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The Divide – A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and Its Solutions

• Bostonian 3y ago
  "Since 1960, the income gap between the North and South has roughly tripled in size. Today 4.3 billion people, 60 per cent of the world's population, live on less than $5 per day. The richest eight people now control the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world combined. What is causing this growing divide? We are told that poverty is a natural phenomenon that can be fixed with aid. But in reality it is a political problem: poverty doesn’t just exist, it has been created." Is the "income gap" measured in absolute terms or as a ratio? If incomes in say the U.S. and India rise 10% and 30% over some time period, the absolute income gap could rise while falling if expressed as a ratio. In general, poverty has been the experience of most people in most countries historically. Instead of blaming the countries and the people that have risen out of poverty, look at how they did it. It was not primarily exploitation of other countries. The author blames trade, but South Korea is integrated into world trade while North Korea is not, and there is a huge difference in their average living standards.