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Global free trade is one of the most controversial phenomena of our time. Richard Münch offers a new theory of global labour division to explain deeper transformations in the production and distribution of wealth brought about by global free trade. He then carries out and analyzes empirical investigations based on this theory.
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"Contributions that utilize classical and modern sociological theory are still a rare breed within the burgeoning literature on development and global inequality. In this groundbreaking book, Richard Münch builds on Durkheim's classical approach for the sociological exploration of a global division of labour. Going beyond the usual confines of international political economy, he forcefully demonstrates what it means to think about development and inequality within the broader social context of a world society." - Mathias Albert, Universität Bielefeld, Germany
"In this path-breaking book Richard Münch reconfirms his status as one of the world's leading comparativists and globalization scholars. Masterfully supplementing Durkheimian with Marxian ideas, he identifies capital as the driving force toward increasingly porous national boundaries. He further demonstrates, in refreshingly differentiated analyses, consequences for development and inequality at country and individual levels. He explains them by taking seriously global organizational actors, the fields of power in which they are embedded, and the institutions to which their negotiations over valid rules of the global game contribute. Münch thus seriously advances debates over globalization." - Joachim J. Savelsberg, University of Minnesota, USA
