There are two crucial issues which remain to be tackled in this series on inequality and poverty in contemporary Guyana. The first is to examine whether the structural relations embedded in the global economy exert a direct and therefore, independent impact on poverty in Guyana. And the second is to address those philosophical concerns, now raging worldwide, concerning the increasing manifestation of rising income and wealth inequality within nations. These two issues will be addressed respectively in today’s and next week’s column.
To aid consideration of these issues I urge readers to recall three earlier observations that I made as they speak directly to Guyana’s circumstances. The first is Piketty’s observation, which arose from his measurement of inequality across a significant number of continents, regions and countries over several historical time-frames. That is: in the clear absence of countervailing policies and programmes, the generation and regeneration of inequality rather than the promotion of equality is the more likely outcome for capitalistic market-based economies.
This observation directly repudiates the declared expectation of mainstream economics. As has been earlier indicated this argues: “the respective shares of GDP going to labor and capital will be held roughly constant in the economy over time.” Thus as we saw Solow predicts “balanced growth” in the long run. Similarly, Kuznets has theorized a U-shaped curve showing inequality worsening in the early periods of growth, but over the long term the “rising tide of
