Talk:Economic inequality

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Predictive value

The article says: for predicting whether a population has or will have a more unhealthy populace, more suicides, more crime, and just more of garden variety social problems it can't really be beat. This is an obviousness. Income distributions follow Power Laws (Pareto principle), which are characterised by a long tail. In this case the tail is formed by the lowest income individuals. The more skewed the distribution is, the longer the tail, and the larger the proportion of individuals which are poor.-- Brasov 16:24, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

OK. And?--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 17:16, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Synapsis snap? Poverty as an unbeatable a predictor of crime, suicide and social problems... the discovery of the century, indeed. Another highly intelligent article here.-- Brasov 17:25, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

So, your complaint is that the article assume that the person reading it hasn't thought about the correlation between poverty and crime?--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 17:29, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Irony impared. This should be AnalRetentiveWiki.-- Brasov 22:20, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Race to the bottom definition

It talks about race to the bottom as-in lowest wages, but it is usually meant that governments compete in having the "best business environment", and that this could include relaxing moral requirements.

To be honest i have the feeling that governments like employment because citizens are like it's employees; gotta keep them employed. I think that _could_ be fair but even if race-to-the-bottom was stemmed, I feel that the actual relationship to work is _way_ underdiscussed in comparison.88.159.64.170 (talk) 14:28, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Wealth and political inequality section

The data in this section is quite old now, does anyone know of more up-to-date sources that can be added? Otherwise, these are quite literally 10 year old talking points. BumblingBuffoon (talk) 16:13, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

"Inequality between countries is dropping"

This statement is misleading, as income is not the only way one can measure inequality between countries. For example, institutions. Global institutions are designed to favor the interests of the rich, predominantly Western countries that set those institutions up over the interests of countries in the global south. We can see this in how international law is applied very unevenly. It's as that one "senior leader" said: "This court is built for Africa and thugs like Putin." In fact, we can even see inequities in the history of space exploration. The Bogota Declaration was declared because countries around the equator saw rich countries grabbing up all the prime real estate in space for themselves (because they were the ones with the capital needed to launch satellites into space, and the ITU's rules were essentially "first come, first serve"), and attempted to remedy this by declaring those areas of geosynchronous orbit that happened to lie above there countries as part of their sovereign territory. The idea, as laid out in this Nation article, was that "access to those segments would have to be distributed equitably among the “universal community” by keeping in mind developing countries’ interests." The Moon Treaty contains a similar provision calling for equitable distribution of access to real estate in space. These attempts to decolonize space have more-or-less failed, because the game is rigged. Countries are not equal. (Colonialism also intersects with astronomy in other ways beyond space law, as is discussed in that Nation article at length, but this post is focused on inequality between countries, so if you want to learn more, read the article.)

How the UN is fundamentally structured is another great example of inequality built into institutions. It's not the General Assembly that calls the shots, really, it's the UN Security Council. And the UN Security Council only has a limited membership, with only five permanent members. Only those five permanent members have veto power.

In terms of bilateral country relations, let's look at Iraq-US relations. Iraq's parliament has voted numerous times for US troops to leave their country, but the US still maintains a military presence there. This indicates to me that the relationship between Iraq and the US is not one of equals.

This inequality between countries extends to economics too. The reason American sanctions are so devastating to the targets of those sanctions is because the US is the world hegemon. Your ability to do business is hampered significantly if you are cut off from a significant part of global economic infrastructure. Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and now Russia know this all too well. Cryptocurrency is appealing to sanction-evaders for a reason.

