Danny Dorling on Inequality and the 1%

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In this excerpt from the event, Inequality and the 1%, leading social geographer Danny Dorling unpacks the latest research into how the lives and ideas of the 1 percent impact the remaining 99%.
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[@jgreen9361]

As soon as someone says “I dislike the term income inequality” you know they are wealthy. There is a big myth that people who earn a lot work hard. We have lived through a good many years where a few hundred pounds in a bank account has earned nothing, but, to quote my dad, “you need to have been a complete numpty not to make 15% per annum if you have wealth”. This is just one of the many ways the wealthy compound interest their large incomes. We could add property portfolios, off shore investments, executive bonuses, wife directorships of private companies to avoid tax etc etc as other factors that increase the widening gap. I would make 6 important points. 1 When the poor cannot cope, crime and violence spiral out of control. 2 The bottom 10% have had their share of the cake reduce to only a quarter of what it was in 1989. With the average income being £35,000, the bottom 10% are way below this and are not covering even the basic bills. This means debt, defaulting on loans, homelessness, malnutrition, substance abuse, despair, child abuse, deaths of vulnerable people are all now more likely. 3 it is a media myth that the bottom 10% are all on benefits. Some are, but many are not, many are in work, or on state pension or are single adults and get little support. Very low paid work is the fundamental issue not the benefit system. 4 it is the bottom 80% who create the wealth, not the top 10%. 5 if we fail to create a fairer economy, financial disasters like the Wall Street crash, the communist revolution, or extreme leaders like Putin who try to solve internal problems with external wars all become more likely. 6 The top 10% tend to be arrogant and think their money protects them from disaster. Both the French Revolution and the sight of bankers being hung from lamp posts in Hungary demonstrate that wealth offering protection is a myth too. Stable economies are fairer economies and ours is not fair and is drifting towards rule by our own form of oligarchs.

[@cosmicmusicreynolds3266]

you re thinking along the sames lines as me. Marie Antoinette could not have said ,' let them eat cake' . she would not have any notion of how workers lived or survived as power and money divided the classes. the new oligarchy is the new royality, and its a warning

[@BobWidlefish]

I strongly dislike the term "income inequality" because it's used pejoratively when the mathematical reality is that no matter how rich or poor people are there will always be a top 1% and a bottom 1% in a free society. This distribution of different quantities of wealth or income is not inherently good or bad. And besides all that, the change in this distribution over time is probably not nearly as bad as you think, look at this chart: www.aei.org/publication/quotation-day-income-inequality/ A real issue we should care about is economic mobility. If the rich/poor people are the same now as they were last generation, that may be a problem. But the truth is there is very strong economic mobility -- at least in the US. There are outliers of rich families that stay rich but by and large the membership in at the top is a very dynamic thing that changes all the time (www.aei.org/publication/evidence-shows-significant-income-mobility-in-the-us-73-of-americans-were-in-the-top-20-for-at-least-a-year/). Additionally the term "income inequality" is used to distract us away from incredible success in combating the worst poverty worldwide, see www.aei.org/publication/global-income-inequality-has-been-falling-for-the-last-20-years-moving-the-world-in-a-fundamentally-better-direction/ It also ignores how the "poor" in rich countries are so much better off than ever before. A 100 years ago if you were poor you were starving. Today if you're poor you own televisions, mobile phones, computers, automobiles, food is a smaller share of income than ever, etc. www.aei.org/publication/1991-radio-shack-ad-13-electronic-products-for-5k-and-290-hrs-work-can-now-be-replaced-with-a-200-iphone-10-hrs/ If you want there to be less suffering in this world, I stand with you. If you want to fix unjust laws and regulations that enable monopolies or let money unfairly influence politics, I stand with you. If you want to peacefully and without force encourage more of the richest people in the world to give away fantastic sums of money to improve the world, like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and so many others do, then I stand with you. If you want to merely look at the state of affairs for a snapshot in time and demonize some people just because they're rich...then you're on your own.

[@atomiccritter6492]

Dorling mentions that the 1% will always exist. its stats/math/s. But if you think inequality isnt inherently bad you are kind of delude af

[@stfnba]

" But the truth is there is very strong economic mobility -- at least in the US." NO, this is not factually correct. You read too many neo-liberal propaganda, no surprise. The internet is full of it. If you think that the top 1% is so filthy rich (and that there is so much inequality) does not mean anything, it means that either you are one of them or you are deluded.

[@cosmicmusicreynolds3266]

ut to the chase , poverty and its worst now , health wise , education wise and inferiority complexites because of it , and its a warning. Go to a food bank and tell these people who use it there better off than never before !

[@patrickglass9323]

In 1960 the difference between the pay or salary of the top and bottom was rarely above 15 - 1: Ordinary Bank Manager (£8,000) - Teller (£800), Top Civil Servant - Ordinary Civil Servant, Top Services Personnel (Admiral, General, Wing Commander) - Ordinary Ranker, Head Teacher - School Teacher, etc.- rarely more than a 15-1 difference in salary. There were important exceptions. Notably, in the entertainment industry (film and pop stars), in some industries, and among entrepreneurs/inventors/innovators...However, in the 1980s underMargaret Thatcher's government, all this changed - particularly the salaries and bonuses in the City of London's speculative Financial Sector. By 2013 - as Danny Dorling points out - 2,200 City of London bankers have salaries of over £1 million (plus bonuses). And today, many more financiers are earning a lot more....You may well ask: what do they actually 'Produce'? They weren't even punished for their financial incompetence and greed that led to 2008 Financial Debacle....Meanwhile, the salaries of most professionals (doctors, nurses, teachers, civil servants, etc) and most other workers have seriously Decreased since 1960. The 2023 unprecedented Consultants, Doctors, Nurses, and Teachers' Strikes have made this abundantly clear. High time there was proper Wealth Redistribution. And Why Not?