Linked Labor Histories: New England, Colombia, and the Making of a Global Working Class. AVIVA CHOMSKY: Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008

Abstract

Like most studies of globalization, Linked Labor Histories is about mobility in the modern world: the mobility of people, capital, organizations, and ideas. But unlike many treatments of globalization, Aviva Chomsky's book carefully traces the connections and contradictions behind the movements, allowing us to see how seemingly random, apolitical, "economic" processes are not only profoundly interrelated and political but produce inequality on a global scale.

Globalization, as Chomsky points out, is frequently understood-by college undergrads as well as economists at the World Bank and the IMF-as something new, something inevitable, and something that is generally benign and positive over the long term. The benefits of industrialization and increasing integration among the world's economies will eventually extend to everyone. The only problem is that some countries are not yet prepared to benefit from globalization. They need more globalization, deeper integration into the world economy. Once this happens, these countries will become "developed."