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The European Union at 50
figures of economic inequality and stagnation for the contemporary period.
Although levels of present-day inequality in Latin America and in Europe are
still different from one another, it has to be noted that the gap between the rich
and the poor (the top 20 % and the bottom 20 %) in the following European
nations is already 5.0 or bigger: Lithuania, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Poland,
France, Latvia, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Ireland, Greece, Israel, Italy, Estonia,
United Kingdom, Turkey, and Portugal. In Portugal 5 , this gap is already 8.0,
while in the US it is now at 8.4. In historical terms (see below) both most of the
European nations and the US moved away from the welfare capitalism of the
1960s. An interesting point for world system theory debates is of course,
whether or not China, under global capitalism and enormous foreign capital
inflows, repeats the experience of Brazil in the late 1960s and early 1970s – an
economic “miracle” combined with increasing economic and social inequalities.
Map 10.7: quintile ratios in the world system
top 20%/bottom 20%
UNDP 2005
18,1 bis 57,6 (18)
12 bis 18,1 (12)
9,7 bis 12 (12)
7,9 bis 9,7 (12)
6,9 bis 7,9 (12)
6,1 bis 6,9 (10)
5,4 bis 6,1 (14)
4,9 bis 5,4 (9)
4,4 bis 4,9 (9)
3,4 bis 4,4 (16)
quintile ratio
Legend: dark shades indicate a bad performance. “bis” shorthand for “ranging
from … to”.
5 Portugal is the country of origin of the actual President of the European Commission, José Manuel
Durao Barroso. Before becoming Commission President, he was the Prime Minister of his home
country. Generally, his policies as Prime Minister were associated with neo-liberal economic
reforms.
Entelequia. Revista Interdisciplinar · CAEI Arno Tausch / 199