The recession that began in 2008 brought new life to the public debate on class inequality in the United States. The #OccupyWallStreet demonstrations in 2011 may have left no institutional legacy, but they shined a spotlight on a yawning wealth gap and the role of the “one percent.” In 2020, these themes are being sounded in national media and even on the presidential debate stage.
At the same time, complacence about racial inequality is being challenged. Thanks to the activism of #BlackLivesMatter and other racial justice groups, there are perceptible shifts in public opinion, including among some whites and particularly among youth. The racial justice movement initially focused on police violence but rapidly extended its vision to fundamental issues of inequality and national identity. The impact on mainstream opinion was symbolized in 2019 by the 1619 Project, a New York Times Magazine feature reflecting on 400 years of the impact of slavery.
Gross economic inequality in the United States by class and race is not new, but it has increased rapidly in recent decades. Wealth inequality is far greater than income inequality, though both are on the rise. Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman have compiled extensive data sets on wealth distribution since 1913. After wealth concentration peaked in 1929, the trend was toward greater equality until the late 1970s. Since then, though, inequality has increased steadily. Two factors among many are the declining strength of unions and tax policies that advantage the rich, enacted under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
In 1979, in the United States, the top one-tenth of one percent owned 7 percent of the wealth; this tripled to 22 percent by 2012. The share of wealth held by the bottom half of the population is almost net zero, as debts balance out assets. So the losses have hit the top 50 percent to 90 percent of families. The effects on minority populations have been particularly extreme.
Public awareness of inequality, like awareness of climate change, was rising even before President Trump took office. But his administration’s sharp turn toward denial and regression on both issues has spurred active opposition and cut into the complacency of conventional Democratic Party politics.
However, while most people understand the climate issue as global, the U.S. debate on national inequality between rich and poor households has not yet broadened into a conversation about global inequality between rich and poor countries. This theme remains muted at best, even among progressive activists.
What would it take to start such a conversation? An understanding of history, for starters:
Beyond a grasp of history, U.S. activists need to understand how corruption, oligarchy, and inequality at the national level are tied to similar patterns around the world. Abundant evidence on rising global economic inequality is available from prominent academic sources. Nongovernmental organizations focused on development, such as Oxfam and ActionAid, highlight not only global poverty but also the extremes of wealth and the rapidly widening the gap between the ultra-rich and everyone else.
Tax justice organizations in Europe, North America, and Africa show how tax resources needed for public investment are hidden in tax havens around the world – not just in small countries such as Luxembourg and Bermuda, but also in major financial centers such as London and New York. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and related groups have done detailed reporting on secret transactions revealed in leaked documents such as the Panama Papers.
In January 2020, to coincide with the Davos World Economic Forum, Oxfam published its latest comparison. It observed that “In 2019, the world’s billionaires, only 2,153 people, had more wealth than 4.6 billion people. . . . The richest 22 men in the world own more wealth than all the women in Africa.” The previous year’s Oxfam report noted that a wealth tax of 0.5 percent on the richest 1 percent of the world’s population could “raise an estimated $418 billion a year – enough to educate every child not in school and provide healthcare that would prevent 3 million deaths.”
Compared to income, the distribution of wealth by country and region is far more unequal. In 2019, the median wealth per adult in Canada and the United States amounted to $69,162, almost ten times the global median of $7,087, according to Credit Suisse. For the African continent, including North Africa, median wealth per adult was only $1,219. Thus the inequalities of history continue to affect the resources available to countries today.
At every level of the global hierarchy, wealth inequalities intersect with inequalities based on race, ethnicity, and gender. Those who are rich can accumulate even more wealth over their lifetimes or over generations. Those who depend primarily on income earned from work struggle to stay afloat and are constantly vulnerable to losing their jobs.
According to Oxfam, “At the top of the global economy a small elite are unimaginably rich. Their wealth grows exponentially over time, with little effort, and regardless of whether they add value to society. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the economy, women and girls, especially women and girls living in poverty and from marginalized groups, are putting in 12.5 billion hours every day of care work for free, and countless more for poverty wages. Their work is essential to our communities. It underpins thriving families and a healthy and productive workforce.”
Oxfam calculates the monetary value of women’s unpaid care work globally as at least $10.8 trillion annually – three times the size of the world’s tech industry. Those laboring at low-paid jobs in health, education, and other essential sectors are also disproportionately women. Changing that reality requires public investment to provide public goods such as health, elder care, and child care, and ensuring that decent jobs with adequate pay are available to all. And checking the further growth of inequality, as technological change reshapes the global job market, requires government action to protect workers’ rights and provide economic opportunities. It also requires adequately financed universal social protection systems to protect both those who work and those unable to work for reasons of age, disability, or other limitations.
Technological innovation – automation, the internet, smartphones, and more – continues to accelerate. The impact on the workforce, in terms of who reaps the benefits and who is further disadvantaged, is highly unequal. The gig economy, subcontracting, and remote access to work over online platforms open up doors for some. Meanwhile, formal work protected by strong unions and government regulation is everywhere in decline. That is why those who study the “future of work” stress the urgency of collective action. The Global Commission on the Future of Work, for example, lays out ten principles that should be adopted, including a universal guarantee of basic workers’ rights and social protection from birth to old age. Fulfilling these principles, however, requires both political will and financial resources.
Domestic workers in South Africa, as in most countries, are underpaid and often not protected by legislation covering the formal sector. Unions have campaigned to expand such protections, with some success. Credit: Labour Research Service.
Almost 10 percent of the world’s wealth is held offshore, where it is shielded from the tax authorities of rich and poor countries alike. “Offshore,” however, is not a physical location but rather a fiction of legal paperwork. Ultra-rich individuals, aided by bankers, lawyers, and other financial agents, hide their money in a web of shell companies, while multinational corporations mask profits through accounting sleight-of-hand. Countries desperately need revenue to support economic and social development, but the information necessary to locate and tax the money is rarely accessible. The facts of who actually owns the wealth and where it is earned remain hidden, becoming visible only when revealed in court or outed by whistleblowers or investigative journalists.
This is one of the key reasons why it is difficult for campaigns against global inequality to gain traction. Action must come from national governments, requiring political pressure focused on a single country. But the targets are elusive and their money easily takes flight across borders.
The latest and most sensational case is #LuandaLeaks, from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) responsible for the #PanamaPapers and other previous exposés.
Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the man who served as president of Angola for 38 years, used her family connections to siphon off wealth into a network of more than 400 companies in 41 countries. The story is told in detail on the ICIJ website and in other press reports. The ICIJ documents how this fortune was built with the collaboration of leading Western firms, who helped dos Santos move money, set up companies, and avoid taxes. They include two of the four major global accounting firms, PwC and KPMG, as well as the Boston Consulting Group, one of the three top global management consulting firms. Although dos Santos faces confiscation of some of her properties following the scandal, there is no sign that her global enablers will suffer any serious penalty.
