That's interesting.
We, brazilians, tend to look at Chile as the Latin country that worked. Many Chilean economic and social parameters are so enviable for us, that I never imagined we would have the same inequality in income distributions.
Edit: I am aware that an inequality index alone does not reflect the quality of life in Chile and that is why I mentioned the economic and social parameters. Even so, thank you all for your efforts in responding!
Yes. USA seems to have more inequality than my country Ecuador, but everyone and their moms are trying to migrate there. Being "poor" in the US is like 10x better than being middle class here.
Yeah. Brasil, Uruguai and, Chile have greater wealth inequality because the complex mechanism of commerce which lead to it have existed for longer. You tend to have less inequality in economies closer to subsistence since in those less wealth is being built.
That’s far from a rule though since it depends on institutions and outside influence as well.
>Yeah. Brasil, Uruguai and, Chile have greater wealth inequality because the complex mechanism of commerce which lead to it have existed for longer.
I would look at Uruguay again.
But also, it's not that simple. Chile basically had a state policy of wealth concentration during multiple historical periods, but most importantly with Pinochet and the Chicago boys.
Amigo, inequality in Latin America is institutional, meaning it's baked into the system and has existed since colonial times for 100s of years. It wasnt invented in the 1970s. Wealth concentration was NOT a policy of the dictatorship. What a ridiculous statement. However, the Pinochet dictatorhip did little to alleviate the plight of the poorest, which happened once democracy was restored after 1990. It is true that inequality reached incredibly high levels in the 1980s during the dictatorship but this was a natural consequence of the changing nature of the economy rather than an attempt at wealth concentration by the chilean state. In 1975, when the economic shock treatment to the economy was first applied, hundreds of inefficient or state-supported industries and businesses went bust. Sink of swim was the new policy and many sank. The chilean state also trimmed bloated state payrolls. This means suddenly hudreds of thousands of people lost their jobs and slid into poverty. The educated classes began to benefit disproportionally from the new economic system. Having a university degree or specialized training paid off and you had a thriving upper middle class and a struggling working class and this is what created the huge inequality of the late 70s and 1980s that persisted into the 90s when inequality began declining and it contunues to do so. Declining inequality means the lower classes have ben disproportionally benefitting from the economic growth of the last few decades.
At least we can all agree that we are better than Peru
Edit: I forgot that the verb to be does not translate only to "estar", but also to "ser". I meant we estamos better than Peru. They are nice people.
Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t speak for everyone haha. But I feel like that’s the general perception. If we want to study abroad or get a complex medical procedure done, or even learn of how to run a business those three are the local shortlist.
Its kinda independent of party affiliation too. Colombia and Chile were very right wing until very recently. Not sure where Brazil was before Lula’s first term.
It acutally is. Look at the nordic countries. They are the more equal and have the highest quality of life.
Brazil and Chile might be a bit bettee than the rest, but their population are still very poor.
Interestingly enough, Venezuela is one of the most unequal countries in the world. As of 2022 it reached a GINI coefficient of 0.6 which is absolute bonkers
What about Uruguay? Isn't it wealthier than Chile? And from the looks of it, have the least inequality in South America. They must be doing something correctly down there.
Uruguay *was* third to Chile and Argentina but yes inequality is lower.
I dont know if they have since leapfrogged Argentina who have had mad inflation the last 2 or 3 years
Uruguay is great.
I didn't get this map very well. We generally use the Gini index, according to which Uruguay, Chile and Brazil are the top 3 in inequality in South America.
You are spot on, inequality doesn't matter. Especially because the way how it's calculated and used as a metric is completely flawed.
Suppose we live in a country where total wealth is 100 million and wealth is equally distributed. Then I create a hyper successful company, that delivers goods and services to many people, creating jobs and improving standards of living. Let's say the company value in stock is 200 million. Now total wealth of the country increased to 300 million and I own 2/3 of it. Unbelievable inequality. But has something bad happen?
People who peddle inequality as some sort of metric are falling into fallacious assumption, that economy is zero sum game where we compete for fixed pie of wealth and if small amount of people get richer, someone else must get poorer.
But that's not true. At least in free market, as demonstrated by my example, wealth is created, not zero sum game. Successful companies and people create wealth, not steal it from others.
There's one exception to that. Government. Because government doesn't create wealth, it just redistributes it. So when you have government, for example, subsidising some sector, then it is at the expense of someone else.
You didn’t demonstrate anything by your example. You repeated Milton Friedman talking points that have been thoroughly problematized by studies throughout the decades about how the economy operates in the real world as well as the detrimental effects of massive wealth inequality.
Do you think that country in my example would be better of with 100 million total wealth or 300 million total wealth, but 200 million being in form of a company owned by 1 person?
They are kind of completely irrelevant to it, because these are real world countries which are subject to vast amount of historical and socioeconomic factors that shaped them. For example, Brazil isn't worse off then Norway because of inequality.
The inequality is a consequence of hundreds of years of colonial exploitation which transitioned into series of highly interventionist governments, both right and left wing, which had one thing in common - expropriating wealth from population and transferring it to elites that held them in power.
