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The paper studies the relationship between inequality and economic growth. This is done in a two sector model of endogenous growth with agents characterized by heterogeneity of factor endowments. The private sector consists of a large number of competitive ¯rms who produce the only ¯nal good in the economy. This good is both consumable as well as accumulable. The government is seen to produce a productive factor interpreted as infrastructure. Infrastructure is both nonrival and accumulable. Infrastructural services °ow into the production of infrastructural stocks as well as the ¯nal good. Capital used for infrastructural production is ¯nanced by the government by taxing capital income. The choice of the growth rate is determined by the tax rate on capital income. We study the choice of the economy's growth rate under a median voter democracy. The results show that inequality of the distribution of capital does not hamper growth.

Following an overview of Charter 99's "Charter for Global Democracy," an ambitious agenda for democratic cosmopolitanism, the problematic nature of cultural, moral, & political distance in the context of globalization is examined as an impediment to just such a progressive democratic cosmopolitan project. Here, cultural distance is interpreted as cultural difference & defended as such, with cosmopolitanism problematized while localism is viewed less negatively. The universalism inherent in cosmopolitanism & the Charter is considered, along with the moral ambivalence that surrounds the kinds of localized conflicts the Charter seeks to confront. It is asserted that there is no way of hierarchizing the claims of a universalizing morality & a respect for localism. Further, an effective cosmopolitanism cannot stand on universal abstractions but must deploy a mode of local articulation, allowing clashes between different localisms to be resolved at the local level. As to the possibility of building a global governance regime, the general compatibility of positions that hold to the importance of locality/difference with the regulatory, interventionist stance of global governance must be contemplated. To this end, common ground between proponents of universalism & difference is explored by way of three examples. In an effort to reconcile the two stances, the thought of pluralist Michael Walzer on difference & universalism is drawn on. Walzer argues that universalism must be derived from difference such that universal positions are morally minimalist. This moral minimalism implies a broad skepticism regarding global governance, a proposition taken up in closing & discussed in terms of location & locality. J. Zendejas