ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an understanding of the specific nature of economic globalization, lending special attention to its most recent historical development: its phases and the elements that characterize it. It explores its consequences from the viewpoint of the redistribution of political and economic power, particularly with regard to large corporations and states. The chapter examines its impacts and reactions to it on a global scale, and examines one of the key discussions at present: its impact on planetary inequality. From an economic perspective it is important to emphasize the moderation of the objectives of the second wave of globalization. The moderation lasted until the 1970s and resulted, as had been intended, in the growth of global trade, equality, security and stability. The relationship between inequality and economic globalization has long been under the scrutiny of economists and social scientists.
