GEOG20011 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Inheritance, Financial Centre, Fast Fashion
16 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
LECTURE 2: INEQUALITY & THE 1%
What is the largest barrier to reducing inequality?
• Power, politics, capitalism
• Selfishness
• Greed, Money
• Money
• Private ownership/property
WHAT IS THE 1%
• 1%: term used widely to describe income inequality globally (economic inequality at the
global scale)
• Came into wide usage around 2011
• Wealth accumulation in small percentage of society
• Richest 2% have more wealth than half of the rest of the world, 1% have 43% of global
wealth
GEOGRAPHIES OF THE SUPER RICH
• New research investigates the lives of the ‘Super Rich’ – Iain Hay
• Dorling (British Geographer): it is the top 0.01% that has really broken from the rest of society
• Wealth has different meanings
o Dependent on scale, place, region etc.
o Can be thought about in terms of assets, disposable income
o Concentrated into geographic locations
• London: disproportionate number of billionaires
o Tax relief
o Immigration (easy for wealthy)
o Power & legal influence
• New hotspots: China & India
o Growing gap between the rich & the poor
o Context specific: importance of region
o How inequalities have risen: Political, economic reform,
previous class structure
Concentrating the Rich
• Role of the rich in driving global neo-liberalism
o With: tax relief, privatisation, reduction of social services, open markets
• Some argue for benefit of concentrating rich
o Injection of cash
o Centralise decision making
o Innovative global financial centre
• Self-imposed isolation (disengaging physically, socially, economically & politically) – reproduce ideas around work & worth
• Reshaping places: changing character, impact on real estate
o Neo-colonial take-over of space & resources – yet have no connection to space (no sense of responsibility)
New Philanthropists
• Tax breaks for philanthropy: major tax shelters for the rich
• Question: The rich spend money at their own whim (through tax breaks) V democratically elected government spending
o Philanthropy as a way of redistributing wealth – which of the above is fair and equal
• Long term implications if spending is skewed to interests of the rich
Implications of Super-Rich Consumption
• Environmental impacts of consumptions: air travel, fast fashion, excessive spending
• Luxury Fever (Frank 1999, 2005)
o Social impact, influencing middle and low-income families
• How might we harness consumption patterns to influence good?
o Environmental consumption, positive practice
China
India
20 super-rich, $US 28.9
billion (same as
400million poor)
• Poltiical influence
through kinship,
not education
• Cheap capital, land
& labour
• Political corruption
& entrenched
economic model
Top 2, $US52.1 billion
• Wealth of 35
families more
than 800 million
poor
• Inherited wealth
• Used economic
power to benefit
from neo-liberal
policies
Lecture Aims
• Introduce debates about the
‘1%’
• Show how debate provides
window into: inequality more
generally and resistance to
inequality
Questions
• Is inequality the new poverty?
• What is the role of the nation-
state in addressing inequality?
• How might peoples’ everyday
activities be important in
addressing inequalities?
• How does all this relate to the
environment?
Document Summary
What is the largest barrier to reducing inequality: greed, money, money. 1%: term used widely to describe income inequality globally (economic inequality at the global scale) Came into wide usage around 2011: wealth accumulation in small percentage of society, richest 2% have more wealth than half of the rest of the world, 1% have 43% of global wealth. Geographies of the super rich: ne(cid:449) (cid:396)esea(cid:396)(cid:272)h i(cid:374)(cid:448)estigates the li(cid:448)es of the (cid:858)supe(cid:396) i(cid:272)h(cid:859) iain hay, dorling (british geographer): it is the top 0. 01% that has really broken from the rest of society, wealth has different meanings. Show how debate provides window into: inequality more generally and resistance to inequality. London: disproportionate number of billionaires: tax relief. Immigration (easy for wealthy: power & legal influence, new hotspots: china & india, growing gap between the rich & the poor, context specific: importance of region, how inequalities have risen: political, economic reform, previous class structure.
