the divide a brief guide to global inequality

The book is still, therefore, underread, but despite it falling foul of current Twitter trends, it somehow feels timely. The arguments over economic inequality now feel traditional and unfashionable. Since then, we have had Trump, Brexit, the ‘cultural wars’ and Covid-19. It is only with hindsight that many now claim that it was historically predictable that the populist right would capitalise. Many, after Occupy, public sector cuts and the (initial) electoral success of Syriza in Greece, thought it would be the political left that would make hay. The public of many countries, after nearly seven years of economic decline, wage pressure and austerity policies, were feeling restless. The world was just beginning to creep out of the Great Recession. The Occupy movement had ended but was still in the mind’s eye. At the time, inequality both within and between countries felt important. So much has happened since that it can feel like another world, already part of ‘history’. Despite the fact that it was published relatively recently, it still feels necessary to recount the context in which Milanovic wrote and released it. It is a provocative, urgent and ultimately uplifting account of how the world works, and how it can change for the better.Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalisation is not a new book. Poor countries are poor because they are integrated into the global economic system on unequal terms, and aid only helps to hide this.ĭrawing on pioneering research and years of first-hand experience, The Divide tracks the evolution of global inequality - from the expeditions of Christopher Columbus to the present day - offering revelatory answers to some of humanity's greatest problems. But just because it is a comforting tale doesn't make it true. Though global real GDP has nearly tripled since 1980, 1.1 billion more people are now living in poverty.įor decades we have been told a story: that development is working, that poverty is a natural phenomenon and will be eradicated through aid by 2030.Today, 60 per cent of the world's population lives on less than $5 a day.The richest eight people control more wealth than the poorest half of the world combined.

In The Divide, Jason Hickel brilliantly lays it out, layer upon layer, until you are left reeling with the outrage of it all.' - Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics 'There's no understanding global inequality without understanding its history.

The divide a brief guide to global inequality