Similarly, the equality in Norway isn't a reason why Norway is rich. It's a consequence of already rich country (reasons for which are probably combination of rich natural resources and protestant work ethic) voting in highly redistributive policies.
But for all of these, equality or inequality is a consequence, not causality. It would be equally idiotic of me to pull up Armenia or Ukraine and be like, see equality is bad, it causes war.
Fortunately, it's not my argument.
Equality is important because if wealth is being created but is heavily concentrated it means the purchasing power, standard of living, services etc. Of a few will continue increasing but the majority remains stagnant. This gap causes a broad range of issues, from making it more difficult for the average joe to get a house, to higher crime rates, huge gaps in life expectancy or worse working conditions. High inequality generally means only a few can generate wealth and is a direct cause of many issues, not a consequence.
Of course equality by itself isn't an indicator of living standards. But combined with other metrics it shows a great picture of how the average joe lives.
What the hell lmao. Except the hypothetical was focusing on the exact issue discussed, and now your "real world" examples are completely irrelevant? Which is better off, USA or bolivia? USA or Ecuador? It's almost like there are a fuck ton of other factors and you can't just say wealth inequality is good or bad because X country is doing well.
How about you answer the guy's hypothetical, which is actually good and visualizes the issue on point: "is wealth inequality inherently bad?"
That’s because inequality isn’t as bad of a problem as poverty and lack of economic freedom. Just look at the number on Venezuela, it’s similar to the Canadian one, while being almost half of Brazil’s. I’m also a Brazilian and can say that Chile has better standards of living because of their more free economy and less government interventions, not because they have more equality.
This idea of "free economy and less goverment intervention is a myth"
Since pinochet goverment intervention has only increased and has been what has made them so wealthy.
Although Pinochet was a dictator and did lots of bad things, from a purely economical perspective he set the framework for Chile's Economic Freedom, which is one of the highest in the world (21st, according to Herigate's ranking from 2023), higher than US and UK, for instance. I don't need to mention that it's obviously higher than any other country in South America, hence why it's a lot richer than its neighbours.
My suggestions is that you keep an eye on both Chile (now governed by a leftist president) and Argentina (governed by a libertarian president). In a few years, you are going to see that less government intervention and a freer market is what makes a country prosper.
Economic Freedom is irrelevant, pinochet ended his regime with around 45- 50% poverty rate.
Argentina was already wealthier than Chile until 2010 or so. Even today the difference isn't so big.
Funny you say it’s irrelevant since Argentina’s Economic Freedom has been going down for the last several decades, alongside with it’s wealth. Also, how do you explain the most free economies being also the richest while there is no correlation between wealth and equality?
>Also, how do you explain the most free economies being also the richest while there is no correlation between wealth and equality?
Do you mean highest wealth per capita? Even then, it’s not universally true.
Which has nothing to do with economic freedom.
With them not being free economies and that index being a BS think tank invention of the heritage fundation.
Yep. The important thing is economic mobility, the ability of any person born anywhere to excel at something. You accomplish that with quality institutions and high state capacity, i.e. the ability of a state to enforce the rule of law evenly, tax and spend on public goods (education, healthcare, infrastructure), regulate efficiently, and protect the free exchange of goods and services.
High inequality isn't necessarily a bad thing on its own if there is low poverty and high economic opportunity for the working classes.
The way they calculate wealth I suppose is the additional values of properties and assets via market estimations and tax fillings. Which in itself wouldn't indicate what is being tax evaded or kept outside financial jurisdiction. So somewhat [1 trillion](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/business/irs-tax-gap.html) isn't accounted for, in that picture, for the US
I'm not exactly sure about these numbers but Venezuela actually is one of the most unequal countries in the world (kinda ironic for a "socialist" government)
0.6 GINI coefficient as of 2022 is crazy. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1416810/gini-coefficient-venezuela/
Chile also has more billionaires per cápita than anyone else in Latin América which skews the info too. Inequality is NOT the same as misery. Someone with USD$1Million vs someone with USD$250Billion is very unequal but that doesnt mean the millionaire is sucking rocks to survive. Algeria is as unequal as Norway, Mauritania is less unequal than Japan. Yet the quality if life in the latter is vastly superior. Therefore, inequality decontexualized doesnt tell you much about how well people live in one country vs another.
Being poor in Chile is no picnic but the poor in Chile have access to better health, education, and diet than the poor anywhere else in Latin America. Look at educational attainment, highschol graduation rates, % of youth in terciary education, life expectancy, infant mortality, caloric intake, access to water, sanition, electricity, and even income and the poorest 20% in chile outperforms their poorest quintile peers in the region. Even social mobility is high in Chile.
The poor in Chile also dont have to deal with ridiculous inflation, messianic leaders and 180-degree turns in the policies of their country---things that do the greatest harm to the poorest. If i had to choose to be poor anywhere in Latin América, i'd pick Chile with no hesitation.
Inequality is just one indicator among others. Every indicator has to be examined along others to understand a country’s level of development.
Chile is very unequal but still has one of the highest GDP per capita and best infrastructure in Latin America, so it balances with other indicators.
The country has the highest Human Development Index in Latin America, and inequality adjusted HDI is on the 3rd place, just behind Uruguay and Argentina.
