Inequalities: A Concern for Capitalism and Global Strategy

Introduction

This chapter is mainly rooted within the writing by Picketty (2014), “Le capital du XXI siècle”, or in other words, “The Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, awarded ‘the Business Book of the Year, 2014’. Although, based initially on this comprehensive research study conducted by Piketty (2014) across a few centuries, the chapter aims to be an interdisciplinary research, incorporating within, economic and social aspects, as well as political perspectives, autobiographic (Torekull, 2012) and experiential perspectives upon Capitalism in general, and its last phase called ‘the digital Capitalism’. The study aims to design a holistic perspective upon inequality, which is a very complex and multi-faceted phenomenon, and to provide an interdisciplinary theoretical framework. The constructs of the theoretical research framework, suggested initially by the authors, originated from Picketty’s (2014) work and enlarged later with additional constructs, as follows: the economic systems, capitalism, capital, income, economic growth, and returns on capital, population growth, gender, education and technology. The objectives of this chapter are: (1) to discover and analyze various aspects of inequality and its historical evolution; (2) to find out the origin and the causes of inequality, and; (3) to provide a comprehensive, holistic theoretical framework, as the basis of possible global strategies to inequality awareness. The chapter comprises the following sections: Economic Systems and Capital Accumulation; Inequality and the Distribution of Wealth; Income, Economic Growth and Returns on Capital; Gender Inequality; Global Strategies; Research Method; Analysis and Discussions, and Conclusions.

Oxford Dictionary (1999) defines ‘inequality’ as ‘lack of equality’. In principle, there are two forms of inequality: internal inequality with multiple aspects and international inequality with its aspects. The internal inequalities are rooted within the socio-economical aspects of a country, whilst international inequalities regard the more ample conflict between the southern poorer countries of the Globe and the northern richer countries, with more advanced economies. The concept ‘inequality’ implies a concentration of riches or wealth to groups of countries, regions or social categories, or in other words, a polarisation of the economic power to certain groups or categories in the detriment of others. Picketty (2014) describes ‘wealth’ as ‘the accumulation of private capital’ and the ‘inequality’ as ‘a concentration of wealth to fewer individuals, corporations or companies’. Hence, the distribution of wealth becomes a concern for the majority, and finally leads to a conflict between the minority and majority, as a consequence of the unequal distribution of wealth, and due to inequality.