TECHNICAL PAPERS No. 188 WHERE DOES INEQUALITY COME FROM? IDEAS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR LATIN AMERICA
Differences in inequality between Latin American countries are not so much caused by globalisation as by a variety of political and economic structures and government policies. Hostile elites have made democracy fragile and are delaying the mass education and tax-driven income redistribution that democratisation and socialism produced in Europe over the past century. Trends in inequality in Latin America are governed by coups and democratic phases. Recent rising inequality in Argentina, Chile and Peru is mostly due to structural changes in the balance of political power triggered by policies of the military and the debt crisis. The demobilisation of labour and the left has led to new political coalitions that have seriously reduced the chances of democracy playing the key role it did in changing Europe. In theory, globalisation can increase inequality through its impact on prices or wages or by curbing the government’s ability to implement policies. In fact there is little evidence ... Les differences entre pays d’Amerique latine en ce qui concerne les inegalites ne sont pas tant le fait de la globalisation que de la diversite des structures politiques et economiques ainsi que des politiques publiques. L’hostilite des elites a l’egard de la democratie ont fragilise celle-ci et ont retarde la generalisation de l’education et la redistribution des revenus via l’impot, processus que l’Europe a connus au siecle dernier grâce a la democratisation et au socialisme. L’evolution des inegalites en Amerique latine reflete l’alternance de coups d’Etat et de phases democratiques. La recente tendance au creusement des inegalites en Argentine, au Chili et au Perou est due essentiellement aux changements structurels de l’equilibre politique declenches par les mesures prises par le gouvernement militaire et par la crise de la dette. La demobilisation des travailleurs et de la gauche a ouvert la voie a de nouvelles coalitions politiques qui ont serieusement reduit les chances ...