HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Human Wrongs Watch

By Roberto Savio*

Rome, June 2014 – Not a day goes by without news on the growing inequality that is the telling indicator of the kind of economic model in which we have put ourselves, following the neoliberal binge unleashed by the Washington Consensus. The idea that economic growth is “a rising tide lifting all boats”, as the late Margaret Thatcher declared when she announced war on the welfare state, and its twin “capital will trickle down to everybody”, are now totally discredited.

**Campaign poster showing William McKinley holding U.S. flag and standing on gold coin “sound money”, held up by group of men, in front of ships “commerce” and factories “civilization”

Facts, as it has been said, are stubborn. And the facts have been demonstrated in an extensive statistical analysis by French economist, Thomas Piketty, (author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century) who, on the basis of the data from the last two centuries, proves that capital obtains a greater reward than work.

So, in any country, economic growth is distributed in an unequal way between salaries for all and what goes to the rich.