Thursday 26 February 2015
“The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live
are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary
and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.”
John Keynes, 1936
The good news is that inequality has at long last become a BIG talking point
Income inequality has increased sharply since the late 1970s, with a particularly
dramatic rise in the share of total income going to the very highest earners.
Thomas Piketty
Pope Francis too
He tweeted that inequality is the root of social evil and then called for governments
to redistribute wealth to the poor.
President Obama felt the urge to join in the chorus
Inequality is at a level we haven't seen since the Great Depression and it hurts us all.
It distorts our democracy. More fundamentally, this kind of gaping inequality gives lie
to the promise at the very heart of America: that this is the place where you can
make it if you try.
And then there was Bill Gates
High levels of inequality are a problem — messing up economic incentives, tilting
democracies in favour of powerful interests, and undercutting the ideal that all
people are created equal.
The Waltons - Opening Scene

By the middle of the 1980s Sam Walton became the richest
man in the United States with an estimated wealth of $2.8
billion.

At the time of his death he was the 24th richest man who
ever lived and his personal wealth was estimated at $65
billion.

Now six of the surviving Waltons have as much money as
the bottom 30% of all Americans.

Just think about that for a moment ... and let it sink in.

The top 1% of households in the US own 34%, of all privately held
wealth, up from 12.8% in 1982.

The next 19% own 50.5%.

That means that the top 20% of the population of the United States
own a staggering 85% of wealth leaving only 15% of the wealth of the
country for 80% of the population.

The average income of the top 400 people in the United States tripled
during the administration of President Bill Clinton.

And doubled during the first seven years of the administration of
President George W. Bush.
Political figureheads might change but the impact
on wealth distribution is negligible.

1 in every 148 people in the United States is in prison.

The current prison population in the United States is 2.1 million. In
the 1970s the prison population was in the region of 300,000.

African Americans are disproportionately represented in the prison
population.

The Clinton administration undertook the biggest prison building
programme in US history. During his presidency funding for public
housing was slashed by $17 billion (a reduction of 61%) and prison
construction increased by $19 billion (an increase of 171%).

One in three young black people born today will serve time in
prison - if current trends continue.
Sources
Alexander, Michele. The New Jim Crowe - Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2012) The New Press, New York.
Packer, George (2013). The Unwinding - An Inner History of the New America. Faber and Faber London.

The 85 richest people in the world own the same wealth as the
3.5 billion poorest people on the planet.

Almost half the world's wealth is now owned by just 1% of the
population.

The richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world’s
wealth.

The bottom half of the world’s population owned barely 1% of
global wealth.
Sources
•Davis, James and Susanna Sandström, Anthony Shorrocks and Edward Wolff (2006) The World Distribution of
Household Wealth World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University
(UNU-WIDER)
•G. William Domhoff reports in Power in America, Wealth, Income Power
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
•Oxfam. Working for the Few. Political capture and Economic Inequality. January 2014

While there were 499 dollar billionaires in the world in 2000,
three and half billion people had to make do with barely 1% of
global wealth.

Not surprisingly wealth is heavily concentrated (90%) in North
America, Europe and high income Asia-Pacific countries. More
than a third live in the US.

Ten per cent of Ireland’s population are in the top one per cent
of the world’s wealthiest.

While global inequality is thriving so too does intra-country
inequality.
Sources
•Davis, James and Susanna Sandström, Anthony Shorrocks and Edward Wolff (2006) The World Distribution of
Household Wealth World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University
(UNU-WIDER)
•G. William Domhoff reports in Power in America, Wealth, Income Power
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
•Oxfam. Working for the Few. Political capture and Economic Inequality. January 2014
I want to leave the United States for a moment and take a
continental jump to Africa and land in Angola.
Extract from Angola film
Read pp 163 – 171
Sources:
KMF Productions (2009). The Curse of oil in Angola.
King, Peadar What in the World? Political travels in Africa, Asia and The Americas.
The Liffey Press, Dublin.
Ireland
I now want to take another jump - from Angola to Ireland but
staying with the inequality theme.

Between 2009 and 2010 the wealthiest 10% of households experienced an 8% increase in
disposable income while the poorest 10% had a 2.6% drop in disposable income.

