Curitiba is the capital of the agricultural state of Parana
Developed rapidly in the second of the 1800s as the result of an influx of mostly European immigrants
Large growth in 70s and 80s- became industrial/commercial center
One of the fastest growing cities in Brazil- improvement in quality of life have accompanied growth (public transportation, cultural heritage, city parks, environmental education campaigns)
Planning in the 60s centered on creating transportation to provide for needs of the public (did not center on primacy of cars like other Brazilian cities)
Limited concentration of employment to city center (left this area for pedestrians)
Jaime Lerner key actor in cities development- 3 important elements: public transport, land use regulation/environmental protection, cultural services
Planning has encourage commercial development outside of city center (along axes)
Housing programs near transport axes
Bus system most cost effective and highly developed (more cars per capita than other Brazilian cities but no traffic)
2/3 of population use bus daily, people only spend 10% of income on transportation
Industrial city: employs 20% of the work force w/ 400 non-polluting industries
Award from UN for 2 waste management programs- “garbage that’s not garbage” 2/3 recyclables are recycled due to environmental education programs and “purchase garbage” slum dweller can sell their trash to city to diminish contraction of disease through unsanitary living conditions
Several initiatives to deal with sewage while protecting waterways
City preserves/restores historical sites
Very dedicated to preserving parks and woodland
City strives to provide social service (childcare, health, education, teach trades to low-income adults)

Paths towards sustainability and technology in tension (286)

Sound science cannot replace democracy (the debate between evidence and policy)

Evidence is dependent upon framing of questions and responses

“…available science could not provide an unambiguous basis for policy.”

In regard to nuclear energy, “…different equally ‘scientific’ studies often obtain radically different results.” (287)

Science is a “…necessary rather than a sufficient condition for effective policy.”

“Moreover – in any case – how well does economic competitiveness alone address wider dimensions of human progress (Daly and Cobb, 1989)?

Reservations about globalization are dismissed as “anti-technology bias”(288)

“Again, the particular political position of one powerful social actor [Deputy Director General of the UN] is being justified by reference to the ostensibly apolitical general character of S&T.”

“What is curious about the hegemonic status of this simplistic, one-directional idea of technological innovation is that it has been thoroughly discredited in virtually every relevant field of academic study.” “…not based on ‘sound science’!”

New innovations arising not necessarily from nature but from human creativity

No guarantee that the market will identify and pursue the “most socially appropriate pathways.” – currently, they tend to favor specific interests (289)

Pro-innovation polemic undermines what it is supposedly bolstering-“Open discussion and active contention over alternative directions for innovation are actually a celebration of the true importance and excitement of technology.”

“Precautionary principle” decried as “Panic Attack”

“Again, the same themes emerge, in which science is presented as unambiguous, incontrovertible and complete, technology as undifferentiated and self-evidently good and scepticism over any particular technology as irrational and prejudiced.”
Precautionary measures do not reject all technology- “The concept of precaution has become salient – and attracts such criticism – precisely because it holds very concrete implications for practical choices between contending technological pathways.”(290)

“The classic enunciation remains Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration: ‘. . . Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost effective measures to prevent environmental degradation’ (UNCED, 1992).

Dismissing public concern as “anti-technology” reinforces what it is meant to prevent- “Animated invective over ‘panic-stricken’, ‘prejudiced’, ‘irrational’ publics serves only to undermine such mature and measured policy processes. The resulting polarization serves ironically to accentuate the very threat it purports to resist.” (291)

Prescriptions: 1) “more accessible acknowledgement of the conditioning role played by subjective values and interests,” 2) not just outcomes but also processes should be of human interest, 3) “broader-based process of technology appraisal necessarily involves
active and transparent stakeholder deliberation and citizen participation,” 4) “we resist the temptation to treat the social appraisal of technology as a managerial exercise in the delivery of political justification and legitimacy” (292), “…instead of seeking single defi natively ‘legitimate’ or ‘robust’ technological strategies, we might instead come to appreciate the multiple benefits of technological diversity.” (293)

Could the global ecosystem support everyone in the world if we were all living with the technologically advanced lifestyle of the United States? Is it fair that some people are blocked from this possibly by subsidizing the access elsewhere?

