The Global Sociology Blog

I will be undergoing surgery later today, so, blogging might be scarce for a few days.

In its report Going For Growth 2010, the OECD examines intergenerational mobility across its member countries. It also provides a good definition of intergeneration mobility:

So, how do OECD countries fare when it comes to the transmission of privileges (and disadvantages) and intergenerational mobility?

So, the UK, Italy, US and France are the countries with the least amount of intergenerational mobility and persistence of earnings across generations whereas Nordic countries tend to have more mobility.

As Filip Spagnoli notes, these data (and others that can be found in one chapter of the Report, which is to be fully published in March) debunks the myth of the efficiency and openness of the Anglo-Saxon model of public policy as opposed to the continental (or mainland, as Spagnoli calls it) model based on stronger social safety net:

Social Mobility in Anglo-Saxon Economies « P.A.P. Blog – Human Rights Etc. via kwout

The neoliberal framing of public policy has worked as the continental model is believed to be less efficient, less motivating (”why would people work hard if they are going to pay taxes to support welfare-dependent deadbeats?”), more flexible (FSM knows neo-liberals love flexibility!) and that inequality is a reflexion of individuals’ work ethics and motivation and a small price to pay for the freedom to succeed.

Data such as those above are not new but they do highlight how simplistic these beliefs are. As Spagnoli notes,

Social Mobility in Anglo-Saxon Economies « P.A.P. Blog – Human Rights Etc. via kwout

Actually, as The Spirit Level notes, high inequality is bad for society, even when accompanied with economic growth in affluent countries. And as Lane Kenworthy has noted as well, the often-mentioned trade-offs to greater equality are weak to non-existent once one looks at the data.

Actually, I would argue that if we truly believed in meritocracy, we would ban inheritance so that everyone truly starts with an economic blank slate and provide education to provide equality of opportunity on the social and cultural capital fronts.

Via Visual Economics, the comparative “bubbles” are always interesting.

By now, you probably have read Jessica Valenti’s piece in the Washington Post, along with the myriad of sexist comments that prove her point: that  gender equality is far from established in the United States:

For women in America, equality is still an illusion – washingtonpost.com via kwout

I argued here before that the patriarchy is a cultural and structural continuum: and that what Valenti writes about is, in essence, no different from this:

IRIN Middle East | YEMEN: “I’d rather die than go back to him” | Middle East | Yemen | Children Gender Issues Human Rights | Feature via kwout

To pretend that there are essential differences between the physical and structural violence depicted by Valenti and the excerpt above is a neat ideological construct that Western patriarchal systems and proponents use to stifle demands for equality whereas to emphasize the continuum nature of the patriarchy emphasizes the “work-in-progress” nature of the struggle for equality, culturally and structurally. And the angry and sexist reactions to pieces such as Valenti’s speaks volume of the strongly internalized nature of patriarchy as ideology.

Similarly, this familiar story is part of the same continuum:

What is a girl worth? | Education | The Guardian via kwout

I should add that I have issues with this instrumental view of girls’ education (”let your girl go to school and the return on investment will be greater!”) or that somehow, once educated, girls have a responsibility for the development of their country. I never see such expectations mentioned when it comes to boys.

In a more humorous fashion, Abstruse Goose captures the same idea:

The news is not really good:

The New Poor – Despite Signs of Recovery, Long-Term Unemployment Rises – Series – NYTimes.com via kwout

The stories are devastating and clearly point to the urgency of labor policy.

Over at The Baseline Scenario, James Kwak has a series of graphics that give some nuance to unemployment data, especially on long-term unemployment. Click on the image for a larger view.

Needless to say, our social structures are not designed for long-term unemployment (and the dominant ideology is merciless on this front, especially when it comes to minorities). The looseness (to use a kind word) of the safety net in the US makes it even harder for a lot of people to weather the recession, and, by extension, will delay recovery. This is where public policy should kick in but probably won’t.

This has already made the rounds and I blogged it a while back, but here is the updated and video version:

Title shamelessly borrowed from Gianni Silei.

Bad news: no progress in the global fight against poverty | Social Watch via kwout

Click on the image for humongous version.

