00:05 Professor Banerjee discusses the past of inequality. 03:02 Inequality at historical highs in many countries 08:32 Inequality was claimed to be necessary for growth 11:13 Inequality does not promote growth 16:20 Inequality is not essential for sustaining growth 18:19 Inequality is increasing due to rising profits of companies. 22:38 Global agreement to ban tax havens 24:50 Discussing policy solutions for global inequality 29:38 Personal experience with poverty in childhood inspired interest in development economics 31:48 The elderly population in Korea faces significant income inequality and poverty. 36:31 Inequality may decrease as growth slows down due to demographic changes 38:49 Historical patterns of integration and prejudice 43:09 We need to keep trying and find solutions for the world.
@@georgethomas3597 Just compare 31.48 and 36.31. does anything make sense ? Be sure, declining demography will increase inequality: the younger will become poorer.
Thank you very much Prof. Abhijit. All Professors in the worlds have talked about this for decades, but no governments and ultra-wealthy people cares. This is the tragedy for humanity.
Very clear. That's the way the world has moved from 1980 onwards, following over and excessive insistance on monetization of economy as only panacea to fix agreegate economics. Besides, there is another factor, namely, the objective failures of financial institutions like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO, particularly, that enhanced the perpetuation of inequality everywhere. Prof. Dr. Banerjee has thrown a new light on social mobility issue. I'm from his city of birth and growing up neighbourhood. 🎉
@@pbghosh5305 it started before then, but we can say, after the Trilateral Commission the ownership elite became more intense about their control using monitization and debt. This sent inequality and its violence into overdrive, effecting more than the usual casualities of inequality, in America and the world
India too is a prominent example of inequality in every aspect of life, be it income disparity, societal inequality, gender inequality and many other issues and challenges....still the middle class is burdened with high taxes both with direct and indirect taxes...and they are getting simply nothing in the name of tax....
Indirect taxes I'm agreed with you, but when it comes to direct taxes, so only around top 2% white money earners taxed with, rest are black money earners, so yeah taxes are not fair in India, because a normal worker pays taxes whereas majority of MSME owners doing transactions in black and earning way higher than a worker don't. Contractors, Restaurants Owners, Small Manufacturers are significant example of that.
@@Lifelong-Vidyarthi so the question ❓ is being a salaried person getting a fixed income every month I am bound to pay 30 percent direct taxes while other indirect tax are different ( GST etc) and what benefits I am getting forgot about free or even subsidised education for my child not even a decent government hospital...so it's better to move abroad and pay 45 percent direct tax and get atleast bare minimum Education, health and good road infrastructure there 👍
@@abcd51849 Ofcourse moving abroad is a wise decision, If you are getting a chance to move abroad then go ahead if you're not happy in India(Isme koi anti banti national wali baat nahi h).
Prof. Banerjee explained inequality and its consequences brilliantly and has put things so simply. It made sense to even common people. So proud of him
Gratitude to the channel owners for this enriching streaming. I also take this opportunity to convey my sincere respect to Professor Abhijit Banerjee for enlightening us with these deep analysis of past trajectories of inequalities in different countries and the intuitive predictions about future courses of inequalities within a short span of 25 minutes. This talk has glimmered few questions in my mind and I shall now eagerly look forward for answeres in these following issues. Disclaimer: I am not from economics background and apologise in advance, if my thinking process is crossing subject boundaries or it is not correct: 1. Inequality is here analysed from the perspective of economic wealth, but how it is going to change if we think in terms of natural resources? Riches have far better access to natural resources but still many of these resources ( other than land and minerals) are not necessarily "owned" by them like currency. How the future inequalities are going to look when we also think in terms of biodiversity and natural resources? 2. We usually do not talk about corruption. Corruption also leads to accumulatation of wealth. Is AI with its better and hopefully more impartial accounting capabilities going to alter this scenario? 3. Is it going to bring a better balance in ecenomic world? 4. Topmost riches, NASA are now seriously thinking about multi-planatory expansion. How these neo colonization efforts are going to affect here in mother earth? 5. Social media is invading and is deeply influencing our thoughts, values, belief systems and respond-abilities at mass scale even without our knowledge or consent. Is this phenomenon going to impact the inequality dynamics? 5. I was wondering at the end of the 25 minutes, why climate change is not being discussed for once but I have learnt at the end of this video that this is covered in a separate talk and I am now eager to watch it! Gratitude again 🎉.
