EU membership enjoys strong approval in new member states largely thanks to the economic firepower they have gained. Euronews Business takes a closer look at the GDP growth story in the new accession states since the bloc’s historic enlargement in 2004.
As an (important?) side note: Europe is among the region with the highest equality, together with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Philippine, Papua New Guinea. Of course, there is a lot room for improvement, but inequality has not risen in the last 20 or so years - unlike in countries like Russia, China, India, where the gap between the richest and the poor has widen significantly.
Addition: Here is the data - https://wid.world/world/#shweal_p99p100_z/US;FR;DE;CN;ZA;GB;WO-PPP;QE-PPP;XR-PPP/last/eu/k/p/yearly/s/false/12.912/100/curve/false/region
Because it’s not worth engaging with this person I just copy paste my answer to the other place where they posted this.
Thanks for linking a source but this is a misleading interpretation, please don’t try to argue with data if you don’t know how to interpret it.
You need to look at e.g. the top 10%, middle 40% and bottom 50% to get a proper idea. And then look at it country by country because the scales don’t match. Yes, the USA are extremely inequal, I think back to like 1913 level in 2013 or something like that iirc, so if you put them on a plot with e.g. France, France will look great.
But if you look at France alone you get a different picture and inequality is rising again since the 80s. Here’s an article by a French economist with research focus on inequality which cites the same data: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities/2025/09/24/global-inequality-in-historical-perspective-part-1/
OP didn’t even mention the US, though. I’m not sure what you’re arguing against.
You obviously did not look at the data they used as source
I actually did. I have nits to pick with the map, but the conclusion that Russia has a lot and Europe has (relatively) little is well known. And again, what does the US have to do with it?
Reading the thread back again, you’re probably right that inequality in Europe has grown somewhat, if that was your main point.
Edit: And your source is excellent, by the way. Very interesting. Picketty delivers.
Yeah, you may have misunderstood my point. So once again for you: It’s not perfect in Europe, inequality rises here, but inequality in China is now higher than it is in Europe.
Thats nice, but also largely due to the fact that Europe has been industrialized much longer. We already had the wealth inequality going before
And the US hasn’t been? And how does Canada fit into this?
Can you elaborate?
Well historically the industrial revolution began in GB and then the rest of the “west” as we know it today. All under existing structures of old wealth such as monarchies and nobility, eventually giving birth to capitalism.
The countries mentioned above were going through that same process only some decades later.
China is a great example because they are so thorough and totalitarian in their societal progression, they essentially forced through all this change in just a few decades and there is a lot of statistical information available that you could have a look at illustrating the process of an emerging middle class and their ultra rich class along their economical development.
Where are these statistics about China?
I dont know and really dont care to look them up for you. I would think you could google for whatever year and wealth distribution / productivity indicators of China, iirc they are fairly proud of what “the party” has done in that regard. Shouldnt be hard to find.
If you want to believe we germans live in some equality paradise thats your call of course, but we dont.
@GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
You say there is a lot of statistical information available, but then you admit you don’t even know where it is. Classic.
Why are you like this, fucking exhausting lol
I’m not trying to defend a masters thesis while taking a shit, thank you very much. My comment is based on what i know and learned about China over the last few decades, why do you treat this as some outrageous claim i am making?
Industrialization under a system of private ownership leads to a general increase in the standard of giving, yes, but still causes an extremely rich owner/capitalist class to emerge. In Europe that happened earlier, sometimes meshing with old hierarchical structures such as the nobility, in the other countries later.
What the fuck kind of proof do you want? Thats not contested information.
and yet…
I guess the part I don’t understand what you’re trying to assert re: time since “industrialization” vs wealth inequality.
Are you saying industrialization is responsible for lowering inequality or creating it?
If you’re suggesting it creates inequality, then I would expect Europe to have higher inequality than China. It does not.
If you are suggesting it reduces inequality, then I would expect China’s wealth inequality to be trending downwards since the 70s. It is not. It has risen sharply in that time frame.
I’m still assuming that I’m just misunderstanding your hypothesis… so I guess my question would just be:
What do you hypothesize the process of industrialization does to weath distribution?
Europe has industrialize more then 20 years ago. So inequality does not increase due to that process, but it does in China.