Chapter 23 discusses how as the world becomes more connected, global inequality begins to be noticed more because people are comparing their lives and incomes to others across the globe. It breaks inequality down into three different types, differences between countries based on their avg income, the same comparison but its adjusted for population size, and then true global inequality, which looks at how much individuals earn worldwide. The measures are each good in their own regard, but they tell different stories, like how inequaility between countries has increased since the 80s, but when population is a factor, it has actually decreased due to fast population growth. Basically, global inequality is still very high, even though it has technically gotten better in recent years.
The article about the Mayan coffee farmers and fair trade was really informative. I thought it was interesting reading about the ways these farmers are exploited by the free market. They do so much work, but receive almost none of the actual profit generated by their work. However, due to contracts and the determined price of the coffee, there is not much they can do to try and get fair compensation for their work.
Finally, the washington post article about cobalt was a devastating read. I knew that the cobalt mining was bad for the workers, but I had never really read into how truly horrible it is. These people are exploited to do dangerous work and we justify it by saying that the resources are necessary. If the cobalt is so necessary, then these people should be treated better and compensated fairly, but once again, like the coffee farmers, they do all the work but receive almost none of the profit. How can we bear to live with ourselves when children are being used to mine up the resources to make phones, all so we can waste away our brains using them?
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