The principal sources of inequality have changed over time. Whereas feudal lords exploited downtrodden peasants by force and fiat, the entrepreneurs of early modern Europe relied on capital investment and market exchange to reap profits from commerce and finance. Yet overall outcomes remained the same: from Pharaonic Egypt to the Industrial Revolution, both state power and economic development generally served to widen the gap between rich and poor: both archaic forms of predation and coercion and modern market economies yielded unequal gains.
Figure 3: Wealth inequality in Piedmont, 1300-1800: the richest 5 per cent and the Gini coefficient of wealth concentration
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I can’t believe that I have just sat and read the whole of Walter Sceidel’s essay in Aeon and been really involved in his hypothesis. It seems to have taken me about 20 minutes! And now I need to hunt down the book, hopefully in the library because I could not hope to actually purchase it.
The future looks bleak for my grandchildren’s generation.
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