In 2011 the risk of poverty rate increased to 16% from 14.7% in 2010. Almost 1/4 of the
population experienced two or more types of enforced deprivation in 2011 - up from 22.6%
in 2010.

Between 2010 and 2011 students were amongst the groups that showed a statistically
significant change in their at-risk-of-poverty rate. While 22.7% of students were at risk of
poverty in 2010, this rose to 31.4% in 2011. This means that one-third of students are now at
risk of poverty.

In 2013, 12% of children (aged 0-17) lived in consistent poverty - that's more than 137,000
children. This is up on the 9.9% recorded in 2012 and double the 6% figure of 2008. This is
nearly one in eight children.

In 2013 the annual average disposable income was €17,551, which showed little change from
2012.
Source
Central Statistics Office (2012)
Bringing it all Back Home
University
President
Professor
Junior Lecturer
General Operative
Galway
€196,830
€136,277
€56,782
€32,863
Cork
€226,329
€136,000
€60,775
€23,000
DCU
€193,843
UCC
Clerical Officer
Technical assistant
Library Shelving Assistant
€30,000
€30,000
€23,000
Source
NUI,G HR Department
http://www.ucc.ie/en/hr/salaryscales/
And then of course there is the gendered dimension of inequality.
The case of Dr Sheehy-Skeffington
In its ruling in favour of Dr Sheehy-Skeffington, the
tribunal described NUIG's interview process as "ramshackle".
It ordered the college to review its policies and procedures in
relation to promotions and to report back.
Dr Sheehy-Skeffington is a highly qualified botanist, widely
published, and described as an "inspirational" lecturer by a former
student.
After 19 years as a college lecturer at NUIG, she applied to become
a senior lecturer for the fourth time.
She was not appointed and after an unsuccessful internal appeal,
she took a case based on gender discrimination to the tribunal.
The tribunal found in her favour, citing both direct and indirect
discrimination.
It found that on paper promotion to senior lecturer at NUIG
seemed to be fair.
But it said its implementation has fallen short.
The tribunal said it was worrying that one male candidate who was
promoted was not even eligible to apply for the position.
It found that men at the university had a one in two chance of being
promoted to senior lecturer.
Female academics' chances were less than one in three.
So what am I saying?
In the very opening page of her book Whose Crisis, Whose Future? longtime activist Susan George writes:
I am angry because so many people are suffering
needlessly on account of the economic, social and
ecological crisis and because the world’s leaders
show no sign of bringing about genuine change;
perplexed because they don’t seem to
understand or care much about the public mood,
the widespread resentment and the urgency of
action; frightened because, if we don’t act soon,
it may well be too late, particularly where climate
change is concerned.
KMF Productions 2011
Even that most wily of campaigners, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has
seen more party politicians up close and personal than almost any other
non-party political operator, despairs of the ability of mainstream global
political figures to affect change. Writing in the Irish Examiner on 21 June
2011 he states:
Our governments must shoulder a lot of the blame.
Their policies and practices are propping up a broken
system that benefits a few powerful companies and
interests groups at the expense of the many… they
have neglected the 500 million small-scale farmers
that together feed one-third of humanity. They have
spent more than a decade debating climate change
but pledged emissions reductions that put us on
course for catastrophic warming.
Source:
Tutu, D. ‘Governments must lead to solve hunger problems’. Irish Examiner 21 June 2011.
(They) know and recognise no purpose but the ever increasing
creation of wealth and, more secretly, its concentration in the
hands of a small privileged minority: and it therefore leads to a
combat by every means, including the destruction of the
environment and human sacrifice, against any obstacle to the
maximation of profit.
Change will come not from the professional class of economists and
politicians but from
… institutions of this or that: truckers, publishers,
teachers and so forth but also defenders of trees, fish,
mushrooms, pure air, children and all of the rest.
For you young teachers, that must be a refreshing and liberating thought.
Pierre Bourdieu A Reasoned Utopia and Economic Fatalism Speech given to mark his acceptance of the Ernst-Bloch Prize in Germany in 1997.
The day has passed for patching up the
capitalist system; it must go.
James Connolly