In Parkinson and Tayler’s “Decentralized Wastewater Management in Peri-Urban Areas in Low-Income Countries” the authors explains the benefits of designing and building sustainable and decentralized management systems to solve the problem of ineffective wastewater disposal in peri-urban areas, but mostly discusses the constraints in implementation. Although the authors provide a rudimentary framework to build and evaluate such a decentralized system by exhorting capacity-building, they do not present any concrete guidance for operationalization.

Due to rapid and sustained urbanization of cities in developing countries, already resource-strapped governments often fail to provide adequate infrastructures, such as basic sanitation systems, water, electricity, health care, and transportation, among other essentials. Peri-urban areas occupy a liminal zone on the margins of a city, usually in close proximity to industrial complexes, where aspects of both urban and rural life commingle along with the unregulated pollution industry, thus creating social and environmental tensions.

In the case of sanitation, wastewater is discharged onto open ground in abandoned or vacant lots, creating not only cesspools of stench, but also waterborne illnesses as household and surface water and drainage systems are combined, leading to perpetual contamination of clean water. Also, poor peri-urban farmers find it cheaper to reuse untreated wastewater to irrigate crops. Consequently, the inhabitants of peri-urban areas are prone to diseases found in both urban and rural areas: “they get the worst of both worlds.”

Centralized approaches to reuse and treat wastewater have resoundingly failed, as peri-urban areas fall outside municipal boundaries, and as a result, are often beyond the reach of centralized systems. In contrast, decentralization is touted as more effective as it involves transferring central control to local authorities to make decisions about physical design, distribution and operation of wastewater, which will lead to greater accountability and better services. Decentralized approaches to wastewater management are thought to lead to greater stakeholder participation in decision-making and planning, long-term lower financial costs, segregation of waste-water, lower health-risks, and better wastewater re-usage. The authors suggest treating wastewater at the source of generation: the household-centered environmental sanitation approach

Stakeholder participation creates the organization necessary to broker agreements with local municipal authorities. Although NGO’s push for this type of engagement, they often lack the know-how to implement technological systems. In terms of long-term financial benefits, tackling the wastewater problem at the source will defray financial costs of pumping and creating trunk sewers at great distances. Segregating the wastewater from black water (fecal matter and urine) from grey water (effluent water from kitchens and bathroom sinks) can improve water treatment options as well as minimize health risks. Grey water can be used to irrigate with little to no treatments, and black water would be stored in a leach pit. Decentralized operations are also compatible with local need for re-utilizing wastewater for growing crops.

Despite these benefits, a significant setback to creating such treatment facilities is access to large tracts of land, which are most often privately-owned or controlled. A treatment method for black water that requires relatively small areas of land is the anaerobic treatment, the simplest form of which is the septic tank. Other methods include anaerobic waste stabilization ponds, which are very simple, have long retention-spans of waste, and can be integrated into treatment and reuse systems. They also have high concentrations of algae and can support fish such as tilapia. However, this also requires large amounts of land. Constructed wetlands are another option but involve significant pretreatment, and therefore can only be considered as a secondary treatment option.

In addition to technological constraints, lack of management and expertise, as well as lack of institutional cohesion can pose a problem. Therefore, not only should sustainable management of a decentralized wastewater system should be compatible with the knowledge and capabilities of its local users, but successful management requires the concerted coordination and cooperation between government, the private sector, civil society and local communities.

To battle these shortcomings, the authors propose grassroots advocacy to create a cultural need for decentralized wastewater treatment, locally-tailored policy prescriptions, the strengthening of existing institutions to become more flexible to meet the needs of the growing populations in peri-urban areas, and finally, the training and dissemination of technical information to maintain these facilities once built. These recommendations, though laudable, are particularly thin in actually showing how to achieve these goals. The authors are essentially attempting to create a sociotechnological system, in which both technology and culture interact to create a system that is essentially a cultural artifact. This paper would have been stronger if they actually went through case studies where they attempted to put their recommendations into practice.

