In South Africa, one of the most unequal countries in the world, the richest one-tenth of 1%, owns almost 30% of all the country’s wealth, more than double what the bottom 90% owns.
U Južnoj Africi, jednoj od najnejednakijih država na svetu, jedna desetina jednog procenta najbogatijih poseduje skoro 30 procenata bogatstva celokupne države, više nego dvostruko od onoga što 90 procenata najsiromašnijih poseduje.
Income and wealth inequality are not new. In fact, economists and historians who’ve charted economic inequality throughout history haven’t found a single society without it. Which raises a bleak question: is inequality inevitable?
Nejednakost u prihodu i bogatstvu nije novina. Zapravo, ekonomisti i istoričari koji su pratili ekonomsku nejednakost kroz istoriju nisu otkrili nijedno društvo u kom nije postojala. A to povlači sumorno pitanje: da li je nejednakost neizbežna?
One way to estimate inequality is with a number called the Gini index, which is calculated by comparing the income or wealth distribution of a perfectly equal society to the actual income or wealth distribution. The area of this shape multiplied by 2 is the Gini index.
Jedan način procene nejednakosti je broj koji se naziva Džini koeficijent, koji se izračunava poređenjem raspodele prihoda ili bogatstva savršeno jednakog društva sa stvarnom raspodelom prihoda ili bogastva. Površina ovog oblika pomnožena sa dva je Džini koeficijent.
A Gini of 1 indicates perfect inequality— one person has everything and everyone else has nothing. You’d never see this in real life because everyone except that one person would starve.
Džini od 1 pokazuje savršenu nejednakost - jedna osoba poseduje sve, a svi ostali nemaju ništa. Nikada ovo ne biste videli u stvarnosti jer bi svi osim te jedne osobe umrli od gladi.
A Gini index of 0 indicates perfect equality— everyone has exactly the same income or wealth. But you also never see this in real life, not even in communist countries, because for one thing, that would mean paying everyone— no matter how young, old, what job they’re in or where they work— the exact same wage.
Džinijeva vrednost od nula ukazuje na savršenu jednakost - svako ima potpuno isti prihod ili bogatstvo. Međutim, ni ovo ne zatičete u stvarnosti, čak ni u komunističkim državama jer, ako ništa drugo, to bi značilo da svako dobija - koliko god bili mladi, stari, koji god posao ili gde god da radili - potpuno istu platu.
Typical after-tax Ginis in developed countries today are around 0.3, though there’s a wide range from pretty equal to pretty unequal.
Tipična vrednost Džinija nakon poreza u razvijenim državama je trenutno oko 0,3, iako imamo čitav raspon od prilične jednakosti do prilične nejednakosti.
Before we go any further, you should know what the Gini index— or any other measure of economic inequality— doesn’t tell us: it gives no information about how income and wealth are distributed across genders, races, educational backgrounds or other demographics; it doesn’t tell us how easy or difficult it is to escape poverty. And it also gives no insight as to how a particular society arrived at its present level of inequality. Economic inequality is deeply entangled with other types of inequality: for example, generations of discrimination, imperialism, and colonialism created deeply rooted power and class inequalities that persist to this day.
Pre nego što nastavimo, trebalo bi da znate šta nam Džinijev koeficijent - ili bilo koje drugo ekonomsko merilo nejednakosti - ne govori: ne pruža nam informaciju o tome kako su prihodi i bogastvo raspodeljeni po rodu, rasi, obrazovanju ili drugim demografijama; ne saopštava nam koliko je lako ili teško osloboditi se siromaštva. Takođe ne nudi uvid u to kako je određeno društvo stiglo do trenutnog nivoa nejednakosti. Ekonomska nejednakost je tesno upletena sa drugim vidovima nejednakosti: na primer, generacije diskriminacije, imperijalizma i kolonijalizma su stvorile duboko ukorenjene vladajuće i klasne nejednakosti koje istrajavaju do danas.
