The Informational Economy and the New International Division of Labour

Globalisation has been seen as an expansionary and inclusionary process. Castells argues that it is now becoming an exclusionary process, due to the nature of the emerging global informational economy. The highest value-added links in the chain of global production are concentrated in core areas, along with the highest value production of information. These core areas cut across the traditional First/Second/Third World divide, as the information age has made it possible to link core areas in the 'First World' with metropolitan core areas in the 'Third World'. The reason that this is now an exclusionary process is because other areas, which might previously have been exploited by the international division of labour, are now becoming irrelevant in the dynamics of the informational economy. Castells calls these irrelevant areas the 'Fourth World', and argues that they can be found both in the 'First' and in the 'Third World'.