• What is a ‘livable city’?
• Why are we concerned about the livability of cities in a global era?
• Where do we begin to make our cities more livable?

“Livable” is a normative concept that implies values- since values vary “a livable city means many things to many people”

To assume some values were more important would obviate dialogue or trying to form consensus

Cities are sign of social technological innovation and human achievement

Vision of cities to be “perfect mix of rural and urban in a cooperative society” (1)

Modern cities are not utopias with the ‘good society’ but are “practical, highly economistic and “developmental”” (2) because they are based on ‘neoliberal public policy’ (unmitigated capitalism will right any wrongs)

“Citizen participation in political life is viewed as being instrumental to finance and other
material ends rather than an end in itself, as revealed in the World Bank formulation in Table 1.” ??????

Table 1. Developmentalist Approach to Livability
1. Basic Urban Service – impacts on health & ability to work
• Water
• Sanitation
• Transport: roadway/ footpath
• Drainage
2. Healthier Urban Environment
• Air
• Lead
• Dust & soot
• Microbial disease
3. Finance for People in Cities
• Decentralized & democratic decision making
• Partnership for civic Action
_____________________________________________________________
Source: World Bank (1996). (3)

Douglass believes what is missing is civil spaces that promote community- he wants to include “lifeworld” to the concept of livability, which includes personal (education, health and livelihood) and environmental well-being

Lifeworld is vital to civil society

Peattie- “conviviality” (social life and activity) is more important than material conditions

Examples of a livable, convivial city would include:
 Walkable with pedestrian ways (streets, sidewalks, lanes) that are not encumbered by parked
vehicles, extensions of shop goods, signs or public utilities.
 Mixed use with pleasant, short walks to daily functions such as stores, transit stops, schools
and parks.
 Sociable, human-scaled pedestrian experiences.
 Tree-lined streets, greenery.
 Community and civic centers available for community and non-government organizations of
all kinds.
 High-quality public squares and public parks.
 Historic architecture is preserved and used
 Vernacular architecture thrives
 Public streets and sidewalks fronting a diversity of local shops.
 Recreational spaces for all ages (5)

“Doesn’t livability come after ‘development’…?” (5)

Asian’s overly rapid development and consequences of it

Livability strategies must be viewed in a global rather than national context

Trends that are limiting community and civil spaces:
 Privatization – selling of public land to private developers.
 Commercialization: allowing commercial activities to fill in or selling public land for
commercial use.
 Commodification of symbolic places: billboards, signage, ‘McDonald’ frontage.
 Neglect due to shrinking public budgets or low priority
 Invasions by individuals (homeless, shop owners)
 Suppression of access through urban design.
 Global simulacra replaces local production of culture
 Fortification, surveillance
 Cutting off by surrounding development (e.g., beach access) (7)

As globalization is encouraging consumerism as the “main expression of citizenship, civil society…is on the rise” (7)

Taipei- citizens design their own parks, Korea mayor running on platform of regenerating a river and parkways through the city

Where to begin? On community level and city level

Peter Marcuse’s article focuses on the perception, meaning and application of the word “sustainability.” Sustainable programs and policies are devised from a unique relationship between sustainability and justice. For instance, what is sustainable can be just and what is just is not always sustainable and vice versa. Although sustainability is a goal for environmental issues it should not be the policy for creating livable cities.

Sustainability can be a trap for cities who wish to improve and progress. In urban areas, one’s sustainability can infringe upon another’s freedoms. Marcuse states, “A landlords profits are a tenants expense, high-rise construction cast shadows on neighboring land uses. Accessibility for one is pollution for another; security for some is exclusion for others.” Those who strive for justice are not interested in sustaining the now, but rather improving it for the future. They do not wish to “sustain” the status quo but rather change and develop current situations.

