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  • Inequality and what can be done about it: an interview with Anthony Atkinson

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Inequality and what can be done about it: an interview with Anthony Atkinson

It matters that some people can buy tickets for space travel when others are queuing for food banks

by Jonathan Derbyshire / April 9, 2015 / Leave a comment
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Atkinson

Anthony Atkinson: “There have been times when we’ve been able to shift things”

As the economist Anthony Atkinson observes at the beginning of his new book, inequality is now at the “forefront of political debate.” But, he insisted when I met him in London a couple of weeks ago, “this isn’t a recent problem—it’s a change that has taken place over a generation in [the UK], and in the US, too.” Nor is this a new preoccupation for Atkinson. He has been thinking about the economics of inequality since he graduated as an economist in 1966.

What’s distinctive about this book, “Inequality,” is captured by the question posed in its subtitle: “What can be done?” As well as diagnosing the problem of economic inequality (especially inequality of income)—showing why it matters in advanced societies (“It does matter that some people can buy tickets for space travel when others are queuing for food banks”) and how it has changed over time—Atkinson presents a series of concrete policy proposals for doing something about it. He has, he says, written this book in a “spirit of optimism.” There is, in his view, nothing inevitable about the levels of inequality seen today in countries like Britain—on the contrary. “The world faces great problems,” Atkinson writes, “but collectively we are not helpless in the face of forces outside our control.”

Twenty-odd years ago, Atkinson delivered an address to the Royal Economic Society entitled “Bringing Income Distribution in from the Cold.” In it, he noted the way that, for much of the 20th century, distributional questions had been largely ignored by the economics profession. Why, I asked Atkinson, does he think that happened?

AA: That’s a good question. There are two elements in trying to answer it. One is the role that inequality plays in trying to understand the economy. And the other is the role that inequality itself plays as a subject. With the former, it would be a feeling that the class divisions classical economists were concerned with—landlords, capitalists and workers—had somehow broken down. And that we were now in a situation in which we were a lot more homogeneous. I think there was a feeling, probably, that in understanding the growth of the economy and other macroeconomic issues, you didn’t need to distinguish so much between different types of people.

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Comments

  1. Michael J.
    April 18, 2015 at 20:18
    We are not educated/informed to really understand the nature of inequality. For some it means spongers on social security. How many think of those who have lost their job for no fault of their own for example. Those who are doing 'ok' tend not to look at those who are are the other end of the spectrum. That's why we need something new in education - and not just for the young. We need to understand the relationship between people and financial (and well-being) survival. We live in a world of the disenchanted. Some have very little and cannot master their own destiny; others have nothing but hatred for those who have - just switch on the news. Time for CHANGE but we need a leader/leaders and to at least coordinate within the west.
  2. Alyson
    April 19, 2015 at 15:15
    The generation that grew up in the 1960s and 70s believed that industrial mechanisation, labour-saving devices, improvements in public health and hygiene and international trade would come to mean that no-one would need to work more than a 3 day week and there would be enough to go round. Inequality today allows the rich to purchase ever rarer commodities but it is unclear why they do not wish for the poor to have enough not to suffer, when it would not be any hardship for them for people to work to produce more for others to purchase. This last government's focus on driving inequality to the point where public services and the safety net of the welfare state are stretched too thin to meet need, seems counter-productive.
  3. Ramesh Raghuvanshi
    June 6, 2015 at 16:31
    Inequality remain forever mankind lives on earth.That one in natural process no one can erases it.Survival is fittest might is always right. Inequality is from ancient time and remain end of life.It is futile to erases it may be you reduce gap between rich and poor but completely finish it is impossible

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Jonathan Derbyshire
Jonathan Derbyshire is Executive Comment Editor at the Financial Times, and former managing editor of Prospect
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