So well explained. If governments, do not pay heed to this research and do not decide full heartedly reduce the in equality in a targeted way, the continuity of growth in equality is going to be hara kiri of human civilization. All out measures from every individual and system is required.
Awesome dr banerjee. Proud that you have spoken about kolkata. You are absolutely correct and in the world increase inequality and we don't know how much more it will increase if president trump again becomes the president of united states of America the final result expected today.kindly do the best work professor.
What an enlightening lecture of professor Dr. Banerjee sir has delivered as an economics student i have learned a lot things thank you so much WKF for providing such a valuable content.. lot of respect and support for the team of world knowledge forum from india. 05/09/2024 Thursday 09:07AM
We have a permanent growth economic model. It is no longer sustainable or stable. We need an economic model that focuses on efficiency in distribution, and stable resource preservation as a priority.
Yeah, it would be nice if all those inventions (patents) which have had National Security orders slapped on them were released. The ones where energy is in produced in abundance at negligible cost, thereby essentially making everyone in the whole world a millionaire. That would be freedom. If you were free to pursue your desires. That's the last thing that's going to happen.
The problem is not the distribution, the problem is the question of stability and competition. The key question to be answered is, what shall the production system look like. Do you keep factories open only as long as there is profit in doing it=Capitalism? Do you keep factories open only as long as there exists a need for their products= Socialism/Communism? No other options exists at this moment, but both of them are unstable. In case of the Capitalism, the profits might fall and shift, thus, the inequality will never ever ever be solved in such system, NEVER. In case of Socialism/Communism, the need might exist, but your goods will be always worse and more expensive, and these additional "costs" have to be covered by something, thus, you will have always lack of goods to cover all of the needs. Thereby, Inequality can be only reduced in such system! So, the task is not to distribute better, the task is, to find eather a new model for production systems that don't have these flaws, or deal with them somehow in better way than it is or was done before.
@@VonKirda Well, goods and services. Housing, education, healthcare, essential goods, and so on. Usually that's what people mean when they talk about distribution. @moqpop we have that answer already. @nikolaizaicev9297 The OP is on the right track: our financial systems do "rely" on infinite growth, which of course nobody is so deluded to believe it's actually feasible, leading to short-term investment strategies, hypervaluation (Tesla and others...), growth over profit (Amazon...), disregard for sustainability, and so on. What it should look like? Well, a shift in mentality driven by shifts in policy with the goal of lowering inequality (that is to say increasing access to goods and services, distribution) and incentivizing sustainable production, deincentivizing monopolies (with actual proper enforcing for once), proper taxation (getting rid of tax havens by enforced local taxation), UBI might be an idea (less people should be working, working on the wrong thing does more harm than good), consolidating healthcare (get it as far away from the free market as it possibly can), super high taxation on real estate (buying up 500 houses to put on airbnb should incur major taxes)... and then on until we finally get rid of private property altogether. That list should be enough to get us started. Let's try it out and circle back in a year and see what it accomplished. Oh ya, I got a novel one too: Ban advertisement. Seriously, just ban it. Wanna sell a toothbrush? There's a communal website (no profit, subsidized) where you type toothbrush and it shows all brands and how to buy one. That's the only "ad" that you can get. Consumption driven by necessity rather than overexposure. There ya go and then all those marketing people can go do something useful and we have proper platforms not subject to sponsorship.
