Thread by @Grimeandreason

Inequality is a proxy for corruption. You have to have hegemonic control over a culture, decades of systemic decay, to get to a point where billionaires flaunting their wealth can be considered popular entertainment while thousands die every year of artificial scarcity.

Neoliberal hegemony took root across the Anglosphere in the early 1980's. Ideology, when implemented, can take different forms in different countries, but it's not a coincidence that neoliberal states all experienced the same trends in inequality.

These charts show the top 1% fiscal income share for the US, UK, Australia & Canada. Not hard to see a pattern.

Drops post-WW2, when the rich could no longer keep up the pretence of deserving authority, & rises with their neoliberal counter-revolution when we forgot the lesson.

New Zealand follows a similar pattern, but something interesting happened around the year 2000 and a cursory search couldn't find an answer. Anyone know?

It's not a developed world thing, either. It's a neoliberal thing.

France is currently enjoying its first archetypal neoliberal. It hasn't had the hegemony of the Anglopshere, & though a rise is apparent since the 1980's, it ain't as steep,

But given Macron a bit of time..

It's hard to get this data into perfect comparisons, bc they have different data sets for each country. That France chart looks like it could have similar increases in the share of income going to the top 1%, but they had a peak in the sixties too.

These charts show the share of income for the top 1% (blue line in US chart, red in China chart) and bottom 50% over the time period of neoliberal hegemony in the US (while poverty rose), and the time of unprecedented poverty alleviation in China.

Note that while US GDP grew x3 over this period, China's grew much, much more, so while the share for the bottom 50% went down, what they were sharing grew much larger.

Also note the levelling out. That's a hell of an indicator IMO. Got that inequality feedback loop regulated.

So why don't we check out how neoliberal development is going, or to use its other name, neocolonial empire.

South Africa & India both adopted neoliberal reforms around the same time, in the early nineties. Let's review what happened wrt inequality..

Ouch. Who could have predicted this might happen..

How do you end an apartheid state, & make racialised income inequality worse in the process?

How do you gain independence, only to see white economic ideology return to concentrate wealth into the hands of a few rich yet again?

I wish this site had better data. Lots of the countries only have a limited timespan, or limited metrics.

But the gist is there. Neoliberalism drives inequality, or at least the metrics that drive inequality, like corruption, lack of accountability, lack of empowered opposition.

And honestly, if you need the why explaining, you haven't been paying attention.

Neoliberalism is politics written & performed by the rich, for the rich.

Honestly, who wouldn't *expect* the result to be income & wealth inequality accelerating until everything collapses?

Data came from here. First time I visited, it gave me a short survey with questions that raised a couple of red flags for me. Interested to hear what you think.

wid.world

This chart doesn't half tell some stories. From the inequality of liberalism & pre-Soviet Russia, through western collapse, social democracy, & the difference with communism, to Soviet collapse & neoliberal shock treatment, & the difference between neoliberal hegemony & France.

Thought I'd contrast with perpetual top-five finishers in most life quality metrics, Scandinavia's social democracies.

Curious if anyone knows why wealthy Norwegians had such a good year around 2002?

Only Denmark of the four bucks the widespread trend of increasing inequality since the 1980's, though none are as obviously U-shaped as the Anglosphere, with peaks and troughs trending downward before a rise to now. No 20%+ recent highs, either.

Overall view: neoliberal "free-market" reforms creates the conditions for inequality to grow.

US, Colombia, Argentina, & Brazil; Russia's shock therapy; Zambia, SA, Cote d'Ivoire, India, all 90's IMF alumni; rest of Anglosphere..

And MENA they kept factionalised or propped up.

Like GDP metrics, these say little on their own. A state could have high inequality, but still provide more universally for their people than another country with less inequality, but more poverty.

Neoliberalism just happens to be awful at both, creating inequality *&* poverty.

Just wanna give it up for Denmark. That's a pretty impressive chart right there.

It would be a worthy research topic to see how and why Denmark managed to buck the trend, & avoid rising inequality as Scandinavia's social democracy degraded in the face of global capital.