Küresel Eşitsizlik

http://monthlyreview.org/2016/11/01/measuring-global-inequality/

" Former World Bank economist Lant Pritchett found that the gap between the richest capitalist nation, the United States, and the world’s poorest states rose dramatically between 1870 and 1960, from a per capita income ratio of about nine in 1870 to more than fifty in 1960. A few poor nations did achieve per capita income growth rates higher than those in the rich nations; that is, they were converging rather than diverging. Pritchett asked how long it would take for these countries to become equal to the rich ones. Here is what he said about India:
A few developing countries were actually converging, that is, they were growing faster than the United States. When are these lucky convergers going to overtake the United States? India, for example, registered an annual average growth rate of 3 percent between 1980 and 1993. If India could sustain this pace for another 100 years, its income would reach the level of high-income countries today. And, if India can sustain this growth differential for 377 years, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren will be alive to see India’s income level converge"

"Pritchett’s study noted the divergence between 1870 and 1960. What has happened since then? Milanovic shows that global inequality according to this first concept was roughly constant between 1960 and 1980, rose dramatically from 1980 until 2000, fell until the beginning of recovery after the Great Recession, and then began to rise again. Irrespective of the fall in the 2000s, inequality among nations is still extremely high, much higher than in 1960. No real convergence has taken place."

"It is interesting to note that despite the fact that incomes have risen for many Indians and Chinese, inequality in both wealth and income have risen significantly in both countries. Furthermore, while money incomes are higher for peasants in China than they were before its leaders pushed it sharply toward capitalism, more than 600 million rural residents have lost their communal lands and their collectively provided food rations and medical care, none of which is subtracted from their current money incomes. Furthermore, the likelihood that either China or India will continue on a path of such high growth is negligible. No society can suppress consumption indefinitely to finance capital spending, which is the engine of economic growth. Workers have to be exploited, reserves of labor have to be moved, by force or otherwise, from the countryside to urban areas, and the misery caused by these must certainly generate opposition, such as strikes, demonstrations, and violence. None of these acts of class struggle please global capital, and if they happen often enough, or if the ruling elites in India and China allow wages and employment conditions to improve, firms will shift their capital elsewhere. This movement has already begun in China, as pressure from workers has forced up wages. And even if we suppose that stratospheric growth can be sustained, it will soon enough generate environmental catastrophe. Already both nations foul the atmosphere and otherwise degrade the Earth to an unconscionable degree. China has made some efforts to moderate the despoliation of its air, water, and land, but not nearly enough to counter its insatiable demand for fossil fuels. India hasn’t done much of anything.11 All of this strongly suggests that economic equality among nations is a pipedream, and whatever convergence has taken place will not last."

"One way to look at it is to take the whole income of the world and divide it into two halves: the richest 8% will take one-half and the other 92% of the population will take another half. So, it is a 92–8 world. Applying the same type of division to the U.S. income, the numbers are 78 and 22. Or using Germany, the numbers are 71 and 29. Another way to look at it is to compare what percentage of world population, ranked from the poorest to the richest, is needed to get to the cumulative one-fifths of global income. Three-quarters of (the poorer) world population are needed to get to the first 1/5th of total income, but only 1.7% of those at the top suffice to get to the last one-fifth."

"Fourth, the spread of market relationships over the past several decades has created economic winners and losers. Between 1988 and 2008, the global 1 percent have seen their incomes increase substantially and those between the 90th and 99th percentile saw moderate gains, while those in the bottom 5 percent faced stagnant incomes and fell further behind. Surprisingly, those between the 75th and 90th percentile did not gain, and some actually lost income. Also of importance is that the quarter of households above the bottom 5 percent gained income, as did what Milanovic calls the “global middle class.” Among the latter group are “some 200 million Chinese, 90 million Indians, and about 30 million people each from Indonesia, Brazil and Egypt.” Undoubtedly, the Great Recession and slow recovery have weakened income growth for all but the extremely wealthy. And this might have dampened the rising expectations of globalization’s “winners.” However, the global middle class (between the 50th and 60th percentile) exerts a conservative, constraining influence on politics that should not be overlooked. Those with a growing stake in maintaining their incomes and consumption are unlikely to participate in efforts to bring about radical change. Even if we suppose that diminished economic prospects anger many in this group, the result might be a politics of resentment against those below them—as shown by the recent resurgence of the far right in Europe and the United States.
What can we conclude from this excursion into statistics? If we can say one thing for certain, it is that the world is structured economically and politically in an extremely unequal way. Wherever we look, whether in the rich capitalist nations, rapidly growing ones like China and India, or the poorest countries, the richest people take the lion’s share of income and wealth, and most of the increases over the past forty years have accrued to them. Everywhere, this translates into disproportionate elite power in all spheres of life. What is more, although many millions of poor people are now a bit less unfortunate, there is no reason to expect sharp increases in equality, either in the near future or many years from now. Given this, without major oppositional efforts by workers, peasants, the unemployed, and the dispossessed, the world will grow increasingly undemocratic and oligarchic"