Economic inequality
~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Economic inequality refers to how economic goods are distributed among individuals in a group, among groups in a population, or among countries.
Quotes
[edit]- Capital accumulation requires cheap labor, however, and these concessions would have brought capitalism in the core to its knees were it not for the fact that capitalists were able to obtain cheap labor instead in the periphery, through colonial and neocolonial forms of appropriation, which continue to this day. The unique privilege of imperialism allowed capital in the core to maintain accumulation despite concessions to its working classes—a privilege that is not available to most states in the periphery. This is what explains the extreme disparity that persists between social indicators in the capitalist core (where the average welfare ratio of an unskilled laborer is 10–20) versus those in the capitalist periphery, where the average welfare ratio is less than 2, and where in many cases wages and/or heights have not recovered from the immiseration caused during the period of capitalist integration. To understand the relationship between capitalism and human welfare today, we must look at living conditions in the capitalist periphery.
- Jason Hickel and Dylan Sullivan, "Capitalism, Global Poverty, and the Case for Democratic Socialism." Monthly Review (July 1, 2023)
- You don't need to be a statistician or an economist to be able to read the basic facts in the world today: the dominant classes and the corporations that they control extract surplus profits from the wealth produced by society, while billions of human beings who work to produce that wealth find themselves treated as if they are surplus humanity. This immense social divide, a widening gap across the class structure, can be observed in almost every single country in the world. This gap is not the result of any natural development, let alone of the magical phrase 'the Market'. This chasm across human society is produced and reproduced solely because of the civilizational system that privileges the private property of the few above the social needs of the many. That system is known as capitalism, a dynamic social process that - through inter-capitalist competition, through advancements in science and technology - has led to the vast increases in productivity but at the same time - because of private property - to immense social inequality. This double movement of capitalism, which generates enormous social wealth and enormous social inequality, both confounds humanity and provides immense potential for solutions to our great dilemmas - solutions that we call socialism.
- Vijay Prashad, "Surplus Profits, Surplus Humanity", in Peter Mertens Mutiny: How Our World is Tilting. 1804 Books (2024) pp. 9-10 ISBN 978-9392018633
- The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.
- T he stock market listing of SpaceX has led to an outpouring of celebration, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Yet those who rejoice in Elon Musk’s fortune surpassing the $1tn mark need to be reminded of a simple and vital truth: the mere existence of trillionaires is a major political and economic problem, probably the defining issue of our time.
- Gabriel Zucman, "The era of trillionaires will be dire for democracy. Here is how we can fight back" The Guardian (June 16, 2026)
See also
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External links
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