It's wonderful to hear from knowledgeable people. And theyre expected to use their talents for noble purpose and not become puppets of the wealthy masters.
Everyone in India running behind becoming IAS. WE SHOULD ASPIRE TO BECOME A CREATER OF NEW KNOWLEDGE WHICH TAKES MANKIND FORWARD TOWARDS IMPROVING LIFE AND ITS STANDARD
I think now less numbers of people are starving to death due to poverty, only thing we have to make sure is that everyone should live a dignified life without facing crimes. We must have a robust system where wealthy people should not be able to annihilate natural resources. Since natural resources can not be manufactured by feeding money.
The motives of the economic game, are to an extent, divorced from natural resources. As people live their lives and pursue their goals, they are not thinking before every action taken, "is this sustainable? How does my behaviour affect the world?" and that is true of even people at the top. They are simply pursuing their goals and playing their roles in society, thinking like the social animals we are, of human things. When it comes to the wealthiest people, it is a real problem, because they can change all of our lives, via lobbying and the organizations they own, while still being ignorant (willfully, or genuinely) of the consequences.
Scale is a parameter of humanity. In the '60s there were 6000 international food companies. Now there are 5. The concentration of management is more of a catastrophe than population growth. Our agility is no longer annual but generational. Btw there were no management schools in the '60s either. MBA's have basically ruined equality and ingenuity.
It's far too easy to predict with high confidence that a discussion among economists about inequality will include *no mention* of the idea of sharing natural wealth equally. A policy of charging fees to industries proportional to emissions, resource extraction or habitat destruction, with proceeds shared equally, would promote sustainability and end poverty. Why is this not part of the public discourse?
I understand how that would promote sustainability. How would that lead to poverty reduction though? Unless you’re suggesting the penalties collected for excessive emissions is routed into education, health and hard infrastructure. If that’s the case, it’s an assumption that governments would do that.
@@claymadness The proceeds from fees would represent the value of natural resources and services, which can be understood as belonging to all. They are made by natural processes, not human effort. This policy would cause price increases, which would hurt the poor, *unless* fee proceeds are shared equally to all people. *Then*, the poor would come out ahead.
We don’t need to share out the resources, we need to stop exhuming every resource that’s not absolutely critical for society to function. Nothing is sustainable anymore, in fact we blew past any hopes of sustainability decades ago, now we’re locked into the 6th mass extinction that’s well underway already. Very few people below the age of 40 will be dying of old age.
Our world has become a battlefield. Kids are taught from a very young age by their families and the society that, destroying one's environment is justified when done for 'The greater good'. Today in 2024, the condition is so gross that we are reaching tipping points in almost all ecological spheres. Things can change only when people break the chains and become independent of the few people who pay their salaries, goodies etc. Only by becoming independent of such people can we revive mother earth 🌍
Not all are born into equal opportunity. Effort through opportunity provides success as relevant thereof. The percentage of success also depends on quality of effort in one's environment as well as availability of " tools , finance and support/ guidance" that one pursues proactively or receives benevolently.
Negative selection plays a big part when you start paying someone to be productive then you create a situation were other will not be productve because they are not be rewarded by the social norm but if you were to remove the incentive the productive people will stop being productive. This has been studies in dogs and other animals when given treats for performance.
Inequality is bound to increase with the disruptions caused by increasing absorption of AI, rising protectionism and the capital intensive nature of modern capitalism.
I'm happy to see such a prominent economist focusing on this issue. I've said for quite some time that inequality is one of the greatest threats to a nation. I'm glad he brought up the ratio between the CEOs of companies and the lowest paid workers. I've been curious about that, and he confirmed my hypothesis. Another issue of inequality is that it shifts how resources are allocated. When wealth is concentrated it will shift demand away from certain industries in favor of more luxurious industries. This is because the needs and consumption patterns of people who are very wealthy are different from those who are poor. This can create a distortion where there is actually a greater need, per capita, for more necessary products and services, but due to a lack of resources the need goes unmet. While I won't write a whole dissertation in the comment section of a UA-cam video, I do feel the need to stress the sheer importance of inequality and the plethora of negative effects as a result of its exacerbation.
