that debate beyond the slogans.

A balanced look at globalization and its potential environmental effects, both destructive and beneficial.

This informative and exciting volume brings together accomplished sociologists and scholars to offer an introduction to ways of studying and understanding global social change. The essays in Global Social Change explore globalization from a world-systems perspective, untangling its many contested meanings. This perspective offers insights into globalization's gradual and uneven growth throughout the course of human social evolution. In this informative and exciting volume, Christopher Chase-Dunn and Salvatore J. Babones bring together accomplished senior sociologists and outstanding younger scholars with a mix of interests, expertise, and methodologies to offer an introduction to ways of studying and understanding global social change. In both newly written essays and previously published articles from the Journal of World Systems Research, the contributors employ historical and comparative social science to examine the development of institutions of global governance, the rise and fall of hegemonic core states, transnational social movements, and global environmental challenges. They compare post–World War II globalization with the great wave of economic integration that occurred in the late nineteenth century, analyze the rise of the political ideology of the "globalization project"—Reaganism-Thatcherism—and discuss issues of gender and global inequalities.