Alacevich Michele - Inequality a short history

INEQUALITY

A SHORT HISTORY

Michele Alacevich and Anna Soci

BROOKINGS INSTITUTION PRESS

Washington, D.C.

Copyright 2018

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This book is the outcome of a deep collaboration and exchange of ideas at all levels. Both authors contributed ideas and passages to all chapters, but each chapter draft was executed by one author. Anna Soci wrote . Both authors are responsible for any errors.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data

Names: Alacevich, Michele, author. | Soci, Anna, 1949 author.

Title: Inequality : a short history / Michele Alacevich and Anna Soci.

Description: Washington, D.C. : Brookings Institution Press, [2018] | Series: The short history collection | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017020198 (print) | LCCN 2017035365 (ebook) | ISBN 9780815727620 (ebook) | ISBN 9780815727613 (pbk : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: EqualityEconomic aspectsHistory. | Income DistributionHistory. | GlobalizationEconomic aspectsHistory. | DemocracyHistory.

Classification: LCC HC79.I5 (ebook) | LCC HC79.I5 A36 2018 (print) | DDC 339.2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017020198

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Typeset in Sabon

Composition by Westchester Publishing Services

To my parents, Eugenio and Dede

Michele Alacevich

To my daughter, Valentina

Anna Soci

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE PROPOSAL BY BROOKINGS Institution Press that we write a book on the history of inequality afforded us a particularly propitious opportunity to organize and elaborate ideas that have been at the core of our work for some time, such as the surprising absence of the matter of inequality from the core of the economics discipline, the relationship between inequality and democracy, and the complex dynamics connecting within-country and between-country inequality with the phenomenon of globalization.

During these last few years, research centers on inequality have multiplied; databases have grown in scale, scope, and sophistication; and a burgeoning literature has developed. The debate today is much richer than it was only a few years ago. Writing this book at this time, thus, gave us the extraordinary opportunity to study and build on an astonishingly rich body of research.

If the disciplines that drove us to this subject are differentone author is an economist, the other one a historianone place deserves special mention for the role it played in bringing our thoughts together: Columbia University.

The Italian Academy for Advanced Study in America at Columbia University has been home to both of us, providing perfect conditions for intensive work and exchange of ideas with the universitys broader scholarly community. We are very grateful to the academys director, David Freedberg, and fellows in the years 20092010 and 20112012 for the intellectual exchanges we were part of. Though we could not know it then, some roots of the present book date back to our work there.

The Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University, in particular its director and chair, Mark Mazower, and its executive director, Eileen Gillooly, could not have been more supportive of the idea that economic inequality is a humanities subject par excellence. Indeed, the old boundaries between the humanities and the social sciences are no longer as delimited as they once were, and the Heyman Center is a powerhouse of new, cross-disciplinary thinking. Our work began while Anna Soci (the economist) was pursuing a research project on democracy and inequality at the Italian Academy and Michele Alacevich (the historian) was the associate director for research activities of the Heyman Center for the Humanities. Michele Alacevich is highly indebted to Mark Mazower, Eileen Gillooly, and the fellows in residence at the center throughout 20112014 for the unique atmosphere of generous collaboration and intellectual curiosity.

We have given presentations on issues related to this book: at the International Colloquium on Inequality in Graz (2012), the European Economics and Finance Society Conference in Istanbul (2012) and Thessaloniki (2014), the Colloquium on Capitalism, Inequality and Democracy in Vancouver (2013), the Istituto Gramsci seminar on Inequality in Bologna (2013), the WINIR Conference in Greenwich (2014), and the Conference on Economic and Social Development in Vienna (2014). We are grateful for all the comments received from colleagues at those conferences, in particular Anna Maccagnan and Daniela Mantovani, who co-authored some of those papers with Anna Soci. Our students and colleagues in the Rethinking Economics network and the Collegio Superiore of the University of Bologna, Loyola University Maryland, Columbia University, and the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) in New York City have provided extremely valuable feedback on some of the issues discussed in this book.

Many friends and colleagues provided valuable comments on the entire manuscript or parts of it. In particular, we are indebted to Eugenio Alacevich, Mauro Boianovsky, Giorgio Colacchio, Giovanni De Lorenzo, Giovanna Dimitri, Mario Del Pero, Nando Fasce, Giorgio Gattei, Giovanni Giorgini, Ilene Grabel, Finola Hurley, Richard John, Nicola Melloni, Branko Milanovic, Enrico Petazzoni, Ruby Rheid Thompson, Roberto Scazzieri, Giorgio Tassinari, Stefano Toso, and Carl Wennerlind. A special thank you goes to Nadia Urbinati. Vanni Montani, librarian of the Department of Economics, provided fundamental research support.

We also want to thank the director of the Brookings Institution Press, Valentina Kalk, her colleagues William Finan and Janet Walker, copy editor Marjorie Pannell, and Brian Ostrander of Westchester Publishing Services for shepherding the book from initial conception to final production with high professionalism, good humor, and patience. We are also grateful to two anonymous reviewers for providing invaluable and detailed feedback on an earlier draft of this book. The Center for the Humanities of Loyola University Maryland generously provided financial support for the language revision and production of the book. Our sincere thanks go to the centers director, Mark Osteen, and its program coordinator, Patty Ingram.

INTRODUCTION

All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.

George Orwell, Animal Farm

INEQUALITY IS ONE OF the major political issues of our time; it is part and parcel of our lives. According to how we define it, inequality can also teach us how we think about the foundational values of our societies. Both the notion of inequality and the daily experience of it compel us to consider what is fair and unfair, and to continuouslythough perhaps unconsciouslyconnect the political to the ethical.

Inequality embraces many different dimensions, as testified by current debates on social, political, economic, gender, educational, race, and health inequality. Moreover, and more significant, the importance of these dimensions has changed greatly, both historically and geographically; in many cases the very categories we use now would have sounded meaningless to people living in earlier times. Even today, many inequalities are still far from being universally recognized. An example is the apparently simple and self-evident issue of gender equality. Gender equality often is not accepted and, even when lip service is paid to the concept, not practiced. Though in different degrees, this applies not only to dictatorial countries where men enjoy a legal superiority over women but also in countries that consider themselves egalitarian (at least with respect to gender), such as Western democracies. Thus people may differ hugely in their opinions on inequality, not only in terms of what degree of inequality is considered acceptable or unacceptable but also, and more fundamentally, in terms of which inequalities are important since different people have different values at the core of their own moral universe. Because humans are social animals and inequality is, by definition, a relational dimension, discussions about equality and inequality are also discussions about a societys structure. For these reasons, constructing a short history of inequality is an impossible taskat least if one wants to do justice to such a complex and varied phenomenon.