In india if u earn 2.9 lakhs a year or 25 k a month u become top 10% income earners in india so people who saying im middle class etf u aint middle class.
Excellent session, I loved brutally honest take on AI especially about Indian best minds about to be at brink of losing jobs, something that most elite professionals aren't understanding in its entirety.
Thank you all for this share, so many young concerned faces, shocking state of affairs, worldwide, the fact that the wealthiest seem to be able to find nothing to spend the gross wealth on anything with so many shameful lacks for so many in a world when we have the capacity to provide for all and for the first time enable the human spirit and innate human creativity. The psychopaths it seems have indeed taken over the asylum.
Without defining what equality or equilibrium means, how can people effectively discuss inequality? By definition, one might suggest distributing wealth to everyone. But how is this a practically feasible solution in the real world? It’s difficult to understand how highly educated individuals at prestigious universities can earn substantial salaries for their lectures while also discussing inequality.
Whatever may be the topic of conversation, some people are myopic enough to centre it around conspiracy. How can inequality be an outcome desire?. Or conspiracy by upper layer etc etc. Whether one likes it or not, inequality was and still is a present in every country under any idealogies, be it capitalistic or socialistic. Even during communist regime, Soviet Union was divided into two classes - a privileged class or secretive group of Commissars,who formed into an upper layer and the proletariat. So is the case now. Even when the socialism/Communism died ( China is a communist country only in name),the basic structure of the world has not changed. The whole world and not a single country, is ruled by a privileged elite comprising of the richest people as the professor mentioned with a difference that the rule is not based on an ideology like the Soviet Commissars,but based on wealth created through scientific and technological advancements. However much you curse or abuse, inequality is not going anywhere.
Like religious/racial discrimination in the final year, of secondary school, that uses positive action in order to oust/ replace some students with others from another religious/racial group, even though they may not be the best performers. How does this impact on the student who is ousted, who may have worked very hard under extenuating circumstances.
An excellent lecture on Inequality, exposing some of Myths about Inequality and last but not the least is how increase Inequality will affect the lower class, the middle class and the higher class of the rich and poor Countries. In addition the clarity of the lecture is superb. I thank him from the bottom of my heart because what he said is important information for all concerned. ❤❤🎉🎉😂
The main reasons of drastic inequality are as follows : 1, Most people have strong mindset of GREED . They want to have more benefits even practicing illegal and unethical acts. 2. Most people do not have KIND HEARTS. The sense of sympathy is totally ignored. 3. According to Buddhism , ordinary people have five basic desires : Fortune ( money) , Sex , Fame (reputation) , Eat and Sleep.
In these times of increasing inequality and unsustainability, Mahatma Gandhi ji’s ideas of Aparigraha (non-possession), which includes conscious consumerism and sustainable living, and Atmanirbharata (self-reliance), which encompasses economic independence and resilience through self-empowerment, are more relevant than ever. Just as the seemingly impossible task of abolishing apartheid was achieved through Gandhian ideals of non-violence, rooted in self-empowerment, we can address today’s crises by embracing these timeless values.
You have factor the wealth generating class and others. Wealth generators are always financially better off than the employees! You can’t call it inequality!
