The book Ethical Borders

In the book Ethical Borders, author Bill Ong Hing concludes, “…a global governing class was the true beneficiary of NAFTA—not any particular nation, and certainly not the poor or working class of the nations involved.” Hence, to grapple with the inequalities produced by NAFTA, Ong Hing argues, we must take a class-based lens.

For this week’s discussion, you are asked to consider the following questions in reaction to Ong Hing’s assessment of NAFTA impacts.

First, how does Ong Hing’s view of NAFTA as disproportionately benefitting one ‘global class’ at the expense of other groups and classes across all three signatory nations challenge (or at least complicate) the Dependency theory understanding of the world as divided between rich (core) and poor (peripheral) nations?