Sustainability between the environment and urban cities can greatly vary. Building low-income housing on open land in a conservation area could be deemed as not environmentally sustainable. However, from the urban city’s perspective, the use of open land can improve housing, solve over-population, and quell energy problems.

The meaning of sustainability also varies from person to person. Sustainability for someone in poverty is safe drinking water and basic sanitation, while sustainability for a wealthier individual can consist of the larger aspects of environmentalism such as pollution and global warming. An individual with contaminated and diseased drinking water is far less concerned with global warming than the wealthier individual. Better environments for some can come at the expense of others.

“Sustainable development is development that meets specific needs of the present, and can be maintained into the future, without detracting from the satisfaction of other needs in the present or future.” – The Brundtland Commission

Discusses nature and form of transformation of MUR (Mega-Urban Region) with emphasis on 1990-2000 era

Expansion of MUR in Pacific Asia related to intense globalization (urban economies have opened and huge amounts of capital flows and opening of domestic banking have increased the trend)

The transformation of these cities makes them appear anything but “developing” (“modern transportation, industrial platform, suburban housing, etc”)

“Are they unique to Asia?” or are they similar to the Boston/Washington megalopolis?

Author seeks to show uniqueness of each city rather than group all cities of Asia or Latin America (1)

Identifying similarities is as important as showing distinctions

Growth of MURs coincided with the peak and downturn of population growth (growth dropped below replacement level in early 90s in China and Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia only slightly above replacement level by end of 90s, only the Philippines remains above)

Dependency of aging population is increasing in magnitude

MURs were the leader in the decline of population growth (2)

Shanghai no longer able to replace itself (same trend in Bangkok and Taipei)- growth now relies on in-migration from other parts of these countries

Rural depopulation occurring for a long time in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan- these countries also rely on international immigration for low wage jobs (3)

Different fertility rate between core and periphery of MURs

Technological changes, such as cars, has increased urban sprawl

Localization of global influence based socio-political aspects (imperialism and market/government reform)- growth based on global rather than local influence (4)
“Among the most compelling assessments of contemporary urbanization and MUR formation are those from literature on global/world cities, which posits that global urban networks are emerging from the confines of the nation-state as the spatial system articulating the world economy” (Friedmann 1986, 1996; Knox and Taylor 1995; Clark 1996; Sassen 2000).2

Government engaged to provide infrastructure for growing markets- in this aspect still localized

Local-global interaction is both internal and external

Capital flows have noticeable impact on change in cities (size and expansion rates)

Modes of productions have formed linkages between MURs (5): 1. primary commodity/ resource extraction, 2. labor-intensive export-oriented, 3. global retail consumption , 4. global finance

In first mode, city was the gateway to global economy (““primate cities”…conduits for rural surplus extraction”)

Second mode- growth rate surged after WW II as did rural-urban migration, countries shifted away from aversion to FDI (6), EOI (export-oriented industrialization) predominantly successful in Pacific Asia, urbanization and polarization (labor intensification?) important trends in EOI (7), the doubling of the value of the yen undermined Japanese imports also aided the industrialization of Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong

Third mode- mid-80s large urban middle-class created in NIE and EOI which attracted consumer franchise/retail capital, spread of Japanese bubble economy (land speculation and short-term bank deposits, FDI went to urban development rather than industrial growth, accelerated growth of MURs (8), in 1997 the bubble burst (9)

1990-2000 decade of extreme boom and bust (10)

Several other crises negatively affected the Pacific Asian economy (dot.com crash, 9/11, Bali bombings, SARS epidemic, Iraq War

Important turning point of MURs- IMF bailout and conditionalities (privatization)

This created higher competition for FDI (governments support mega –project to maintain an image of prosperity) (11)

Will MURs remain monocentric or became multi-centered? (14)

Current trends: the core will become more devoted to commercial interests and residents will be displaced to outer zones (but care is not taken in developing these outer regions and this could lead to future disasters) .