I will differentiate between the material world and the world of life in this regard. I think for any particular society in any part of the world material equality is very much necessary for social harmony and it is much more natural and logical than people and economists and intellectuals actually took care to recognise. For example even in ancient times outside cities most part of the world had the same kind of flora and fauna, natural environment, weather in that localised natural place. And all these things existing in nature were material resources for the people living there. Also, whether due to that similar natural environment or due to ancestral genetic similarities or something else the variety in human life and life of any other particular species inside any one such location was minimal. The result was social cohesion and much less internal social strife. However, it was just inside the large settlements/cities where a more variety in human life was observed and those large setttlements invariably came up in regions devoid of natural sustainable capability like arid and desert lands of egypt, middle east and southern pakistan and arid lands of india. So those places had big settlements probably due to necessities of gathering natural resources from far off places with either trade or conquest and living together to make the people sustain themselves in an inhospitable terrain. It was alao these regions which gave up great empires , lots of conflicts and unifying religions. It was also these places which had high inequality in material possession, had internal social strifes rather than inter community strifes and the reason lies in the unnatural man made setup of those places necessitated due to lack of natural resources. So, to sum up: Places with natural resources: 1. Homogeneity in local population. 2. Small settlements sustaning on naturally available materials and simple life with less innovation needed by human beings for sustainability. 3. Social cohesion within society. 4. Strifes with dissimilar societies. 5. The more resourceful the region the smaller and more cohesive the community. Places without natural resources or with inhospitable environment 1. Large settlements and more ingenuinity and complex human created solutions to problems 2. Heterogeneous population. 3. Dissimilar distribution in resources within society, inflexible social hierarchy , in short steep inequality within society both on material level and as time progressed under same conditions even at human level too. 3. Social strifes within society, need for strongly held society through human created systems like empires, kingdoms or through ideas and religious beliefs. 4. The society within was dissimilar itself and large settlements usually were not close to each other and often separated from each other by large tracks of the first group - the small agrarian settlements. So inter settlement strifes were rare ,more crucial was oppression and exploitation of the small settlement agrarian inhabitants living close to the large settlements by the later. 5. The less resourceful or inhospitable the region the greater the need for large settlements.
Even a layperson like me was able to identify the first 2 reasons, low tax for the rich and high executive salaries and we all know about rich people evading even the tax that is due by using loopholes. The rationale of the CEOs is that they deserve high lat , then shouldn't they bear consequences for going bankrupt and taking funds from tax layers money again ? Shouldn't they return what they took in the years of their tenure ?
Humanity is caught between two extremes. 1. Capitalism, where greed drives the economy. The down sides are exploitation, inequality, social tensions, wars, human rights violation, climate catastrophe etc etc. 2. Socialism, where state has upper hand in economic activities. Down sides are, power concentration, curb on Innovation , corruption, inefficiency, drop in productivity etc etc. Its better to strike the middle path.
if your bearings are in the PAST, You are moving backwards while the future must be built with a clean slate. Professors profess intellect of past always.
Nonsense. You can learn deeply from the past, because many problems stay the same, and fixing them is a matter of not repeating past mistakes. The world of today is caused by events of the past. This is true of individuals, and of entire societies.
@@RahulKumar-tp4zr Literally all you learn in school is past knowledge. Atoms don't change. We don't change meaningfully unless given hundreds of thousands of years, as a species. Many many patterns repeat predictably, not just rhyme, in society & in the world. You are thinking of some statistics/economics related specific point, I was talking much more broadly.
Pr0f. Abhijit Bannerjee makes it clear that we are living in the age of inequality since 1980s. It is the essence of liberalisation - privatisation - globalisation paradigm. Secondly, there is negetive corelation between inequality and economic justice. Both of them hamper harmony and peace in any social system. If we add the problem of chronic poverty in this narrative then it becomes obvious that India, and most of the world, must move out of the LPG frame in order to have a better tomorrow in terms of education, health, housing, social harmony and ecological sustsinability. In short, we need more attention to scholars like Prof. Abhijit Bannerjee and less to chroni capitalists inspired narrations.
