Insensitivity to inequality

Oxfam report on growing inequality around the world was released only a few days ago. It captured the worsening inequality that is as disturbing as it is obscene.

Just 8 individuals own the same amount of wealth as half the population of the world (that is 3.6 billion people).

58 % of India's wealth is owned by the richest 1% of Indian population. There are many more disturbing data like these. It is unfortunate that in these worrisome circumstances a WIPRO executive has made an insensitive comment at Davos:

Report from NewYork Times:

mie Tsang

People are angry at the economic elite.

So the economic elite have gathered in the Swiss Alps to discuss this.

And what do they suggest? People who have not benefited from globalization need to try harder to emulate those who have succeeded.

“People have to take more ownership of upgrading themselves on a continuous basis,” Abidali Neemuchwala, the chief executive of the information technology and consulting company Wipro, said at one event.

Little discussed ideas: bolstering the power of workers to bargain for better wages and redistributing wealth from the top to the bottom.

“That agenda is anathema to a lot of Davos men and women,” said Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate economist and author of numerous books on globalization and economic inequality.

If that remains the case, the global populism insurrection may continue apace.