The strategy of more developed nations primarily includes policies for the present and plans for the future. They execute plans in the present which also will have a positive impact in the future. However, in less developed nations, plans consist of planning only for the present due the dire conditions and lack of resources the nation faces at the time. Therefore, planning for the future in less developed nations is not only overlooked but sometimes ignored. After the 1994 Rwandan genocide the country was faced with an economic and societal crisis. The majority of the country’s children had witnessed brutal violence, and were deeply scared. The majority of professionals and skilled elite were killed in the genocide, leaving a young impressionable, terrified, and unskilled generation to handle the countries affairs. There was no industry in the nation due fear of violence and the lack of skilled laborer.
The U.N. was forced to establish a list of development goals to enable the country to progress back to self-sustainment. The plans contained goals of eradicating poverty, population education and equality, better healthcare, environmental sustainability, and global development. Though many of the goals were progressively improving, environmental and development issues continued to suffer. Though the government was committed to improvement in these areas they found increasingly difficult to establish foundation for growth.
Officials in the Rwandan government were interviewed about their views on why the nation was suffering from environmental and development issues. The consensus was the nation has an unskilled labor force, energy shortages, a lack of environmental law, pollution, poor terrain planning, a lack of transportation, a weak private a sector with no business plan, and competition problem. The officials found it difficult to try and preserve the environment while trying to promote growth and industry and felt they had to choose between the two which resulted in an affinity for industry and revenue. In analysis, Short states Rwanda must learn to balance three categories of dire concerns:

Eco-Centric
Conserving the environment, people and their habits.

Techno-Centric
Energy, transportation, industry, and trade concerns.

Socio-Centric
Improving the education of the population, conservation of natural heritage, and recording national history.
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National accounting measures misaligned with concept of sustainability (the ability to provide for present needs without jeopardizing the ability for future generations to do the same)- GDP only focuses on present production.

“GDP and GNP have become the main indicators not only of economic success but often social and political success also.”

Recent focus on making national accounts more “green” by including cost/benefit analysis of economic growth based on impact to the environment.

This article- “An empirical approach is developed whereby certain adjustments
to national accounts, based on normative social choice theory, are introduced to indicate how a partial measure of sustainability can be determined using national accounting aggregates as a base.” (220)

History of national accounts- useful for predicting business cycles and estimating economic capacity for war, system first released in 1953.

High GDP/GNP indicator of increased social welfare.

“Therefore, while it may be possible for national accounts to became proxy indicators of social welfare, these measures have more recently also been seen as indicators of sustainability.” (221)

“Definitions of sustainability must consider intergenerational equity, resilience or carry capacity of the system, environmental maintenance and consumption or welfare maintenance.” Sustainability in danger of become a meaningless catch phrase.

“Sustainability cannot be measured in static terms.” Sustainability is the path the economy is on.

Sustainability also used as an economic term: “Such a concept of maximizing income flows [income] without reducing asset stocks is key in many concepts of sustainable development.”

2 classifications of sustainability: “Weak sustainability considers that natural and constructed resources are perfectly substitutable, whereas strong sustainability considers natural resources only substitutable with other natural resources.”

Strong sustainability “…any loss of natural capital will have potentially irreversible effects on this welfare.” (222)

Broader definition includes ecological and socio-cultural.
Ecological “dependent on the following conditions: (1) the rate of decline of nonrenewable resources, (2) the excess rate of harvest of renewable resources, (3) the assimilative capacity of nature to absorb waste, and (4) pollution reducing technology and capital…maintaining an ecological system that can support viable communities.”
Socio-cultural concerned with maintaining social and human relationship in the face of
external pressures. Reducing the vulnerability and maintaining the health (i.e. resilience, vigor and organization) of social and cultural systems and their ability to withstand shocks is also important.”

“A better national account to measuring issues of sustainability is Net National Product (NNP). NNP is the same as GNP except that it is calculated after allowances have been made for the depreciation or consumption of capital used in the production process.” But not through Hamiltonian function. (223)

‘There are three main areas of concern that must be rectified before it is possible to construct green national accounts to measure sustainability objectives: (1) valuation of ecological services [through democratically elected governments or defensive expenditure]; (2) valuation of environmental stocks and (3) transboundary pollution.”

