Samuel Moyn recently argued that even “perfectly realized human rights are compatible with radical inequality.” Indeed, while realizing human rights often involves the redistribution of resources to the poorest individuals in a society, these resources do not necessarily need to come from the richest individuals in that society. But the rising problem of inequality does require an examination of how such a small percentage of people became so rich in the first place, and systemic discrimination is arguably a key factor. What are the mechanisms in place that allow the rich to get richer while the poor stay as they are, or worse? While, as Moyn argues, redistributing money from rich to poor may not be required to realize human rights, the human rights community still has an important role in tackling economic inequality by protecting the right to non-discrimination.
The rise of economic inequality
As all the contributions in this debate have made clear, economic inequality is at record levels globally. After the United States, the United Kingdom has the second highest level of economic inequality in the developed world. According to Thomas Piketty, the top 1% of earners in the UK receive 15% of income and the top 1% of capital holders hold around 25-30% of capital. These top earners have their salary set by boards composed of individuals with similar characteristics, perpetuating the inequality: 62% of Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100 companies have all-white boards and only 22.8% of FTSE 100 board members are women.
An additional 800,000 children and 1.5 million adults will be living in poverty by 2020 as a result of the UK’s austerity policies. Capital inequality, on the other hand, has arisen partly due to weak regulatory and taxation regimes established by governments. For example, the UK Government has cut both the top rate of income tax and corporation tax, meaning that the richest 10% of society lost the least during the recession (5% of wealth compared to 38% for the poorest 10%). As with the FTSE 100 companies, members of the government possess similar backgrounds both to each other and to the wealthiest individuals in the UK, creating a feedback loop in which the powerful stay powerful and rarely let outsiders come in. In fact, a Sutton Trust report found that 60% of members of the 2010 Liberal Democrat-Conservative Coalition government attended a private school (compared to 7% of society) and 50% attended Oxford or Cambridge.
