De ontwikkeling van sociaal-economische ongelijkheid in de wereld. Evolutionaire trends en mechanismen

Samenvatting

The Development of Socioeconomic Inequality in the World. Evolutionary Trends and Mechanisms. Attempts to explain the huge income inequalities in the present-day world from an evolutionary perspective. New calculations on trends in international and global income inequality, 1950-1998, are presented. While, on the whole, international and global income inequality continued to grow in this period, comparison of different subperiods and different measures of inequality reveals contradictory findings. The Gini-coefficients of international and global income inequality diminished in the 1980s due to strong economic growth in some Asian countries, China in particular. On average, the gap between rich and poor countries in survival chances (indicated by food consumption and life expectancy) diminished in the latter 20th century. The trends in this period are regarded as part of a long-term evolutionary development. Three stages in this development are distinguished: a first stage in which socioeconomic inequalities within and between societies were small; a second stage, starting with the domestication of plants and animals, in which socioeconomic inequalities between and (even more) within societies increased; and a third stage, starting with mechanical industrialization, in which socioeconomic inequalities between societies grew much larger and became more striking than those within (national) societies. A fourth, hypothetical stage is added, starting in the latter 20th century, in which socioeconomic inequalities between countries began to diminish, according to some indications. The long-term development is explained by positing a number of basic mechanisms, the relative importance of which depends on basic conditions that change in the course of social evolution. 3 Tables, 49 References. Adapted from the source document.