La inseguridad de la desigualdad

Apr 11, 2017 Kaushik Basu

NUEVA YORK – La desigualdad global hoy ha llegado a niveles observados por última vez a fines del siglo XIX y sigue aumentando. Con ello ha surgido una creciente sensación de privación de derechos que ha alimentado la alienación y la rabia, e incluso ha engendrado nacionalismos y xenofobia. A medida que la gente lucha por conservar su menguante parte del pastel, su ansiedad ha creado espacio político para movimientos populistas oportunistas, sacudiendo el orden mundial en el intertanto.

La brecha entre ricos y pobres hoy en día es alucinante. Oxfam ha observado que las ocho personas más ricas del mundo poseen tanta riqueza como los 3.600 millones más pobres. Como señaló recientemente el Senador Bernie Sanders, la familia Walton, propietaria de Walmart, hoy es más rica que el 42% inferior de la población estadounidense.

Puedo ofrecer mi propia comparación. Utilizando la base de datos de riqueza de Credit Suisse, descubrí que la riqueza total de las tres personas más ricas del mundo supera la de la población total de tres países (Angola, Burkina Faso y la República Democrática del Congo) o 122 millones de habitantes.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 13 in all 13 Comments on this article

Sri V Chary May 5, 2017

You write "As people struggle to hold on to their shrinking share of the pie, their anxiety has created a political opening for opportunistic populists, shaking the world order in the process. " This is not a new phenomenon.The various uprisings in history and the revolutions such as the Russian and the French came out of the utter desperation and the hopelessness of people ( whether the feeling were justified or not) And it produced populist dictators. In India, and you are familiar with this, the most notable political opportunist was Mrs Gandhi and many PMs including Dr Singh were no less opportunistic. Most States, are if any,
worse. One hope seems to be a guaranteed Universal Basic income which may work. Of course Government will have to find the resources and for that may begin with doing away with the vestiges of Planning to which most Indian leftists are attached and which has been exceedingly wasteful. (as someone involved with planning for decades, I daresay that the waste far exceeds any es conceivable estimate)
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jagjeet sinha Apr 22, 2017

THE SOLUTION TO ANY PROBLEM TAKES 5 MINUTES - DEFINING THE PROBLEM TAKES 55 MINUTES
You have to understand WHY the Establishment cannot deliver the reversals needed.
The erstwhile First Family patronage produced Mankind's Greatest Guaranteed failure - India's Sovereign Economics.
Yet they remained in power for nearly Seven Decades - incubation of the next generation of "Masterminds" is their primary duty.
These Trojans are nurtured and planted inside - and their income depends on guaranteed failures.
Families similar to India's First Family abound - in The East and The West.
You cannot solve your problems with the same thinking that created them. Albert Einstein.
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Per Kurowski Apr 17, 2017

Risk weighted capital requirements for banks that negate SMEs and entrepreneurs access to bank credit puts inequality on steroids… and no one says a word.

http://subprimeregulations.blogspot.com/2016/03/decreed-inequality.html
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Bernhard Kopp Apr 12, 2017

The corrosive effect of inequality lies not in the differences of individual net asset values. It lies in the unfairness of how it accumulates in large parts. The owners of assets have gained substantially without any efforts or contribution of their own just from 'rising asset values'. Taxable income is inadequately defined and does not include capital gain in a fair way, particularly not in domestic and multinational corporate structures. Trillions of $s in tax-haven shell companies are just the tip of the iceberg.
- Michael Public Apr 12, 2017
  
  Ownership is a concept we borrowed from the aristocracy. Some countries have resorted to solving this with 'land is for lease only' solution. This only solves part of the problem, corporations over a certain size should be required to place their brands and IP into public trust which can then be rented out. Ownership on small scale is harmless, but once ownership goes beyond the needs of a typical person it becomes something more akin to enslavement.
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Rahul Sharma Apr 11, 2017

"bred nationalism...." so nationalism is a dirty word, is it official ?
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vivek iyer Apr 11, 2017

Why has inequality of Wealth increased? The answer is that institutional investors felt that 'the divorce between ownership and control' had led to poor returns and lack of dynamism. Since big companies, to increase security, engaged in rent seeking behaviour, 'agency capture' and other such pathologies bedevilled Government interessement. Ultimately, the countervailing power of the Unions and irresponsible monetary policy led to 'stagflation' which further depressed the return to Capital. It was in this context that the Corporate raider emerged as the champion of the shareholder. Essentially a new type of incomplete contract giving greater residuary rights of control to the entrepreneur was found to release more value for the shareholder. This process has been further refined such that a few dynamic individuals are judged by the market to be better able to use capital than others in the same industry. Thus rents on perceived ability have sky rocketed.
Was this inevitable? It could be argued that Knightian Uncertainty has increased because Technological progress now seems more rapid and unpredictable. Some people 'get' the new technology, others don't. So the Shapley value of the game has changed. That is why we should simply accept the new dispensation.
There is something to be said for this view. However, the real problem is that faith in fiscal policies ability to redistribute wealth has declined. At the same time it is clear that the political consequences of increased inequality are benign. Instead of some great conflagaration all we have seen is the disintermediation of an established political class and the discrediting of Credentialised public intellectuals- like Basu.
What Modi said- 'Hard working people know better than Harvard economists'- is true. Why shed a tear for them now? They have been talking about inequality- and posing as the Mother Theresas of Economics - for forty years. Much good it has done.
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Petey Bee Apr 11, 2017

None of this is any individual’s fault... income inequality stems from systemic flaws.

Yes. +1.
- Michael Public Apr 12, 2017
  
  In the final analysis all systems are built by individuals. Further, there is definitely some intentional driving of the architecture of our western social systems to benefit Charles, David and their golf buddies.
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stephan Edwards Apr 11, 2017

An interesting article professor and fairly accurate. However you are ignoring the obvious problem. The only one who could change the system are the ones doing very well under the current setup. In other words they won't change the system they like the current one just fine!
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Frans Verhagen Apr 11, 2017

A large part of this growing inequality within and between countries is the role of the unjust, unsustainable and, therefore, unstable international monetary system. I have proposed in Verhagen 2012 "The Tierra Solution: Resolving the climate crisis through monetary transformation" a way to make that system more just and thus reduce inequality within and between nations.
The 2012 book presents the conceptual, institutional, ethical and strategic dimensions of this carbon-based international monetary system through the use of a monetary standard of a specific tonnage of CO2e per person. They are updated at www.timun.net. Bill McKibben wrote the following about this Tierra Fee and Dividend proposal on, May 17, 2011: “The further into the global warming area we go, the more physics and politics narrows our possible paths of action. Here’s a very cogent and well-argued account of one of the remaining possibilities.”
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Per Kurowski Apr 11, 2017

Of course we need jobs… but we also need worthy and decent unemployments!

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2012/04/we-need-worthy-and-decent-unemployments.html
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M M Apr 11, 2017

New Rules..Redistribution ... These perceived offensive words have no place in the mind set of the policy /decision makers..... This is a Very good well articulated article from the author, well said. One cannot but agree, the clock is ticking and very fast....anybody home?
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