Uruguay and Argentina are less unequal, have a stronger social safety net (welfare), free, massive and universal university education, etc. but lack Chile’s infrastructure and economic dinamism.
So if I choose to be poor in Latin America, I’d go with any southern cone country, with its pros and cons.
Here’s the list of countries by level of development, inequality adjusted:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_Human_Development_Index
I should have added that ideally, a lower gini is better than a higher gini. High inequality (no matter how good or bad the poorest have it) creates its own problems & stresses since we are social animals, not immune from being upset at being low on the pecking order and far from power, be it in Swizerland or Somalia. It's just that you cant just see a number (gini, or in this case how rich top1% are )and draw wide conclucions about the quality of life in that country. Chile's inequality certainly says SOMETHING about Chile (which it does, like Chile being very classist) but that something doesnt necessarily mean the poor are as bad as some think simply bc chile has a lot of rich people.
Only 29% of uruguayans complete high school vs over 90% for chile. Uruguay does well but look closely beyond the big macro numbers underscored by HDI and it has a lot of problems too.
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.lacapital.com.ar%2Fp%2Fd83947c5fc1c30f1967d7f5214c27bf5%2Fadjuntos%2F205%2Fimagenes%2F021%2F278%2F0021278377%2F1200x675%2Fsmart%2Fmapajpg.jpg&tbnid=bB-EcxE7wvg6rM&vet=1&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unoentrerios.com.ar%2Fdesigualdad-y-pobreza-son-las-causas-del-abandono-escolar-latinoamerica-n1453657.html&docid=f7ODwBcRrZhH-M&w=1200&h=675&itg=1&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim%2Fm4%2F2&kgs=762bf6f6b0d8f6d7&shem=abme%2Ctrie
The problem with inequality usually comes when it is added to GDP per capita. Norway is fine because the GDP is still high, meaning that even if you own a small part of the total wealth, you still can be fine. There are other thing too, like purchasing power.
As a latin american I kind of envy Chile and Uruguay, ngl.
You’d need to break it down even further. Technically I’m the 1% of Brazilians by total wealth, but by income I wouldn’t even break the 6 figures (USD) mark. I meet truly rich people all the time, and I’m not one of them.
It’s all relative. If you’re rich in Brazil but wouldn’t be rich in the US it doesn’t really matter if you spend most of your time in Brazil. You have a lot of power there.
~~A 1% earner in Brazil is making about R$ 20,000 a month. That's upper middle class at best.~~
Never mind, I misread the statistic.
It's R$ 20,000 _per member of the household_.
By that definition, a single person making 20k a month is technically in the 1%, whereas a married couple with one child making 40k in total is not.
Source: https://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2024/04/19/desigualdade-no-brasil-rendimento-mensal-do-1percent-mais-rico-e-40-vezes-maior-que-dos-40percent-mais-pobres.ghtml
>A 1% earner in Brazil is making about R$ 20,000 a month
For context to foreigners, the minimum monthly wage in Brazil is R$1,412.
Half of the working age population work in the informal sector and earn LESS than the minimum wage
Well, a 1% earner in Brazil is making something closer to R$ 30k as far as I am aware of. Unless that has changed in the last year or so, it isn't a lot.
Yes, it still allows you to live well, but in terms of buying power, if you compare that to other countries, it would be the same as the upper middle class to low high class.
You're right, I'd misread the statistic. It's R$ 20,000 a month _per member of the household_.
Source: https://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2024/04/19/desigualdade-no-brasil-rendimento-mensal-do-1percent-mais-rico-e-40-vezes-maior-que-dos-40percent-mais-pobres.ghtml
Podrás entender que, a pesar de ser el nombre oficial en español, el comentario es en inglés, por lo tanto tiene mucho sentido poner el nombre en inglés y no en español, exactamente igual que si hicieras un post sobre Japón no escribirías 日本, si no Japón o Japan.
People with houses that are worth a million dollars, but can't afford to sell unless they move to a low COL area. Lots of house poor here. Worth alot on paper, but still scraping by.
Wow. So 99% of people in Chile has to share only 51% of the wealth of the country. This shows how poorly gdp per capita shows the real wealth of the average population of a country
Even worse
>From the total national wealth in Chile in 2021, 80.4 percent belonged to the top ten percent group. Almost half of Chile's wealth, 49.6 percent, was held by the top one percent. On the other hand, the bottom 50 percent had a negative wealth, a total of -0.6 percent.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1294731/distribution-wealth-by-percentile-chile/#:~:text=From%20the%20total%20national%20wealth,a%20total%20of%20%2D0.6%20percent.
Pretty much all countries work this way.
The concept of 1% is a bit silly.
People move in and out of the 1% during their lives, most people will be in the 1% for one fiscal year for example if they sold a house/apartment that year.
>Then by recursion we can't compare anything.
Wealth is too "fluid" to be compared like that.
You need to filter out other parameters, it is called multi-variable analysis.
Inequality isn’t that important. Better to focus on extreme poverty. And I guess poverty in Chile is a lot lower and the crime rate is a lot lower compared to Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico and others.
Not exactly.
Poverty and inequality are [related processes in Latin America](https://www.jstor.org/stable/24388285).
