ABSTRACT
In our age of globalization, capitalism has reduced social control of various markets, and reveals the fundamental workings of capitalist economies with contemporary features. Neoliberalism has become the dominant ideology upon the basis of neoclassical economics. Despite the neoliberal belief in the fair and rational efficiency of free competitive market order, contemporary capitalist market economy has actually destabilized the economic life of the majority of working people, and widely polarized income and wealth inequality both internationally and domestically. We are thus thrown back to theoretical issues on how to understand the basic nature and workings of capitalist market economy as a frame of reference for these tendencies. Among others this chapter focuses on the theory of international unequal exchange as a possible basic frame of reference for a global polarization of income and wealth in our age. It relates to the recognition that “Rapid development by poor and middle income countries cannot take place under the Neoliberal rules of the game” (Crotty 2003), and attempts to supplement a theoretical foundation for this perspective.