“A similar system [to national accounts] of natural resource accounting exercises that consider environmental consequences of economic activities is now being developed [by the UN] in the same manner as the SNA.” (224)

“Green GDP measures are more closely aligned with sustainability objectives. However, the limitation of this SEEA approach is that GDP is still the core component with various adjustments made to better consider sustainability objectives.” (225)

“Despite this work, national accounts, especially GDP, continued to be considered a suitable measure of welfare. The second generation of ‘adjusted-GDP’ measures moved from solely seeking to align national accounts with welfare to also seeking to align national accounts with sustainability objectives.”

“Daly and Cobb developed the index for sustainable economic welfare (ISEW). It is based on the calculations of the monetary values of the costs of pollution, traffic, the loss of wetlands and the depletion of non-renewable resources, etc.” (226)

“The ISEW is limited through the inclusion of activities that impact either on current
welfare (health expenditure) and those dealing with future sustainability (long-term environmental damage). According to Neumayer (1999), this confusing mix results in the invalidity of the ISEW having any importance. Current welfare and sustainability are related but distinct entities. Therefore, two indicators are needed, not one. A second perceived weakness of this approach is that ISEW fails to maintain its ‘strong sustainability’ roots by allowing the inclusion of some calculations of perfect
substitutability between natural capital and other forms of capital (‘weak sustainability’).” (227)

“It is possible to improve this adjustment approach by utilizing normative social choice theory. Normative social choice theory has traditionally been concerned with social or collective decisions on issues such as social welfare. Thus, the main focus within normative social choice theory has been the process of aggregating individual choices to form a social choice resulting in optimal social welfare outcomes.”

“This approach argues that GDP can be used as an indicator of social welfare and sustainability if the GDP estimates are undertaken within a cost–benefit analysis framework based on normative social choice perspectives.”

“This approach considers the tensions between economic development and sustainability
by undertaking a number of SEE-based adjustments to GDP based on social choice perspectives in order to measure sustainability – termed the social, economic and environmentally adjusted GDP (SEE AGDP).” Through 8 GDP adjustments (example Thailand). (228)

“This divergence therefore indicates that sustainability is becoming less likely as the costs of economic growth begin to impact on the health and functioning ability of the SEE system.” (229)

Critique- formulating approach “This approach can be applied to estimate sustainability
by using expert opinion (or analysis), scientific information, government formulated public policy about sustainability indicators and specific interviews of individuals on social welfare outcomes including willingness to pay, hedonic prices and contingent valuation methods. The methodology for each technique is well established (Islam, 2001).” (228)

Jennifer Bair’s article, “From the Politics of Development to the Challenges of Globalization, treats the discourse surrounding the Group 77’s attempt to create the Code of Conduct of Transnational Enterprises (the Code)—via their quest for a New International Economic Order’s (NIEO)—to its transformation into the Global Compact (the Compact) at the United Nations as an analogy for the trajectory of the eventual subsumation of development discourse under globalization rhetoric.  The Group 77 was created in 1964 when developing countries met for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).  They made explicit that economic independence would only occur if each country exerted national sovereignty over the nation’s natural resources.  Later, during the oils crisis in the early 1970’s, the G-77 members requested a special session with the UN to discuss establishing the NIEO.  Of particular import was the strong language addressing the need for reorganizing the relations between rich and poor nations, where there would be a fundamental reallocation of world resources.  During the talks, the UN ceded several of the G-77 demands, including an “expansion and acceleration of foreign assistance,” which was seen by members of the developing nations as metamorphosing from charity into compensation.  The G-77 strategy was not to advocate for a complete restructuring of the existing World Order, but to emphasize both continuity and change by showing that the UN could reach its preexisting objective of promoting developmental policy as a vector for economic growth and social change in a meaningful way.  However, the G-77’s appeal for such restructuring and as opposed to a proposal brought forth by members of the developed nations, cast into sharp relief the limits of the development discourse paradigm, because nation-states could not reach a consensus on how to achieve the development goals.