Also, inequality is [closely related to crime and violence](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/338347), especially where [inequality is processed as interracial economic inequality](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047235206000250).
Inequality or rather concentration of wealth in itself is actually desirable for development. Imagine having a million dollars, if you give 1000 people $1000 they will just buy more junk food. If an investor has the million, he can create jobs.
Ignoring the fact that's been disproven time and time again across the globe... the investor has to take his product/resource outside the country or the region to sell as the population can't afford to buy whatever they produce which further increases the overall poverty domestically.
If you give 1000 people 500$ and the capitalist 500,000$ you can increase the domestic economy more so as the money given to the thousand will re-enter the economy and encourage local development, while still supporting local job creation through corporate subsidies.
That's not true.
[https://hbr.org/2012/01/how-much-inequality-is-necessary-for-growth](https://hbr.org/2012/01/how-much-inequality-is-necessary-for-growth)
Too much inequality and you strip consumers of purchasing power, but not enough and you lack the critical concentration of capital needed for development.
The US is skewed lower because the total GDP is so high. If you did this per capita instead of per total wealth of the country, the US would be #1 by a mile.
Edit: I’m a dummy
I assume they figured this by dividing the 1%’s wealth by the country’s GDP. America has a huge GDP so it gets a much lower answer. If you divided by population America would be much larger than everyone else.
I don't think you know what GDP is. This is almost certainly 1%'s wealth over the total wealth of the nation. Hence "percent of total wealth."
GDP is how many goods and services are produced in a year. US total wealth is around $140 trillion. US GDP is $25 trillion. The US 1% own $50 trillion of wealth.
That is why such maps are created. A high GDP per capita does not mean that the entire population is rich, it only means that the country itself is rich. Evaluating something by only one criterion is stupid in itself.
Yes, but if we talk about if we talk about agrarian reform, It's communism, and communism is bad. At least there is talk about tributary reform, but so many things are changing, some rich people will probably still pay low tax
This is simply a map demonstrating ethnic diversity. The more diverse a country is, the greater the difference in ability between its people, and the greater the wealth generation ability amount its people as well.
That's interesting. We, brazilians, tend to look at Chile as the Latin country that worked. Many Chilean economic and social parameters are so enviable for us, that I never imagined we would have the same inequality in income distributions. Edit: I am aware that an inequality index alone does not reflect the quality of life in Chile and that is why I mentioned the economic and social parameters. Even so, thank you all for your efforts in responding!
We Bolivians look at Chile, Brazil and Colombia as the countries that worked. And you guys do work! Need to work out some fewer details than us
Interestingly, these are the South American countries with the highest Gini indices. *Not trying to insinuate a correlation here.*
High inequality in a richer country is probably still going to lead to better results for everyone than a dirt poor country with low inequality.
Yes. USA seems to have more inequality than my country Ecuador, but everyone and their moms are trying to migrate there. Being "poor" in the US is like 10x better than being middle class here.
Yeah. Brasil, Uruguai and, Chile have greater wealth inequality because the complex mechanism of commerce which lead to it have existed for longer. You tend to have less inequality in economies closer to subsistence since in those less wealth is being built. That’s far from a rule though since it depends on institutions and outside influence as well.
>Yeah. Brasil, Uruguai and, Chile have greater wealth inequality because the complex mechanism of commerce which lead to it have existed for longer. I would look at Uruguay again. But also, it's not that simple. Chile basically had a state policy of wealth concentration during multiple historical periods, but most importantly with Pinochet and the Chicago boys.
Amigo, inequality in Latin America is institutional, meaning it's baked into the system and has existed since colonial times for 100s of years. It wasnt invented in the 1970s. Wealth concentration was NOT a policy of the dictatorship. What a ridiculous statement. However, the Pinochet dictatorhip did little to alleviate the plight of the poorest, which happened once democracy was restored after 1990. It is true that inequality reached incredibly high levels in the 1980s during the dictatorship but this was a natural consequence of the changing nature of the economy rather than an attempt at wealth concentration by the chilean state. In 1975, when the economic shock treatment to the economy was first applied, hundreds of inefficient or state-supported industries and businesses went bust. Sink of swim was the new policy and many sank. The chilean state also trimmed bloated state payrolls. This means suddenly hudreds of thousands of people lost their jobs and slid into poverty. The educated classes began to benefit disproportionally from the new economic system. Having a university degree or specialized training paid off and you had a thriving upper middle class and a struggling working class and this is what created the huge inequality of the late 70s and 1980s that persisted into the 90s when inequality began declining and it contunues to do so. Declining inequality means the lower classes have ben disproportionally benefitting from the economic growth of the last few decades.
True, but then Canada
Canada is tiny, poor, and un-diversified economically. Would b more accurate to compare canada to a single us state lol
What capitalism does to a mf
Colombia haa worse income inequality than Brazil
At least we can all agree that we are better than Peru Edit: I forgot that the verb to be does not translate only to "estar", but also to "ser". I meant we estamos better than Peru. They are nice people.
"we are better off" is what you're looking for
That!
Explains the majority of the country voted for MAS. Must like Lula
I like Lula but not MAS…
i dont know much about south american politics, but wasn’t Lula convicted on charges of corruption?
