Despite decades of expanding global commerce and industrialization in the developing world, the data shows that extreme income inequality between nations has remained stubbornly entrenched, and between-country inequalities still account for an overwhelming ~80% of total world income inequality.
By the end of the twentieth century, these decades of development and industrialization had primarily succeeded in consolidating world inequalities in income and resource use, while accelerating environmental degradation to unprecedented levels.
When corporations relocate manufacturing to the imperial periphery, they successfully export the social contradictions of mass production (like class conflict and labor unrest), but they do not relocate the wealth that historically allowed high-wage countries to afford social safety nets and high living standards.
By the end of the twentieth century, these decades of development and industrialization had primarily succeeded in consolidating world inequalities in income and resource use, while accelerating environmental degradation to unprecedented levels.
When corporations relocate manufacturing to the imperial periphery, they successfully export the social contradictions of mass production (like class conflict and labor unrest), but they do not relocate the wealth that historically allowed high-wage countries to afford social safety nets and high living standards.