GEOG20011 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Economic Inequality, Spontaneous Order, Serfdom
16 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
LECTURE 1: INTRODUCTION
Types of Inequality
• Social Inequality – axes of social difference (gender, race, class)
o Social Difference: ways in which people are differed in relation to a social
category
• Economic Inequality – access to assets & wealth, income inequality, associated with
inability to access social welfare goods (health, education, housing)
• Political Inequality – rights, before the law
• All intertwined, often leading to further disadvantage
GRIPS
Geographical concepts (place, scale, everyday practice)
Region
Intersectionality
Position – relative to structures of power, inequality along a spectrum
Social Change – inequalities result or help to create social change
BEMNI, UTTARAKHAND, INDIA
• Short-film based on Jane Dyson (lecturers) research, follows lives of young people –
shows key changes in inequality
• Village in the high foothills of the Himalayas
• Lack of secure employment, despite many joining the workforce constantly
• Place: Access to employment – must travel to work, much time in the day spent working
• Very few earning sources: no factories, companies, where government creates opportunities they are limited in number
• High competition for jobs – not enough for everyone
• Region: Economic standing of the country/region, inequality at birth
• Cannot rely on what is left behind by parents, as opposed to developed world
• Lack of access to proper educational system
• Change: protested government for road to make town accessible & got road, improvements in electricity, protests for a school,
which was built
• Caste system – inequalities around access to water and social interaction
ECONOMIC THEORIES RELATING TO INEQUALITY
Marxist Approach
• For Marx, inequality was the ‘motor of history’
• Capitalism concentrates power in the hands of the rich
• Unjust, BUT resulting inequality ultimately engenders socialist- revolution
• Socialist state guarantees social + economic equality
Marxism in practice
o Prominent in specific regions – Cuba, North Korea, old Soviet Union
o Used by NGO’s and radical development orgs
Libertarian right-wing approach (work of Friedrich Hayek)
• Most influential work of the 1940’s: ‘The road to Serfdom’
• Classical liberalism during time of socialism
• He believed market creates order within society
• Argued for decline of the state, market creates spontaneous order
• On inequality:
Subject Aims
• Diverse perspectives on
inequality
• Inequalities at different scales
• Cause of inequality
• How inequalities are
experienced & understood
• Some place-space experiences
of inequality
Lecture Aims
• Begin thinking critically about
inequality
• Give a grounding in key
theories of inequality
• Develop a set of questions to
run through the course
1. Inequality occurs across multiple axes
2. Inequality is manifest in social practice
3. Inequality occurs at different scales
4. Inequality occurs across a spectrum (relational)
5. Importance of ‘intersectionality’ (social categories than intersect to create
marginalisation)
6. Inequality can drive change (dialectic – can drive it or be driven by)
Conclusion on Economic
Theories
• List of approaches we’ve
discussed are in exhaustive
• Theories cannot be seen as
distinct
• Relative importance of 3
economic approaches is related
to global & national shifts in
nature & extent of inequality
Key Questions
• How does inequality drive
practices & events?
• How are people able to
challenge inequality?
• Are there any situations in
which inequality is tolerable –
or even productive?
• What is the role of the state in
relation to inequality at the
global & national levels?
Document Summary
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