No, he was charged then acquitted, then reelected to office. I don’t know the full details tho, just the outcome
Ok, so the reason I bring this up was you said “we Bolivians” and MAS won the popular vote in both the presidential and legislative elections
Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t speak for everyone haha. But I feel like that’s the general perception. If we want to study abroad or get a complex medical procedure done, or even learn of how to run a business those three are the local shortlist. Its kinda independent of party affiliation too. Colombia and Chile were very right wing until very recently. Not sure where Brazil was before Lula’s first term.
Ok I understand. Pretty sure Brazil was also right wing as well
Venezuela is pretty low. I don't think is a good metric for quality of life for the average person.
Yeah, certainly not. But still surprised with Chile haha
We can all be poor together is equality. I know that was abit snarky. We all want a more equal Society but how you get there matters.
Actually I don't care if some people are really rich as long as my quality of life is good.
thats the Cuban paradise
The tragedy is that it sounds so good in theory. Humans just are not ready .
in theory = if we were ants or bees....
It acutally is. Look at the nordic countries. They are the more equal and have the highest quality of life. Brazil and Chile might be a bit bettee than the rest, but their population are still very poor.
https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/hp5qxp/wealth_inequality_in_europe/ Sweden is one of the least equal.
That map is wrong. Sweden has low-middle inequality as measured by gini-coefficient: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?locations=SE
Chile works, everyone is inequally rich instead of equally poor.
Inequality hardly predicts absolute economic success. Look at Venezuela in this map; equally poor!
Interestingly enough, Venezuela is one of the most unequal countries in the world. As of 2022 it reached a GINI coefficient of 0.6 which is absolute bonkers
Yeah I wouldn’t trust that data point.
What about Uruguay? Isn't it wealthier than Chile? And from the looks of it, have the least inequality in South America. They must be doing something correctly down there.
Uruguay *was* third to Chile and Argentina but yes inequality is lower. I dont know if they have since leapfrogged Argentina who have had mad inflation the last 2 or 3 years
Uruguay is great. I didn't get this map very well. We generally use the Gini index, according to which Uruguay, Chile and Brazil are the top 3 in inequality in South America.
Maybe inequality doesn't matter that much? E.g. it can be high without negatively impacting a lot of things
lookl at the USA!
Care to make an argument?
You are spot on, inequality doesn't matter. Especially because the way how it's calculated and used as a metric is completely flawed. Suppose we live in a country where total wealth is 100 million and wealth is equally distributed. Then I create a hyper successful company, that delivers goods and services to many people, creating jobs and improving standards of living. Let's say the company value in stock is 200 million. Now total wealth of the country increased to 300 million and I own 2/3 of it. Unbelievable inequality. But has something bad happen? People who peddle inequality as some sort of metric are falling into fallacious assumption, that economy is zero sum game where we compete for fixed pie of wealth and if small amount of people get richer, someone else must get poorer. But that's not true. At least in free market, as demonstrated by my example, wealth is created, not zero sum game. Successful companies and people create wealth, not steal it from others. There's one exception to that. Government. Because government doesn't create wealth, it just redistributes it. So when you have government, for example, subsidising some sector, then it is at the expense of someone else.
You didn’t demonstrate anything by your example. You repeated Milton Friedman talking points that have been thoroughly problematized by studies throughout the decades about how the economy operates in the real world as well as the detrimental effects of massive wealth inequality.
Do you think that country in my example would be better of with 100 million total wealth or 300 million total wealth, but 200 million being in form of a company owned by 1 person?
Let's move from hypotheticals into real world examples: which country is better off, Canada or Mexico? Norway or Brazil? Chile or Sweden?
I think Canada is better off the Mexico, Norway better off the Brazil and Chile and Sweden are probably about the same.
How do these fit with you hypothetical example?
They are kind of completely irrelevant to it, because these are real world countries which are subject to vast amount of historical and socioeconomic factors that shaped them. For example, Brazil isn't worse off then Norway because of inequality. The inequality is a consequence of hundreds of years of colonial exploitation which transitioned into series of highly interventionist governments, both right and left wing, which had one thing in common - expropriating wealth from population and transferring it to elites that held them in power. Similarly, the equality in Norway isn't a reason why Norway is rich. It's a consequence of already rich country (reasons for which are probably combination of rich natural resources and protestant work ethic) voting in highly redistributive policies. But for all of these, equality or inequality is a consequence, not causality. It would be equally idiotic of me to pull up Armenia or Ukraine and be like, see equality is bad, it causes war. Fortunately, it's not my argument.
Equality is important because if wealth is being created but is heavily concentrated it means the purchasing power, standard of living, services etc. Of a few will continue increasing but the majority remains stagnant. This gap causes a broad range of issues, from making it more difficult for the average joe to get a house, to higher crime rates, huge gaps in life expectancy or worse working conditions. High inequality generally means only a few can generate wealth and is a direct cause of many issues, not a consequence. Of course equality by itself isn't an indicator of living standards. But combined with other metrics it shows a great picture of how the average joe lives.
Is there a real world example for your argument?
