Rich getting richer and poor getting poorer?

[ZeroNowhere]

So, I've been wondering if the rich actually are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer (mostly the second bit). I mean, this doesn't affect a criticism of capitalism, but the general response to the poor getting poorer seems to be on the subject of a rising standard of living. Is this valid (in the US or globally)? Can you provide sources if you answer, please? Thanks.

[jake williams]

There are long term trends of the poor getting poorer in relative terms and short term trends of the poor getting poorer in absolute trends, depending where you look. But I think that in the long term, the poor get richer in absolute terms.

[ZeroNowhere]

There are long term trends of the poor getting poorer in relative terms and short term trends of the poor getting poorer in absolute trends, depending where you look. But I think that in the long term, the poor get richer in absolute terms.
Well, not necessarily in 'Third World' countries, though otherwise it would seem so. However, I believe that since the collapse of Keynesianism (in the 1970s), real wages would have decreased, while relative poverty would have increased, more severely than the standard of living increases could make up for. Though I haven't really seen any good sources on this, unfortunately.

[Soheb]

I am from India and can give you some facts about India. Since 1991, when India's economy had opened up for liberalisation it is claimed by the bourgeois government that India is growing rapidly and getting richer day by day. But if closely analysed things are not so simple. While private franchises ( Reliance, Tata etc.) have made huge super profits of 300% to 400%, the majority of the population remains poor.

India's per capita income according to a recent report, has increased about 60% since 2003-04, to Rs. 33,283 ( $1 = Rs. 45approx.) in 2007-08. But it is obvious that an economic indicator such as the per-capita income is inherently biased towards the rich. Per capita income as we all know is the collective income of all the population divided by the no. of people. In the 2nd most populated country of the world, India where the population is about 1.2billion such economic indicators are very misleading.

A recent government report, the Arjun Sen Gupta Commission report, says that 78% of the Indian population lives under half a dollar a day(and this is by government standards, a true picture could be even worse).This report presents a significant
picture of India where almost three-fourths of the people are living on less than Rs. 20 a day. With the economic recession hitting India as well (inspite of all the false government denials), inflation is at about 10%. Wheat and Rice, part of the staple diet in India of average quality costs about Rs 15 and 25 per kg respectively. This fact shows that large parts of India face the problem of poverty and hunger.

Unfortunately the corporate owned media in India does not potray this picture. The media tells us that about 10million colour television sets have been sold. Another 15 million mobile phone connections have been sold. About 1 million(approx.) automobiles have been sold. These figures might seem very impressive when taken isolated from other facts. But considering a population of 1.2billion these numbers are just too small to show anything significant.

In contrast the net profit of textile giant, the Ahmedabad-based Reliance Industries Limited, has increased to Rs 17.04 billion during the year ended March 1999 from Rs 1.26 billion, which showed a growth of 1250 per cent or a 14 fold increase in textile manufacturing since 1991, when economic liberalisation and reforms began in India.

These facts clearly show (atleast in the case of India) that although a miniscule part of the population is getting richer and the vast majority is getting poorer and poorer.
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PS: To the seniors on this forum. Please correct me, where i am wrong. I will be happy to make corrections. I am new on this forum and this is my first post. So please pardon if i have made mistakes in my analysis.

Long Live Revolution!!

[ZeroNowhere]

To tell the truth, I'm also from India. It's hard not to be aware of the poverty there. Still, the statistics and such there were good/sad to know, so thanks for that. The WSM quotes these from the UNDP Human Development report:
"Some 54 countries are poorer now than in 1990. Of the 54 countries with declining incomes,20 are from Sub-Saharan Africa, 17 from Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), 6 from Latin America and the Caribbean, 6 from East Asia and the Pacific and 5 from the Arab States."

"More than 1.2 billion people – one in every five on Earth – survive on less than $1 a day. During the 1990s the share of people suffering from extreme income poverty fell from 30% to 23%. But with a growing world population, the number fell by just 123 million – a small fraction of the progress needed to eliminate poverty. And excluding China, the number of extremely poor people actually increased by 28 million." Hence "in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Arab States, Central and Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa the number of people surviving on less than $1 a day increased."

"Poverty has increased even in some countries that have achieved overall economic growth, and over the past two decades income inequality worsened in 33 of 66 developing countries with data."

"More than 1.0 billion people in developing countries – one person in five – lack access to safe water."

Well, that's interesting...

[Soheb]

"Poverty has increased even in some countries that have achieved overall economic growth, and over the past two decades income inequality worsened in 33 of 66 developing countries with data."
...

Well that quite answers your question about rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. Inequality worsening in 50% of the developing countries. Quite hard hitting.

[Hit The North]

Comrade Soheb, thank you for that glimpse at the prevailing situation of growing inequality in India as it continues to modernize along the neo-liberal model.

Of course, Marx predicted that capitalism, left to its own devices, will produce greater levels of inequality between the rich capitalists and the rest of society. The theory of immiseration of the proletariat is everywhere confirmed by the last several decades of global capitalist expansion.

This website lists the most unequal and the most equal nations in the world:
http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/inequality-income-expenditure.html

Of the ten most unequal nations, all of them are nations on the periphery of the world economy, with fractured, dissolute states, with the exception of South Africa in tenth place which is still scarred by the massive inequalities of decades of Apartheid.

Of the ten most equal nations, five of them are former "eastern bloc" "socialist" nations, four are Scandinavian social democracies and then there's Japan. All of these nations have traditions of heavy state regulation of the economy.

It seems clear, then, that where political states regulate the market, the gap between rich and poor is less pronounced. Where the market is given relative freedom from the state, the gap widens.

As a result of the shift to neo-liberalism, this is what has happened in those advanced economies which most firmly embraced the market.

This for the USA: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/29/business/income.4.php

This for the UK: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/gap-between-rich-and-poor-widest-in-40-years-457609.html

Incidentally, all of the reports above are focussing on inequality according to income. If we were to measure the gap in wealth (not just income but also property, ownership of saleable goods, ownership of non-saleable goods such as pensions and health insurance) the gap between rich and poor is even more pronounced, as this document from the British government confirms: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1005

[OneNamedNameLess]

I can't provide any sources for this information, but I know this from several Sociological studies which I had to examine.

Here in the UK, the living standards of the population in general has greatly increased over the past few decades. Overall, people are more comfortable. However, the gap between rich and poor has been widening for some time. Correct me if i'm wrong, but in one study I recall this gap increasing a staggering amount since the 1980's.

Despite the growing comfort of the nation, one must remember that when capitalism stumbles upon another crisis, those at the bottom of the social ladder suffer the most, which is reflected in the current economic situation.

[BlackCapital]

This triggered a really simple question for me that I really don't have a solid answer to. Why exactly has the standard of living increased in the last several decades (in economically developed, capitalist countries)?

I gave this alot of thought and looked around the net for a feasible answer, but its all libertarian promotional bullshit, so I'm sort of stuck. Help me out!