The Code began in the form of a UN publication entitled, “The Impact of Multinational Corporations on Development and in International Relations.”  At the time, dominant scholarship focused on multinational corporations (MNC) as either “engines of development or exploiters of Third World resources.”  Either depiction was met with a consensus that the MNCs warranted some type of international governance regime.  The G-77’s desire for such an international regulatory body was met with approval from developed countries (why is this so?), and therefore was made a priority, which resulted in the creation of the Code.  However schisms erupted over to whom the Code would be addressed.  Developed countries wanted to address the code to first the MNC’s, outlining their responsibilities to the government, and second to the host countries about the appropriate treatment of MNC’s by the nation.  This placed MNCs and nation-states on equal, authoritative footing, and undermined the G-77’s objective of creating sovereign nations.  However, developed countries would not participate unless the two-part wording was drafted, and by 1980, this was reluctantly adopted by G-77 members.  The ensuing negotiations moved slowly and finally became intractable when deciding on issues of expropriation and nationalization.  Again, the premise of MNC’s and nation-states having the same power and legitimacy became a question, as the G-77 wanted national law to trump alleged international laws when dealing with expropriation of MNC assets if need be.  This disagreement bespoke an anxiety felt by Southern nations that their sovereignty would be undermined by the Northern-benefiting international laws.

The Code eventually fizzled in 1992, as it was thought (under the leadership of the United States) that the Code “was a relic of the NIEO period, increasingly incongruous in the new geopolitical landscape of the post-Cold War world, and so divorced from reality in recent times that the attention of most Government representatives and international business leaders [has] shifted elsewhere” (495).

Responsibilities of the MNC’s was once again revived in 1999 with the drafting of a Global Compact initiative where MNC would align their operations and initiatives with “10 universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption.”  However it was up to the individual business with diffuse global holdings to uphold these practices; there would be no regulatory mechanism, and no way for recourse for host nations.  In harboring the Compact, the UN lends credibility to it and provides an aegis that could potentially mask actions contrary to notions of accountability and justice.  As Bair states, “as a case of non-state actors reaching agreement with an international organization, it bypasses states altogether” (497).

Classic Globalization Theory on Production and Labor.
The current structure for global development has rendered the ideal of 1st and 3rdworlds obsolete. In examination of material items and labor forces it is essential to understand the global capitalism. The redistribution and symbolic nature of resources motivates the critical development of global capitalism studies. Global capitalism and controlled by production and the division of labor. The division of labor is facilitated by the growth of the global market. The expanding production of materials must be met by the expanding production of laborers. Advancement in production paves the way for social, cultural and political progress.

Neo-Classic Theory on Production and Labor.
Neo-classical thought states trade liberalism, fiscal responsibility, and productive structures are brought together to create rational and mutually beneficial markets to establish global equilibrium between production and division of labor. In a global market the role of the “state” is to provide the institutional infrastructure for industrialization. This includes, but is not limited to infant industry support, financial support, and technical support.

Marcus Taylor
Traditionally the concept of labor was thought of as a passive part of production but Taylor suggest it is a complex relationship through which the global market labor is reproduced, mobilized and used. Taylor states “This is undoubtedly true, and below I emphasize the necessity of making labor visible again by conceptualizing global production dynamics within the context of the production, reproduction, and deployment of specific labor forces. However, on its own such an approach falls short because it continues to conceive of production as solely an embedded process.” Value is not given to labor, but the rather the product labor produces. Therefore, if it is a poor product, the labor behind the product is also thought of as poor. The market regulates its own quality control in which the individual producers are either rewarded or punished in accordance with their ability to meet the social requirement of production. The global market relies on capitalism to spur expansive production; however, it creates socio-economic disparities among producers and their labor forces.