Quotes About Inequality

population matters, distribution matters just as much because extremes of inequality push humanity beyond both sides of the Doughnut's boundaries.

Democracy, too, is jeopardised by inequality when it concentrates power in the hands of the few and unleashes a market in political influence. That is probably nowhere more evident than in the United States, which by 2015 was home to more than 500 billionaires. 'We are now seeing billionaires becoming much more active in trying to influence the election process,' observes political analyst Darrell

Don't wait for economic growth to reduce inequality—because it won't. Instead, create an economy that is distributive by design.

Such redistributive policies can be life-changing for those who benefit from them. But they still may not get to the root of economic inequalities because they focus on redistributing income, not the wealth that generates it. Tackling inequality at root calls for democratising the ownership of wealth, argues the historian and economist Gar Alperovitz, because 'political-economic systems are largely defined by the way property is owned and controlled'.

Lastly, how are we socially locked in, addicted to and stuck on GDP growth? Through the culture of consumerism and the tensions created by inequality, which in turn are rooted in the need for something to aspire to. Despite being far richer than kings of old, we are too easily trapped on a treadmill of consumerism, continually searching for identity, connection and self-transformation through the things that we buy.

The Selfish Society.

There is a 'well-documented lifestyle effect', he notes, in which 'people outside the top 1 percent increasingly live beyond their means. Trickle-down economics may be a chimera, but trickle-down behaviourism is very real.

There is, however, a flip side to the market's power: it only values what is priced and only delivers to those who can pay.

The Wealth of Nations.

a study of all 50 U.S. States found that those states marked out by large inequalities of power in terms of income and ethnicity had weaker environmental policies and suffered greater ecological degradation. Furthermore, one study covering 50 countries found the more unequal a country is, the more likely the biodiversity of its landscape is to be under threat.

The Doughnut's inner ring—its social foundation—sets out the basics of life on which no one should be left falling short.

Between 1988 and 2008, the majority of countries worldwide saw rising inequality within their borders, resulting in a hollowing out of their middle classes. Over those same 20 years, global inequality fell slightly overall (mostly thanks to falling poverty rates in China), but it increased significantly at the extremes.

Around 13% of people worldwide are malnourished. How much food would it take to meet their caloric needs? Just 3% of the global food supply. To put that in context, 30%–50% of the world's food gets lost post-harvest, wasted in global supply chains, or scraped off dinner plates and into kitchen bins.44 Hunger could, in effect, be ended with just 10% of the food that never gets eaten.

If population matters, distribution matters just as much because extremes of inequality push humanity beyond both sides of the Doughnut's boundaries. Thanks to the scale of global income inequality, responsibility for global greenhouse gas emissions is highly skewed: the top 10 percent of emitters—think of them as the global carbonistas living on every continent—generate around 45 percent of global emissions, while the bottom 50 percent of people contribute only 13 percent.

worked with Oxfam for over a decade.

three quarters of the world's poorest people now live in middle-income countries. Not because they have moved but because their nations have become better off overall and so have been reclassified by the World Bank as middle-income. Many of those countries, however—including the largest such as China, India, Indonesia and Nigeria—are becoming more unequal, which explains how they can simultaneously be home to most of the world's poorest people.

unfairness of

People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project nor contribute a pound of materials will collect more money...than will the people who will supply all the materials and do all the work.56

People in high life are hardened to the wants and distresses of mankind as surgeons are to their bodily pains.

The poor complain that they are governed badly. The rich complain that they are governed at all.

In this country, we kept slaves from learning to read. Additionally, for a while in our history, you were adequately literate if you could simply sign your name—or even just make an X. In developing countries today, girls are still educated less than boys. What do these situations suggest about the potential power of reading?

a science is said to be useful if its development tends to accentuate the existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or more directly promotes the destruction of human life...

The classes that wash most are those that work least.

Let me give you the balance sheet of this war: fifty great men to go down in the annals of history; millions of dead who won't be mentioned any more; and one thousand millionaires who lay down the law. A soldier's life is worth about fifty francs in the wallet of some fat industrialist in London, Paris, Berlin, New York, Vienna or anywhere else. Are you getting the picture?' 'So