“Most people believe that inequality is rising - and indeed it has been rising for a while in a number of rich countries. And there is lots of talk and realization of this. It's harder to understand that at the same time, you can actually have global inequality going down. Technically speaking, national inequality can increase in every single country and yet global inequality can go down. And why it is going down is because very large, populous, and relatively poor countries like India and China are growing quite fast.” PeopleBelieveCountryPoorRichInequalityRealization Author:Branko Milanovic
“What is different between national inequality and global inequality is you have another element there that is sometimes forgotten: what matters for global inequality is relative growth rates between poor and rich countries.” DifferentCountrySometimesGrowthPoorRichRateForgottenInequalityRelative Author:Branko Milanovic
“Global inequality is such an abstract concept, simply because there is no global government. Telling people in rich countries who have had no increase in real incomes, stagnant median wages and so on, that on the other hand global inequality is going down because people who are much poorer than them are getting richer - it's something that maybe they would like in an abstract sense, because everyone is happy there are fewer poor Chinese, but you may not be as happy if these Chinese are taking your job.” PeopleRealCountryPoorRichInequalityChineseAbstractGet RichStagnant Author:Branko Milanovic
“People in the rich countries who have done very well, who are at the top of the income pyramid, try to steamroll over the opposition of the middle without changing anything in social programs, or any redistribution. And they take their votes for a given. They have rich people that bankroll them. And the globalization would continue, but it would continue with permanent dissatisfaction among large segments of the people.” PeopleTryingCountryDoneRichProgramVoteGlobalizationRich PeopleDissatisfaction Author:Branko Milanovic
“If, for example, each of us had the same share of capital in the national total capital, then if the share of capital goes up it's not a problem, because you get as much as I do. The problem is that capital in capitalist countries is very heavily concentrated, especially financial capital. So then if the share of income from that source goes up, that actually exacerbates inequality.” CountryProblemShareFinancialInequalityCapitalist Author:Branko Milanovic
“While you can say that the problem of the middle class in the rich countries is too much globalization, the problem of the people who are very poor is really that they are not included in globalization. For them, the success of their own countries at becoming part of this international division of labor would be good news.” PeopleCountryProblemPoorRichLaborBe GoodMiddle ClassGlobalization Author:Branko Milanovic
“The middle class in the rich countries is where the political game is being played. They are voting in elections in the U.S., U.K., France and Germany. They are working people in the upper part of the global income distribution. They might on average be happy that the Chinese are doing well, but they are not happy that the Chinese are doing well relative to them.” PeopleCountryPoliticalRichElectionChineseVotingMiddle ClassRelativeNot Happy Author:Branko Milanovic
