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Most income inequality (taken on a worldwide basis) is between country, not within country. Overall global income inequality is dropping considerably, with Chin

• joe_the_user 11y ago
  World scale inequality seems like a bit of a canard. If inequality between nations drops, a measure of inequality on a world scale could drop while inequality within each particular nation increases. China or Africa's development means the average very poor person is closer to the average Westerner, dropping total inequality. But that doesn't stop recent models of development from involving considerable inequality and indeed a model of inequality (just as inequality has increased within the US). Moreover, it's the inequality within each area that one would expect to have the harmful or beneficial effects on democracy, civil society and so-forth. Edit: Of course it is hard to reply to a link to a tweet of a bit map of a graph with resolution too poor to read the references of, hence my general comment.
  • jvm 11y ago
    I think you are right that there are still disadvantages to within-country inequality, but I strongly disagree with the dismissal you seem to be making of the massive reduction in country-level inequality and accompanying massive reduction of extreme poverty, which has plunged from ~40% of the world population in the 1980's to <20% now. > it's the inequality within each area that one would expect to have the harmful or beneficial effects on democracy, civil society and so-forth. You seem to be implying that extreme poverty does not also cause adverse effects on democracy, civil society, and so forth. My guess is that having massive populations of people living at or below subsistence is also harmful to democracy and civil society. If you look at the kind of problems they have in relatively equal [1] Sudan (mass malnutrition, militias literally raping and pillaging) to relatively unequal [1] United States (police violence, poor health care provision), I hope we can acknowledge the problems in the US without denying that they are orders of magnitude less severe. The difference is in the amount of absolute extreme poverty, not the inequality. BTW if you click on the images in the links you can access the high res versions. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...
  • meric 11y ago
    I agree. The vast majority of people in the world have access to housing, water, internet, toilet, transportation. Yes, they might have their own motorbike instead of car, but really, the qualitative difference is not the 10x as suggested by the difference in prices of those two things. Sure, the sidewalk sometimes is very rough, and the drainage on the side of the road carry heavily polluted water, and the outside of houses might not be painted. Inside most homes around the world, however, are quite pleasant. Give this house a fresh coat of paint, and it'd fit just fine as a home in a developed country: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/03/05/article-1255622-08911939000005DC-998_468x313.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/03/05/article-1255622-08...