Reddit reviews The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality

Some good books to begin with in my opinion:

Okun – Equality and Efficieny



Atkinson - Inequality


Milanovic – Global Inequality and The have and haves not

Piketty – Capital in the 21st century
or a summary (I read the book not the summary so I can't tell you that the summary is done well)

I think Piketty matters because it illustrates why the distinction between wealth and income matters. I know Piketty also wrote The economics of Inequality, but I haven't yet read it. I know some here will probably nuance his findings, but for this topic it is still a good source as it does explain why the difference matters.


Some of these (Okun for example) are relatively old. Thus take the conclusions with a grain of salt. At the same time, he (as well as most books here) provide both a factual as well as (in my view important in this discussion) an intuitive and normative explanation of their point. That's also why I'd personally prefer books over papers in this case.

Milanovic in Global inequality does a good job (in my opinion) of explaining the differences between within and across border inequality and why it matters. In the have and haves not he also delves into how inequality could be bad. Plus that is also quite a readable book for someone not too in interested/familiar with economics.

Reading some of these is interesting because they will argue multiple sides, leaving you with quite a nuanced view. After Okun you will probably see inequality as quite necessary, whilst you will not be as sure anymore after reading Milanovic.

>you're using nominal dollars as the marker of the 1%

Why is this a problem? Take the net worth of everyone in the world, pick out the households that have the highest, and keep going down the list until you hit 70 million people (about 1% of the world's population). Or we could do it by household income too with a similar method. How would you measure "the 1%" of the world?

>Flip to actual net WEALTH, and adjust for PPP and you end up with an entirely different picture...

Well, since you brought it up, why don't you link the data? I'm going to give my source:

Credit Suisse estimates that the Top 1% globally has >$1M in total net worth. This chart says .7% but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and round up.

So in terms of total net worth, I stand by my statement. At $1M total net worth, minus house and retirement savings, how much money in "trust funds and foundations" are we really talking about here?

I'm going to repeat. the only foundations and offshore corporates you're starting with that money are "Rainy Day Fund Association" and "Offshore Splurge on a New Sedan LP". $1M liquid net worth on a household basis is far from your comical depiction of guys with top hats and monocles (who of course, later in the day will don hooded robes, chant in a circle around an eternally burning flame and plot to stop the world).

>The Times had estimated the threshold for being in the top 1 percent in household income at about $380,000,

According to the article, that's only using Federal Reserve data for the United States. As you noted, the OP was speculating on the Top 1% all over the world.

World Bank economist Branko Milanovic wrote a book once. He calculates therein that the Top 1% in earnings per year is about $35k per person per household. So this is a little over $100k by household. Certainly a lot of people in the US would qualify. Wikipedia says the top 10% of Americans would comfortably qualify into this bucket. So you have to be successful (or married), but not insanely so. And yet you can say with certainty that the Top 10% of people are all just lazy bums who had everything handed to them and don't have any practical skills? Not in my experience.

That's 30 million people dude. How many big time non-self-made CEOs in that bucket? 10,000? 20,000? 100,000? A rounding error no matter how you slice it. Most people in that bucket will be people who have skills and work hard.

As for "da 99 percent" left behind? Well, here's the funny thing about percentages, there always has to be someone at the top. Of those left behind, "da one percent" of those people own productive assets and businesses and also be hard workers.

Will we send those people out on ice flows too?