I would suggest editing that sentence to make it less misleading. Carthage (talk) 09:49, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Economic inequality, to my knowledge, has always been measured by income, not by institutions. According to Wikipedia:

Economic inequality is an umbrella term for a) income inequality or distribution of income (how the total sum of money paid to people is distributed among them), b) wealth inequality or distribution of wealth (how the total sum of wealth owned by people is distributed among the owners), and c) consumption inequality (how the total sum of money spent by people is distributed among the spenders)

You're free, however, to write how economic inequality hasn't dropped in a less abstract way. Claiming that rich countries exploit poor ones is not enough because it doesn't adress the main claim of the sentence: that inequality has dropped. Supposing that this alleged exploitation is rising. Can you provide evidence for that? Considering that most countries today are independent (or at least, have much more sovereignty than decades ago) I find this claim unlikely. And even if this is true, you'll have to find a way to measure it. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 12:53, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

The sentence states that "inequality is dropping." Not that "income inequality is dropping." This is a misleading statement as it gives the impression that inequality between countries in general is declining. Income metrics as you yourself state do not tell us about institutional inequality. Luckily, there are fields that do analyze institutional inequalities. Fields like post-colonialism and critical legal studies. I also never stated that "inequality is 'rising'". I don't have to provide evidence for a claim I never made. Carthage (talk) 15:54, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

This is an article about economic inequality. Unless you can provide sources claiming that "institutional" inequality is a form of economic inequality and this sort of inequality is not dropping I don't see any reason to keep this conversation. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 16:24, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I never stated that institutional inequality is a form of economic inequality. I do believe that inequality between countries have economic aspects, and that while incomes between countries are becoming more equal, there are other ways that countries remain unequal economically. (Again, space is a good example of this.) There is evidence that sanctions, which the power to level sanctions (and get countries to respect those sanctions) are an example of inequality between countries, have a deleterious effect on income inequality. China's activities in Africa have also been characterized as neocolonialistic, and it would be denialism to claim that neocolonialism does not exist, or has no bearing on economic relationships between countries. And the fact is that the evidence you cite only shows that income inequality between countries is dropping. Income-based metrics do not inform us about neocolonialism, or inequities in space access (which also has economic aspects. Brazil would have a much easier time banning Twitter if they weren't so reliant on Starlink for satellite coverage.) Carthage (talk) 17:20, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ (EC)You claimed that saying that "Inequality between countries is dropping" is misleading. If "there are other ways that countries remain unequal economically" and this contradicts the claim that inequality between countries is dropping, all you have to do is to build a model and test your hypothesis. Literally nothing that you've brought contradicits the claim that inequality between countries is dropping. First, because these forms of inequality are not economic inequality. Second because you still haven't provided evidence that there was any sort of change in any form of economic inequality. Not that I expect good faith from you. You just deny evidence that you don't like. You never answer questions, you need to move the goalpost and abuse of red herrings. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 17:41, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

All you have to do is present evidence that economic inequality between countries is not dropping, using the accepted definition of economic inequality. Saying that countries aren't equal is not evidence of that. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 17:44, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

This article is about economic inequality, yes, but it refers to income inequality throughout the article as merely being "inequality." Hence why I think the phrase "inequality between countries is dropping" gives a false impression. It's too ambiguous a phrase. You and I know what this article means when it says "inequality," but not every reader is gonna be able to read the implicit "income" in that sentence. That ambiguous phrasing is what I have issue with. Institutional inequality, such as with the UNSC's veto power, I don't really see declining anytime soon without substantial reforms to how international institutions are structured, and while that's not economic inequality, because this article refers to income inequality as simply inequality multiple times throughout the article, it's real easy to come up with examples where "inequality between countries" is not declining, even if they do not count as economic inequality. That phrasing is simply too ambiguous, and you seem hellbent on keeping it ambiguous. Carthage (talk) 18:03, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure our audience is not stupid and they know that when people talk about inequality they are talking about economic inequality. That's especially true in an article called "economic inequality". Many organizations use inequality as a synonym of economic inequality. I don't think we should change it. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 18:09, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Literal-mindedness is not synonymous with stupidity. Also, when people talk about inequality they don't always talk about economic inequality. That's privileging the term for a very specific type of inequality. If you don't think it should be changed that's fine, I'm not gonna dispute that, but I still think that we should aim to be as clarificatory as possible with our writing. The fact that other sources use ambiguous phrasing doesn't mean that we should fall under the same trap. Carthage (talk) 18:19, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Do whatever you want, I'm out of here. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 18:22, 18 November 2024 (UTC)