But we still need at least a rough measure of who gets how much in a country. That’s what the Gini index gives us.
Ipak, i dalje nam je potrebno bar grubo merilo toga ko dobija koliko u državi. To nam pruža Džini koeficijent.
Some countries are, economically, much more unequal than others. And that’s because a significant portion of economic inequality is the result of choices that governments make.
Neke države su ekonomski daleko nejednakije od drugih. A to je zato što je značajan deo ekonomske nejednakosti rezultat izbora koje su vlade napravile.
Let's talk about some of these choices. First: what kind of economy to use.
Razgovarajmo o nekim od tih izbora. Prvo: koji ekonomski model koristiti?
In the 20th century, some countries switched to socialism or communism for a variety of reasons, including reducing economic inequality. These changes did dramatically reduce economic inequality in the two largest non-capitalist economies, China and the Soviet Union— especially in the Soviet Union.
U XX veku, neke države su prešle na socijalizam ili komunizam iz raznih razloga, uključujući i umanjenje ekonomske nejednakosti. Ove promene su drastično umanjile ekonomsku nejednakost u dve najveće nekapitalističke ekonomije: Kini i Sovjetskom Savezu - naročito u Sovjetskom Savezu.
But neither country prospered as much as the world's leading economies. So yes, people earned about as much as their neighbors did, but that wasn’t very much.
Nijedna od njih pak nije mnogo napredovala kao vodeća svetska ekonomija. Dakle, da, ljudi su zarađivali otprilike isto kao njihove komšije, ali to nije bilo bog zna koliko.
This— and many other issues— contributed to the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. And China, to grow more quickly, shifted its economy towards capitalism starting in the late 1970s.
Ovo - i razni drugi problemi - su doveli do pada Sovjetskog Saveza 1991. A Kina, kako bi brže rasla, usmerila je ekonomiju ka kapitalizmu počevši kasnih 1970-ih.
What about capitalist countries? Can they choose to reduce economic inequality? It’s tempting to think “no, because the whole point of capitalism is to hoard enough gold coins to be able to dive into them like Scrooge McDuck.” China seems to provide the textbook example of this: after it became more capitalist, its Gini index shot up from under 0.4 to over 0.55. Meanwhile, its per capita yearly income jumped from the rough equivalent of $1,500 to over $13,000.
Šta je sa kapitalističkim državama? Mogu li one odabrati da umanje ekonomsku nejednakost? Iskušenje je pomisliti: „ne, jer je čitava poenta kapitalizma gomilanje dovoljne količine zlatnika kako biste mogli da plivate u njima poput Baje Patka.” Čini se da Kina predstavlja udžbenički primer za to: nakon što je postala kapitalističkija, njen Džini koeficijent je skočio sa ispod 0,4 na preko 0,55. U međuvremenu, njen godišnji prihod po stanovniku je skočio od otprilike ekvivalenta 1 500 na preko 13 000 dolara.
But there are many counter-examples: capitalist countries in which inequality is actually holding steady or decreasing. France has kept its Gini index below 0.32 since 1979. Ireland's Gini has been trending mostly downward since 1995. The Netherlands and Denmark have kept theirs below 0.28 since the 1980s.
Postoji pak mnogo suprotnih primera: kapitalističkih država u kojima je nejednakost zapravo stabilna ili u padu. Francuska drži svoj Džini koeficijent ispod 0,32 od 1979. Džini koeficijent u Irskoj je uglavnom u padu od 1995. Holandija i Danska drže svoj ispod 0,28 od 1980-ih.
How do they do it?
Kako to postižu?
One way is with taxes. Personal income taxes in most countries are progressive: the more money you make, the higher your tax rate. And the more progressive your tax system, the more it reduces inequality. So, for example, while pre-tax income inequality in France is roughly the same as it is in the US, post-tax inequality in France is roughly 20% lower.
