A recent article in Nature reveals the results of the largest study on inequality in human history, which found that while degrees of inequality have been high in historical societies, they have never been as high as they are now, and the US currently has one of the highest in history—a world where now the richest one percent hoard half of the world’s wealth. Tim Kohler in a paper published in Science earlier this year found that the rate of mobility in the US fell from 90 percent for children born in 1940, to 50 percent for those born in the 1980s.
The researchers used house size as a proxy for wealth and examined data from 63 archaeological digs to analyze societies from prehistoric times to modern day. They found that societies start off relatively equal, with a Gini coefficient of .17.
Signs of inequality appear when humans start to domesticate plants and animals. The transition to farming-based societies introduced the concept of land ownership, and the resulting class of landless peasants.
Land ownership facilitated the accumulation of wealth, as humans began to pass it down from generation to generation. As farming societies grew, from small scale horticultural famers to large scale agricultural societies, the median Gini grew from .27 to .35.
The highest ever historical Gini score was in the ancient Old World (like Rome) at .59.
The 2016 United States’ Gini score is about .81
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2017/11/22/highest-inequality-human-history-societies-ripe-social-change/
The researchers used house size as a proxy for wealth and examined data from 63 archaeological digs to analyze societies from prehistoric times to modern day. They found that societies start off relatively equal, with a Gini coefficient of .17.
Signs of inequality appear when humans start to domesticate plants and animals. The transition to farming-based societies introduced the concept of land ownership, and the resulting class of landless peasants.
Land ownership facilitated the accumulation of wealth, as humans began to pass it down from generation to generation. As farming societies grew, from small scale horticultural famers to large scale agricultural societies, the median Gini grew from .27 to .35.
The highest ever historical Gini score was in the ancient Old World (like Rome) at .59.
The 2016 United States’ Gini score is about .81
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2017/11/22/highest-inequality-human-history-societies-ripe-social-change/
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