The radical impoverishment of countries like Greec and Spain is not only about social inequality, says Sassen, but about expulsion. More and more people who are not needed any more in the economy are systematically expelled from the system. In the US a large part of the population is absorbed by the prison system. In order to attract investors and to gloss over reality, the edges of the system are redefined. Many peple are not counted any more, as for example long time unemployed persons, dispappearing from statistics. Financial markets, penetrating new areas of society, play a key role in this process, according to Sassen.
Saskia Sassen, professor of sociology at Columbia University, New York, visiting professor at the London School of Economics, author of "The Global City"