Jedan od načina su porezi. Porez na lični dohodak u većini država je progresivan: što više zarađujete, plaćate veću poresku stopu. A što je progresivniji vaš poreski sistem, to više umanjuje nejednakost. Na primer, dok je nejednakost u Francuskoj pre poreza otprilike ista kao u SAD-u, nejednakost nakon poreza u Francuskoj je otprilike 20 odsto niža.
Meanwhile, inheritance taxes can reduce the amount of wealth that a single family can amass over generations. Germany and many other European countries have inheritance or estate taxes that kick in at a few thousand to a few hundred thousand Euros, depending on who's inheriting. The US, on the other hand, lets you inherit $12 million without paying any federal tax.
U međuvremenu, porez na nasledstvo može da umanji količinu bogatstva koje jedna porodica može da nagomila tokom generacija. Nemačka i mnoge druge evropske države imaju poreze na nasledstvo ili imovinu koji iznose od nekoliko hiljada do nekoliko stotina hiljada evra, u zavisnosti od toga ko nasleđuje. SAD, s druge strane, dozvoljava vam da nasledite 12 miliona dolara
Another way is with transfers— when the government takes tax revenues from one group of people and gives it to another. For example, Social Security programs tax people who work and use the revenue to support retirees. In Italy, about a quarter of Italians’ disposable household income comes from government transfers. That’s a lot, especially relative to the US, where the figure is just over 5%.
bez plaćanja federalnog poreza. Drugi način je kroz prenose - kada vlada uzima prihod od poreza od jedne grupe ljudi i daje ga drugoj. Na primer, programi socijalnog osiguranja oporezuju ljude koji rade i koriste taj prihod da izdržavaju penzionere. U Italiji oko četvrtine italijanskog prihoda domaćinstva dolazi iz vladinih prenosa. To je mnogo, naročito u poređenju sa SAD-om, gde je vrednost jedva preko pet procenata.
A third way is to ensure that everyone has access to things like education and healthcare. A highly educated, healthy workforce can command a higher salary on the market, thus reducing inequality. The fourth way is addressing the digital divide: the gap between those who have access to the Internet and those who do not.
Treći način je staranje da svako ima pristup stvarima poput obrazovanja i zdravstva. Visokoobrazovana, zdrava radna snaga može zahtevati veću platu na tržištu i time umanjiti nejednakost. Četvrti način je bavljenje digitalnim jazom: jazom između onih koji imaju pristup internetu i onih koji nemaju.
A fifth way is dealing with extreme wealth. Multibillionaires can buy social media platforms, news outlets, policy think-tanks, perhaps even politicians, and bend them to their will, threatening the very fabric of democracy.
Peti način je bavljenje ekstremnim bogatstvom. Multimilijarderi mogu da kupuju platforme društvenih mreža, novine, trustove mozgova, pa čak i političare, i da ih podrede svojoj volji, preteći time samom tkivu demokratije.
We are just barely scratching the surface of inequality here. We haven’t touched on the drastic divides in who has wealth and who doesn’t; the power structures that prevent social and economic mobility; and the drastic inequality between countries— the fact that, for example, just three Americans have 90 billion more dollars than Egypt, a country of 100 million people.
Ovde jedva da smo zagrebali površinu nejednakosti. Nismo dotakli drastične podele u tome ko ima bogastvo, a ko nema; strukture moći koje sprečavaju društvenu i ekonomsku mobilnost; kao i drastičnu nejednakost među državama - činjenicu da, na primer, svega tri Amerikanca imaju 90 milijardi dolara više od Egipta, države od sto miliona ljudi.
And here’s one final thing to think about: power and wealth are self-reinforcing, which means that equality is not. Left to their own devices, societies tend toward inequality— unless we weaken the feedback loops of wealth and power concentration.
A za kraj, još nešto za razmišljanje: moć i bogastvo se međusobno učvršćuju, a to znači ne i jednakost. Prepuštena sebi, društva naginju ka nejednakosti - ukoliko ne oslabimo povratne petlje koncentracije bogatstva i moći.