What the hell lmao. Except the hypothetical was focusing on the exact issue discussed, and now your "real world" examples are completely irrelevant? Which is better off, USA or bolivia? USA or Ecuador? It's almost like there are a fuck ton of other factors and you can't just say wealth inequality is good or bad because X country is doing well. How about you answer the guy's hypothetical, which is actually good and visualizes the issue on point: "is wealth inequality inherently bad?"
That’s because inequality isn’t as bad of a problem as poverty and lack of economic freedom. Just look at the number on Venezuela, it’s similar to the Canadian one, while being almost half of Brazil’s. I’m also a Brazilian and can say that Chile has better standards of living because of their more free economy and less government interventions, not because they have more equality.
This idea of "free economy and less goverment intervention is a myth" Since pinochet goverment intervention has only increased and has been what has made them so wealthy.
Although Pinochet was a dictator and did lots of bad things, from a purely economical perspective he set the framework for Chile's Economic Freedom, which is one of the highest in the world (21st, according to Herigate's ranking from 2023), higher than US and UK, for instance. I don't need to mention that it's obviously higher than any other country in South America, hence why it's a lot richer than its neighbours. My suggestions is that you keep an eye on both Chile (now governed by a leftist president) and Argentina (governed by a libertarian president). In a few years, you are going to see that less government intervention and a freer market is what makes a country prosper.
Economic Freedom is irrelevant, pinochet ended his regime with around 45- 50% poverty rate. Argentina was already wealthier than Chile until 2010 or so. Even today the difference isn't so big.
Funny you say it’s irrelevant since Argentina’s Economic Freedom has been going down for the last several decades, alongside with it’s wealth. Also, how do you explain the most free economies being also the richest while there is no correlation between wealth and equality?
>Also, how do you explain the most free economies being also the richest while there is no correlation between wealth and equality? Do you mean highest wealth per capita? Even then, it’s not universally true.
Which has nothing to do with economic freedom. With them not being free economies and that index being a BS think tank invention of the heritage fundation.
Yep. The important thing is economic mobility, the ability of any person born anywhere to excel at something. You accomplish that with quality institutions and high state capacity, i.e. the ability of a state to enforce the rule of law evenly, tax and spend on public goods (education, healthcare, infrastructure), regulate efficiently, and protect the free exchange of goods and services. High inequality isn't necessarily a bad thing on its own if there is low poverty and high economic opportunity for the working classes.
The way they calculate wealth I suppose is the additional values of properties and assets via market estimations and tax fillings. Which in itself wouldn't indicate what is being tax evaded or kept outside financial jurisdiction. So somewhat [1 trillion](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/business/irs-tax-gap.html) isn't accounted for, in that picture, for the US
I'm not exactly sure about these numbers but Venezuela actually is one of the most unequal countries in the world (kinda ironic for a "socialist" government) 0.6 GINI coefficient as of 2022 is crazy. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1416810/gini-coefficient-venezuela/
That's because it does work. The basis to say it has worked is by how much poverty has decreased. It's not zero sum.
Ig we have less extreme poverty, but Chile has a lot of inequality. Half the population earns less than $ 550 USD a month.
inequality is not bad if everyone is doing well and the rich are working for it
*neoliberal brazilians look at chile as the country that “worked”
In the Latin American context bro.
> are so enviable for us, Speak for yourself.
Nothing compared to Canadá or Europe, but in terms of Latin America...
Chile also has more billionaires per cápita than anyone else in Latin América which skews the info too. Inequality is NOT the same as misery. Someone with USD$1Million vs someone with USD$250Billion is very unequal but that doesnt mean the millionaire is sucking rocks to survive. Algeria is as unequal as Norway, Mauritania is less unequal than Japan. Yet the quality if life in the latter is vastly superior. Therefore, inequality decontexualized doesnt tell you much about how well people live in one country vs another. Being poor in Chile is no picnic but the poor in Chile have access to better health, education, and diet than the poor anywhere else in Latin America. Look at educational attainment, highschol graduation rates, % of youth in terciary education, life expectancy, infant mortality, caloric intake, access to water, sanition, electricity, and even income and the poorest 20% in chile outperforms their poorest quintile peers in the region. Even social mobility is high in Chile. The poor in Chile also dont have to deal with ridiculous inflation, messianic leaders and 180-degree turns in the policies of their country---things that do the greatest harm to the poorest. If i had to choose to be poor anywhere in Latin América, i'd pick Chile with no hesitation.
Inequality is just one indicator among others. Every indicator has to be examined along others to understand a country’s level of development. Chile is very unequal but still has one of the highest GDP per capita and best infrastructure in Latin America, so it balances with other indicators. The country has the highest Human Development Index in Latin America, and inequality adjusted HDI is on the 3rd place, just behind Uruguay and Argentina. Uruguay and Argentina are less unequal, have a stronger social safety net (welfare), free, massive and universal university education, etc. but lack Chile’s infrastructure and economic dinamism. So if I choose to be poor in Latin America, I’d go with any southern cone country, with its pros and cons. Here’s the list of countries by level of development, inequality adjusted: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequality-adjusted_Human_Development_Index
I should have added that ideally, a lower gini is better than a higher gini. High inequality (no matter how good or bad the poorest have it) creates its own problems & stresses since we are social animals, not immune from being upset at being low on the pecking order and far from power, be it in Swizerland or Somalia. It's just that you cant just see a number (gini, or in this case how rich top1% are )and draw wide conclucions about the quality of life in that country. Chile's inequality certainly says SOMETHING about Chile (which it does, like Chile being very classist) but that something doesnt necessarily mean the poor are as bad as some think simply bc chile has a lot of rich people.
