How do you know it’s inequality when you see it?
There are so many definitions of inequality but I think it boils down to two different individuals having two different opportunity sets in life. This opportunity is of course a function of income, but it’s also a function of human capabilities – and we've learnt that this relates to the neighborhood you’re born into, and the networks of cultural capital you have. So it’s obviously very complicated, but what it boils down to is having different opportunity sets in life.
Have levels of inequality gone too far?
Undoubtedly. And for me the tipping point is when inequalities translate into increasing returns to power. Because then those who, in effect, benefit from inequality are now in a position to invest resources and mobilise institutions to reproduce inequality and then it really sucks in and becomes solidified and becomes that much more difficult to confront. And that’s a global phenomenon.