What is the Basic Capabilities Index?:

ICB2009_reverso_eng.gif (GIF Image, 3000×1064 pixels) via kwout

In greater details:

Basic Capabilities Index: a starting point | Social Watch via kwout

This is a must-read by Social Watch:

A failed financial architecture (flash) | Social Watch via kwout

This is one of the smartest explanation of the global governance system and its systemic failures. This slide is unsurprising but still needs to be noted as a systemic feature:

A failed financial architecture (flash) via kwout

This one is equally well-known and lip service is often paid to “reform”:

A failed financial architecture (flash) via kwout

Via Visual Economics, as always (and yes, yes, we can debate the issue of measurement but still) and yes, we already know that Spain and Greece are in pretty bad shape.

Sociedad y poder via kwout

Update your bookmarks and RSS feeds!

According to this article in El País (in Spanish), this is is what Manuel Castells does in his latest book Communication Power but it does not mean that he has given up on the emancipatory potential of the Internet:

La araña y su tela · ELPAÍS.com via kwout

Read the whole thing.

Although I would argue that power was not as absent of The Information Age as the article makes it sound. Castells made it very clear that the Network Society produces winners and losers (the usual suspects, labor for instance). And the conflict dimension was more thoroughly addressed in the other volumes of the Information Age.

Needless to say, that book is in my to-read ever-growing pile. Castells is in line for my sociologist of the semester category.

After reviewing the various privacy issues relating to Google Buzz, Christian Fuchs argues that Buzz is only the latest tool used by Google to exercise economic surveillance and that we should worry about such developments for the following reasons:

Google Buzz: Economic Surveillance – Buzz Off! The Problem of Online Surveillance and the Need for an Alternative Interne | Christian Fuchs via kwout

When thinking about the surveillance society, it is common to assume that the deepest mechanisms of surveillance come from the government in the age of the war on terror. I would argue that there is as much to fear from economic surveillance from corporations. And Fuch’s list above only confirms such problems with corporate economic surveillance beyond obtainment of more and finer data.

Oh, and I could not help note the irony at the bottom of Fuch’s post:

Google Buzz: Economic Surveillance – Buzz Off! The Problem of Online Surveillance and the Need for an Alternative Interne | Christian Fuchs via kwout

Paging Todd Krohn, my favorite critical criminologist, about this:

New NYPD Data for 2009 Shows Significant Rise in Stop-and-Frisks: More than Half Million New Yorkers Stopped Last Year | Center for Constitutional Rights via kwout

Let us review: Blacks and Hispanics may show up in higher proportion in crime statistics NOT because they commit more street crimes, but because they are subjected to police scrutiny to an extent disproportionate to their proportion in the general population. If cops were constantly monitoring us white folks that way, the crime statistics would look different.

The constant stopping and frisking of certain segments of the population also generates resentment in said population and lowers the respect they have for police officers perceived as harassing them. Hence, community – police interactions are also more likely to be conflictual.

For Pete’s sake, don’t they read The Saints and the Roughnecks in criminal justice programs anymore?

The dominant mythical narrative of globalization (a la Tom Friedman) is one where the Global North is politically stable, economically prosperous and culturally modern as opposed to an overpopulated, politically corrupt, economically under-developed and socially chaotic Global South. As such, the Global North could dictate economic policies to the Global South through institutions of global governance such as the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. With the US and European-led recession and the collapse of Greece, it might be time to revise that narrative.

Will Hutton:

Don’t laugh at Europe’s woes. The travails facing Greece are also ours | Will Hutton | Comment is free | The Observer via kwout

Immanuel Wallerstein:

Chaos as an Everyday Thing | Immanuel Wallerstein via kwout

Is it any wonder that the neoliberal state is largely a repressive and war-making state “thriving” in the global risk society.

At face value, something like this may seem practical:

Montpellier: the cashless society – Europe, World – The Independent via kwout

However, in the context of identity fraud and the surveillance society, this is worrisome as well. The idea of complete centralization of information on individuals has the potential for so much damage and risks (in Beck’s sense) that such a device could only work with an army of precautions.