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SECTION 1 2 3 INTRODUCTION
Nthabiseng was born to a poor black family in Limpopo, a rural area in
South Africa. On the same day, Pieter was born nearby in a rich suburb of
Cape Town. Nthabiseng’s mother had no formal schooling and her father
is unemployed, whereas Pieter’s parents both completed university
education at Stellenbosch University and have well-paid jobs.
As a result, Nthabiseng and Pieter’s life chances are vastly different.
Nthabiseng is almost one and a half times as likely to die in the first year
of her life as Pieter. 128 He is likely to live more than 15 years longer than
Nthabiseng. 129
Pieter will complete on average 12 years of schooling and will most
probably go to university, whereas Nthabiseng will be lucky if she
gets one year. 130 Such basics as clean toilets, clean water or decent
healthcare 131 will be out of her reach. If Nthabiseng has children there
is a very high chance they will also grow up equally poor. 132
While Nthabiseng and Pieter do not have any choice about where they
are born, their gender, or the wealth and education of their parents,
governments do have a choice to intervene to even up people’s life
chances. Without deliberate action though, this injustice will be
repeated in countries across the world.
This thought experiment is taken from the World Development Report 2006.
Oxfam has updated the facts on life chances in South Africa. 133
Economic inequality ** – the skewed distribution of income and wealth – has
reached extreme levels and continues to rise. Seven out of 10 people on the
planet now live in a country where economic inequality is worse today than
it was 30 years ago. 136 South Africa, for example, is now significantly more
unequal than it was at the end of Apartheid 20 years ago. 137 This inequality
undermines global efforts to reduce poverty and hurts us all. This report is
focused on the pernicious effects of inequality, and the possible solutions to it.
“
Extreme disparities in
income are slowing the
pace of poverty reduction
and hampering the
development of broad-based
economic growth.
KOFI ANNAN 134
“
“
There’s been class
warfare going on for the
last 20 years and
my class has won.
WARREN BUFFET
THE FOURTH WEALTHIEST
PERSON IN THE WORLD 135
“
Even It Up: Time to End Extreme Inequality starts by showing that the gap
between rich and poor is already very wide and is growing in the majority of
countries. It then demonstrates why extreme economic inequality is bad for all
of us. In more unequal societies, rich and poor alike have shorter lives, and live
with a greater threat of violence and insecurity. Inequality hinders economic
growth and stifles social mobility. It creates conditions in which crime and
corruption thrive. It underlies many of the world’s violent conflicts and is
a barrier in the fight against climate change.
Critically, this report will demonstrate that unless we close the gap between
the haves and the have-nots, we will not win the battle against extreme
** Inequality has many different dimensions, including race, gender, geography and
economy, which rarely work in isolation. This report is primarily concerned with the
concentration of financial resources and wealth in the hands of the few, which can
affect political, social and cultural processes to the detriment of the most vulnerable.
As such, in this report we use the term ‘inequality‘ to refer to extreme economic (wealth
and income) inequality. When referring to the various dimensions of inequality we make
these distinctions.
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