Inequality: Israel Permits Building Supplies into Gaza Strip

Nicholas Wilczynski

Sometimes Inequality is directly imposed. This is the case in the Gaza strip. Nowadays Israel permits food and most consumer goods to flow into the area, but they made news recently when they allowed the construction supplies to upgrade a constantly overflowing sewage treatment plant.

As far as what this should be compared to in order to give a feel of inequality, the GDP per capita in the Gaza strip is half what it is in Israel. The Gaza Sp is not allowed to export their goods, 90% of their factories have had to shut down production because of the lack of material from the blockade. (Source: IMEU.net).

Past that this also creates an inequality in the Israel experience for the two Palestinian provinces. Certainly the West Bank has seen it's share of trouble from Israel, they were invaded last year by the Zionists and still have serious issues with settlements. But what strikes me about the inequality of the experience is this; It is common for opponents of the state of Israel (which is a inarguable, permanent fixture on the International Stage) to reflect that the Israeli state is in many ways similar to colonial governments that imported first class citizens from abroad and relegated the natives to second class status.

I am not here to argue about whether or not this is an accurate depiction, but if you look to the history of the colonial legacy I am moved by the story of the Hutus and Tutsis. In Rwanda the Belgian colonial regime made a distinction in the economic and social status of these two tribes. Not that Tutsis weren't also second class citizens in Belgian Rwanda, but the inequality in experience for the two tribes fueled internal divisions in Rwanda for generations after the Belgians had left.

As far as the West Bank and the Gaza strip you can already see these divisions in place. The Palestinian Authority has no Authority in the Gaza strip, it is instead ruled by Hamas and as more and more repressive and general methods are employed to quell the presence in the region Israel only shores up support for their opponents.

This is an impediment to the current peace process, sure but it will also be a tool for Israel for generations.

Source:
The Associated Press

World's Workshop moves to Inland China, Nicholas Wilczynski

Nicholas Wilczynski

The word Inequality is a very general term, but most of the aspects of inequality are related and even serve to reinforce one another.

For over a decade Southeastern China has been the manufacturing capital of the cheap labor movement. This has been challenged though in the last year with worker suicides on the production floor of Foxconn's China factories leading to higher wages in that area.

And so there has begun a exodus of Foxconn's competitors. Flextronics chief among them as far as companies focused on foreign markets but mostly companies focused on the emerging Chinese consumer base, have started placing their factories in inland China, where the workers have less bargaining power.

This is mostly about inequality in bargaining power, you can see it in the initial migration of industrial manufacturing jobs when they left the U.S. where Unions were protected and the workers had well established bargaining power. In search of the lowest wages these companies have consistently sought out this inequality of bargaining power so that they could convert it into inequality in manufacturing costs. However this particular story raises the idea that far from a race to the bottom, by seeking out and becoming dependant on low wages the manufacturers instead slowly inflate labor costs by empowering the low wage workers with jobs and any wages at all.

If this is the case then world Capitalism might have a shot. Although I also note with some irony that by fleeing the high wage areas and diminishing the jobs available there the domestic Chinese companies endanger their own prospective consumer base.

Source:
International Business Times

Inequality

Nicholas Wilczynski