Inequality: Is it rising, and can we reverse it?

Via The Guardian: Inequality: is it rising, and can we reverse it? Excerpt:

Income inequality has risen sharply since the 1970s in most advanced economies around the world, and has been blamed for increasingly polarised politics.  

While growth powered ahead in the second half of the 20th century, and resumed more fitfully after the 2008-09 financial crisis, there have been major winners and losers from the wealth generated.

Sir Angus Deaton, the Nobel prize-winning economist who is leading a five-year review of inequality with the leading Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, said: “There is this feeling that contemporary capitalism is not working for everybody.  

“There’s a sense that London is gobbling up everything and there are cities that are doing OK, but there are large parts of the country where that’s not the case at all.”  

There are a host of causes, including fiscal policy, technology, globalisation, deregulation, education, emasculation of trade unions and austerity.  

What about globally? 

During the 19th and for much of the 20th century, inequality between countries rose dramatically as the world’s most advanced economies pulled ahead from poorer nations. 

According to the International Monetary Fund, the balance has been redressed more recently, reflecting strong growth in many developing nations, particularly China and India.  

The UK ranks among the most unequal nations in Europe, but is more equal than the US, the most divided wealthy nation in the world. According to one ranking system (the Gini coefficient – see below) South Africa is the most unequal country in the world. Scandinavian countries tend to have the lowest levels of inequality. According to the World Bank, Ukraine is the least unequal.

Branko Milanovic, one of the world’s leading experts in inequality, has found that the rise of globalisation has fuelled a boom in inequality in advanced nations. The biggest winners have been the richest 1% of people on the planet.