gn direct investment – the bottom fifth just 1%; 74% of world telephone lines, today’s basic means of communication – the bottom fifth just 1.5%. Inequality between countries has also increased. The income gap between the fifth of the world’s people living in the richest countries and the fifth in the poorest was 30:1 in 1960, 60:1 in 1990,and escalated to 74:1 in 1997. Sometimes it is hard for us to comprehend just how poor other countries are. To purchase a computer would cost the average Bangladeshi more than eight year’s income, the average American just one month’s wage. Throughout it all, countries on the periphery of global influence are being marginalized, even when following the neoliberal advice of the IMF and others. Madagascar, Niger, the Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Venezuela are becoming even more marginal – Ironic since many of them are highly “integrated”, with exports nearly 30% of GDP for Sub-Saharan Africa and only 19% for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But these countries hang on the vagaries of global markets, with the prices of primary commodities having fallen to their lowest in a century and a half. Moreover, the north controls the information, and then uses the information to maintain the misery of and control the global populace. In 1993 just 10 countries accounted for 84% of global research and development expenditures and controlled 95% of the US patents of the past two decades. Moreover, more than 80% of patents granted in developing countries belong to residents of industrial countries. The African continent accounts for almost 70% of HIV infected people worldwide SocialAs globalization spreads, everyone is getting on board, including organized crime. Crime syndicates are growing, and spanning the globe, following the wake of expansionist corporations. As they grow, the world lacks the element of a globa...
