By Ustaz Mark Bang
Relative to centuries ago, global inequality may be much higher than it was, but this was mainly due to the fact that nobody really had anything.
Yes, there was typically an aristocratic elite that was wealthy, but the worldwide wealth at this time period was so much lower than in the modern era that any measurement is going to be both skewed and borderline irrelevant due to poor data.
Around the time of the Industrial Revolution (and the following ~100 years), global inequality exploded. As a few countries industrialized, their rich became massively wealthy relative to everyone, a middle class came into existence, and their poor became wealthy relative to countries outside the growing industrial system.
In the modern global system, as more countries liberalize trade and capital flows, growth and development are bringing billions out of absolute poverty. While increases in wealth will nearly always increase inequality within a country, the absolute gains of the poorest in the poor nations are high enough that policies leading to growth and increasing inequality within developing nations will often decrease global inequality (by increasing their relative incomes faster than the rich country citizens), and this is what we’ve been seeing in the past twenty years.
Worse. The greed of this country and the corruption of the government cater to only the wealthy and everyone except a handful of actual members of Congress. The government actually cares about the citizens of this nation. The cost of living has increased to the point that normal working-class people are now working 3 jobs.
No one is raising the children if they have time to even have children because that requires a few days off of work, and who then will watch the baby? Daycare is wildly expensive, and there are no longer tax cuts for dependent children. The cost of renting an apartment is unreasonably too high.
There is no way for a family of three to have a home or apartment without being forced to share the costs and be cramped together for lack of finances to afford a normal space for living. the policy about foreign investors purchasing our nation’s property, land, residences, and business buildings without even leaving their country to do so and where that purchased, now foreign-owned property and residence is now rented out at such an unreasonable fee no one but another wealthy foreigner or a family of far too many people all crammed together can afford to live there. The money is then leaving the country, and how is this affecting Americans? There is no job security, no food, shelter, or happiness.
The state of this country has been damaged, and the corrupt, filibustering old fools of great wealth who have profited greatly by the tragic circumstances of the working class and now homeless that line the once middle-class streets where families used to be seen riding bikes and picnicking the paths are full of tents and families pushing grocery carts, and parks are no longer family picnics and family reunions; they are a place for the millions of homeless families who could no longer afford the property taxes on their homes… who lost their jobs and ended up working at fast food places and Walmart and still cannot afford the ridiculous cost of even renting an apartment, let alone renting a house. “Public Staunchest Ally”
The writer of this article is a human rights activist, writer, and professional teacher.