South By North Strategies, Ltd.

Economic historian Robert Skidelsky argues that “inequality is killing capitalism.”

Let us agree that people are greedy, and that they always want more than they can afford. Why, then, did this “greed” manifest itself so manically?
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To answer that, we must look at what was happening to the distribution of income. The world was getting steadily richer, but the income distribution within countries was becoming steadily more unequal. Median incomes have been stagnant or even falling for the last 30 years, even as per capita GDP has grown. This means that the rich have been creaming off a giant share of productivity growth.
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And what did the relatively poor do to “keep up with the Joneses” in this world of rising standards? They did what the poor have always done: got into debt. …