Strong welfare states protect workers against economic vulnerability through generous unemployment benefits and training programs" (Beckfield, 2006). The expansion of markets to the regional level from the national level-should increase income inequality as workers are exposed to the wage competition of a larger labor pool, but this effect may be dampened or even reversed at very high levels of regional economic integration, because those economies are stabilized by strong welfare states and corporatist institutions (Beckfield, 2006). It appears that this phenomenon of income inequality has begun to level off in recent years. Firebaugh (2007) was among the first to note that income inequality for the world as a whole levelled off in the last decades of the 20th century, after rising for more than two centuries. While global income inequality is immense, it has continued to be fairly steady or has even declined somewhat in recent years. This is thought to be due to brisk income growth in certain areas of the world. Firebaugh's findings disputed earlier claims that global income inequality continues to rise quickly. According to Firebaugh (2007), "those claims are flawed because each country is looked at as if they were equal, despite vast differences in population and size. When populous countries are given their due weight, the data show that global income inequality has not gone up sharply, and most likely is not rising at all."

In most things in the business world Marx's inequality can be seen as an underlying theme. Most people who work for a company have a boss to whom they must answer to on a daily business. This inherent power imbalance often creates alienation just as Marx suggests. When one person...

It is this imbalance of both power and wealth that creates the alienation that exists in this business relationship.
One of Marx's basic foundations of his theory was that there is alienation of the employee from the work that he does and the product that he creates the bigger that the power gap is. In the business world the more alienated that an employee feels from those who are in charge the less that worker cares about the product that they produce. If workers are alienated from those who are in charge the works that they produce on a daily basis will be inferior to their capabilities. Employees need to feel that they have a vested interest in the company that they work for in order for them to have pride in the work that they produce and one way to do this is to reduce the gap that exists between those who have and those who don't have.

References

Beckfield, J. (2006). European Integration and Income Inequality. American Sociological

Review. 71(6), 964-985.

Firebaugh, G. (2007). The New Geography of Global Income Inequality. In A.S. Wharton

(Ed.), Working in America, continuity, conflict, and change. (pp. 170-178). McGraw-

Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages.

Liard-Muriente, C. (2005). Globalisation and inequality: Some remarks. Equality, Diversity

and Inclusion: An International Journal, 24(1), 27-34.

Marx, K. (2007). Alienated Labour. In A.S. Wharton (Ed.), Working in America, continuity, conflict, and change. (pp. 44-51). McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social

Sciences/Languages.