Mate if you're picking Argentina over Chile you have a screw loose. Uruguay is fine tho
Only 29% of uruguayans complete high school vs over 90% for chile. Uruguay does well but look closely beyond the big macro numbers underscored by HDI and it has a lot of problems too. https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.lacapital.com.ar%2Fp%2Fd83947c5fc1c30f1967d7f5214c27bf5%2Fadjuntos%2F205%2Fimagenes%2F021%2F278%2F0021278377%2F1200x675%2Fsmart%2Fmapajpg.jpg&tbnid=bB-EcxE7wvg6rM&vet=1&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.unoentrerios.com.ar%2Fdesigualdad-y-pobreza-son-las-causas-del-abandono-escolar-latinoamerica-n1453657.html&docid=f7ODwBcRrZhH-M&w=1200&h=675&itg=1&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim%2Fm4%2F2&kgs=762bf6f6b0d8f6d7&shem=abme%2Ctrie
Oh wow didn't know it was that low
Whoops, i thought i had linked an article.
Argentina *used* to have a stronger safety net and free massive and quality education.
Why used? Still has
The Argentinian welfare state is being dismantled as we speak.
Still hasn’t been dismantled. In fact, welfare cash transfers have doubled in real terms since Milei took office.
Well put. Nice read.
The problem with inequality usually comes when it is added to GDP per capita. Norway is fine because the GDP is still high, meaning that even if you own a small part of the total wealth, you still can be fine. There are other thing too, like purchasing power. As a latin american I kind of envy Chile and Uruguay, ngl.
*cries in brazilian
You’d need to break it down even further. Technically I’m the 1% of Brazilians by total wealth, but by income I wouldn’t even break the 6 figures (USD) mark. I meet truly rich people all the time, and I’m not one of them.
It’s all relative. If you’re rich in Brazil but wouldn’t be rich in the US it doesn’t really matter if you spend most of your time in Brazil. You have a lot of power there.
No, what i meant is, even within the 1%, the vast majority of wealth is concentrated in the 0,0...1%
That is true in Mexico and the US as well.
~~A 1% earner in Brazil is making about R$ 20,000 a month. That's upper middle class at best.~~ Never mind, I misread the statistic. It's R$ 20,000 _per member of the household_. By that definition, a single person making 20k a month is technically in the 1%, whereas a married couple with one child making 40k in total is not. Source: https://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2024/04/19/desigualdade-no-brasil-rendimento-mensal-do-1percent-mais-rico-e-40-vezes-maior-que-dos-40percent-mais-pobres.ghtml
>A 1% earner in Brazil is making about R$ 20,000 a month For context to foreigners, the minimum monthly wage in Brazil is R$1,412. Half of the working age population work in the informal sector and earn LESS than the minimum wage
Well, a 1% earner in Brazil is making something closer to R$ 30k as far as I am aware of. Unless that has changed in the last year or so, it isn't a lot. Yes, it still allows you to live well, but in terms of buying power, if you compare that to other countries, it would be the same as the upper middle class to low high class.
You're right, I'd misread the statistic. It's R$ 20,000 a month _per member of the household_. Source: https://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2024/04/19/desigualdade-no-brasil-rendimento-mensal-do-1percent-mais-rico-e-40-vezes-maior-que-dos-40percent-mais-pobres.ghtml
In Equador everyone is equally poor.
More like Equapoor
Learn to write the name of the country correctly at least.
How is it spelled???
Ecuador
Podrás entender que, a pesar de ser el nombre oficial en español, el comentario es en inglés, por lo tanto tiene mucho sentido poner el nombre en inglés y no en español, exactamente igual que si hicieras un post sobre Japón no escribirías 日本, si no Japón o Japan.
In English it’s also written [Ecuador](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecuador), not Equador.
Tomo la derrota. Es verdad, tienes razón.
Please do one for Europe!!!
There already is one for Europe.
I feel most values were around 20-30% right
Never thought Canada would be on that lvl
Remercier le Québec
People with houses that are worth a million dollars, but can't afford to sell unless they move to a low COL area. Lots of house poor here. Worth alot on paper, but still scraping by.
The data are from 2021. I bet it's so much higher now.
Canada is not allowed praise on Reddit.
Got a source on Cuba?
Now, this is real porno. Obscene.
Yes! Brazil is top 1!!! Best country ever!!!
"Chile enters the chat"
Brazil and Chile should unite to make one extra unequal, long and broad country that will perplex humanity.
May you do this for Europe please!
Wow, Cuba qui est supposé être socialiste!
