Inequality, Redistribution, and the Global Surge in Populism
By Anne Wolf, University of Oxford, Kathrin Bachleitner, University of Salzburg and Sarah Bufkin, University of Oxford
Economic inequality and redistribution are among the oldest political economy debates and subjects of research. Machiavelli famously wrote that republics should “keep their treasuries rich and their citizens poor” to ensure those citizens would not become powerful enough to take control of the state. But citizens should also not be left too poor to revolt; hence the need for redistribution (Philp and Pelczynski 2012). Although economic inequality, redistribution, and their social and political consequences have informed political decisions for a long time, academic interest in them has fluctuated. After the post–World War II economic settlement and relatively stable inequality levels in Europe and the United States, for example, an American economist claimed that research on the topic was as interesting as “watching the grass grow” (Aaron 978).