ABSTRACT
Economic globalization, whether we interpret it as no more than an intensification of long-range trends or as an abrupt shift towards a new transnational configuration of capitalism, shares with all processes of accelerated modernization some disquieting features. Rapid structural change distributes social costs more unequally, and increases status gaps between winners and losers, generally inflicting heavier burdens in the short run, and greater benefits only in the long term .5 The last wave of economic globalization did not stem from any inherent evolution of
4 Speech to the Foreign Press Association, Paris, 28 May 2001. 5 Georg Vobruba, ‘Actors in Processes of Inclusion and Exclusion’, Social Policy and Administration, December 2000, pp. 603-13.