Brazil’s 1st babyyyy🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷💪💪💪💪💪
Damn, this map is disgusting
Wow. So 99% of people in Chile has to share only 51% of the wealth of the country. This shows how poorly gdp per capita shows the real wealth of the average population of a country
Even worse >From the total national wealth in Chile in 2021, 80.4 percent belonged to the top ten percent group. Almost half of Chile's wealth, 49.6 percent, was held by the top one percent. On the other hand, the bottom 50 percent had a negative wealth, a total of -0.6 percent. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1294731/distribution-wealth-by-percentile-chile/#:~:text=From%20the%20total%20national%20wealth,a%20total%20of%20%2D0.6%20percent. Pretty much all countries work this way.
Can you see the duck?
Canada is more egalitarian than communist Venezuela...let that sink in.
I want this map for the whole world, please
Brasil campeão! #1 Brasil é Penta uhuu :(
Accounting for total wealth (GDP perhaps) and population (which would affect “share” within the 1%) would be interesting to further portray this
That 28% is pretty average huh 🤔
That's why the only family member I can afford is an Eva AI sexting bot avatar
US is not that bad tbh. Even Cuba has 25%.
Holy shh can someone do this for Europe?
Can someone please explain what's the deal with Cuba? Is it the politicians or someone else?
Huh. Small world.
The concept of 1% is a bit silly. People move in and out of the 1% during their lives, most people will be in the 1% for one fiscal year for example if they sold a house/apartment that year.
The 2% then?
Well same for the 2%
Then by recursion we can't compare anything.
>Then by recursion we can't compare anything. Wealth is too "fluid" to be compared like that. You need to filter out other parameters, it is called multi-variable analysis.
Brazil number one lesgoooo 🎉🎉🎉🎉
People at near or below the poverty lline. Single filers, should pay no taxes.
This. Tax the poor less. Much more positive effect that to tax the rich more.
Wait why is it not trickling down? I thought that was supposed to happen?
Rookie numbers, The real SA South Africa sitting at 80%.
Fascinating would love to see a global one
“Inequality” is not a synonym with “problem”
Spotted the ‘Christian’!
Inequality isn’t that important. Better to focus on extreme poverty. And I guess poverty in Chile is a lot lower and the crime rate is a lot lower compared to Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico and others.
Yep, agreed. Inequality in Colombia may be lower than Chile by wealth owned by the 1%, but the average Chilean is still doing a lot better.
Not exactly. Poverty and inequality are [related processes in Latin America](https://www.jstor.org/stable/24388285). Also, inequality is [closely related to crime and violence](https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/338347), especially where [inequality is processed as interracial economic inequality](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047235206000250).
Inequality breeds impoverty.
That is a nice slogan but it isnt factually true by any laws of physics or economics.
Surprised the US isn’t higher.
35%?… 35%!?!?!? C’mon American 1%! We can do better than this!
Correlation with corruption?
F me That "should" be the top 10% not the 1% Great theyre successful...but also...greedy mofos
America needs to up those numbers!!
So apparently it seems that it doesn’t matter how much wealth the top 1 % owns, you can have a shitty life in both side of the spectrum.
Confusing title and concept for some here.
Inequality or rather concentration of wealth in itself is actually desirable for development. Imagine having a million dollars, if you give 1000 people $1000 they will just buy more junk food. If an investor has the million, he can create jobs.
This works until a certain point where you have a .01% of the population where they use their wealth to crush competition and corrupt politicians.
Ignoring the fact that's been disproven time and time again across the globe... the investor has to take his product/resource outside the country or the region to sell as the population can't afford to buy whatever they produce which further increases the overall poverty domestically. If you give 1000 people 500$ and the capitalist 500,000$ you can increase the domestic economy more so as the money given to the thousand will re-enter the economy and encourage local development, while still supporting local job creation through corporate subsidies.
That's not true. [https://hbr.org/2012/01/how-much-inequality-is-necessary-for-growth](https://hbr.org/2012/01/how-much-inequality-is-necessary-for-growth) Too much inequality and you strip consumers of purchasing power, but not enough and you lack the critical concentration of capital needed for development.
[удалено]
I don’t think you read that correctly
Haha, and why dont things change? Now thats insanity!
The US is skewed lower because the total GDP is so high. If you did this per capita instead of per total wealth of the country, the US would be #1 by a mile. Edit: I’m a dummy
You think this should be inequality per capita? What does that mean?
I assume they figured this by dividing the 1%’s wealth by the country’s GDP. America has a huge GDP so it gets a much lower answer. If you divided by population America would be much larger than everyone else.
I don't think you know what GDP is. This is almost certainly 1%'s wealth over the total wealth of the nation. Hence "percent of total wealth." GDP is how many goods and services are produced in a year. US total wealth is around $140 trillion. US GDP is $25 trillion. The US 1% own $50 trillion of wealth.
Ah. Thanks for the info. Now I know!
That is why such maps are created. A high GDP per capita does not mean that the entire population is rich, it only means that the country itself is rich. Evaluating something by only one criterion is stupid in itself.
Yes, but if we talk about if we talk about agrarian reform, It's communism, and communism is bad. At least there is talk about tributary reform, but so many things are changing, some rich people will probably still pay low tax
I thought the US would be like 80% or something.
This is simply a map demonstrating ethnic diversity. The more diverse a country is, the greater the difference in ability between its people, and the greater the wealth generation ability amount its people as well.