As an ordinary citizen and a fellow Bengalee, I pay due tribute to Prof Banerjee But the current mainstream concept of economic growth and resulting distribution of wealth to tackle inequality is unsustainable , although the eradication of abject poverty over the last several decades is remarkable Outside of the box I would like to draw attention of the viewers to a theological concept mentioned in Sura 43, verse 32 in the Qur’an. Here Allah/God says”Are they the ones who distribute your Lord’s bounty?We(majestic plural) are the ones who give them their share of livelihood in this world and WE HAVE RAISED SOME OF THEM ABOVE OTHERS IN RANK SO THAT SOME MAY AVAIL SERVICES FROM OTHERS….” Based on this and many other commandments, the religion of Islam has a well developed financial and socio-economic doctrine of tackling inequality and establishing social justice without disrupting the social fabric and harmony And it worked in practice for over a thousand years May be it’s time to look into this
It is not education that survive the world. Not strength. Not money. But only if it rains and the system is clean and the air is more pure. Only God ❤🎉.
I venture to say that the majority of people at this talk are hoping to hear of ways of increasing their own wealth so as to increase their own wealth as in the top .001 percent and not interested in controlling or figuring out how to reduce inequality in the world.
It's like saying with all the best measurement tools, why isn't avg. human height increasing? He is an academic who help study, design how to measure inequality. He isn't the one who can tackle it. Ask your politicians and policy makers the right questions maybe.
@@NA-dx6ii asking politicians and policymakers isn't enough when global inequality is something that individuals - both in the present as well as the past - have had a hand in fostering inequality, whether it's by passing on intergenerational wealth through inheritance, spending lavishly on luxury goods that were not essential for society or by fostering "crony capitalism". Many people are responsible for this and it's time that citizens stop playing the role of "armchair critics" and engage in active citizenry roles before pointing fingers at others.
The wages one gets as worker of a company goes back to the same company, when this worker becomes consumer of the product / service this same company manufactures or provide.
![[abhijit Banergee & Paul Romer 2] Challenges of the global economy](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/J-gx5gAbOG0/mqdefault.jpg)
![[abhijit Banergee & Paul Romer 2] Challenges of the global economy](/img/tr.png)
The problem and solution are both in the human heart .
These levels of inequality is the root of most of the problems in country after country.
And the beginning of revolution 🚩
Absolutely: From nations to personal relationships... inequality creates conflict and violence
There is no such thing as inequalities, in poor nation it's their low per capita income. Abheejet Banerjee is a fraud
@@Godsfavouritechild_555 revolutions tend to arise from frustrated ambitions by comparatively privileged groups, not from inequality alone.
@@changedNameSorry will just take a lot of failures from the middle class, AI will do the trick.
00:05 Professor Banerjee discusses the past of inequality.
03:02 Inequality at historical highs in many countries
08:32 Inequality was claimed to be necessary for growth
11:13 Inequality does not promote growth
16:20 Inequality is not essential for sustaining growth
18:19 Inequality is increasing due to rising profits of companies.
22:38 Global agreement to ban tax havens
24:50 Discussing policy solutions for global inequality
29:38 Personal experience with poverty in childhood inspired interest in development economics
31:48 The elderly population in Korea faces significant income inequality and poverty.
36:31 Inequality may decrease as growth slows down due to demographic changes
38:49 Historical patterns of integration and prejudice
43:09 We need to keep trying and find solutions for the world.
Thankyou
@@georgethomas3597 Just compare 31.48 and 36.31. does anything make sense ? Be sure, declining demography will increase inequality: the younger will become poorer.
Thanksss.. good step
❤
Thanks
Thank you very much Prof. Abhijit. All Professors in the worlds have talked about this for decades, but no governments and ultra-wealthy people cares. This is the tragedy for humanity.
Understood inequality much better than ever. Also the consequences of AI on the mid-level work force. Thanks Prof. Abhijeet Banerjee.
Very clear. That's the way the world has moved from 1980 onwards, following over and excessive insistance on monetization of economy as only panacea to fix agreegate economics. Besides, there is another factor, namely, the objective failures of financial institutions like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO, particularly, that enhanced the perpetuation of inequality everywhere. Prof. Dr. Banerjee has thrown a new light on social mobility issue. I'm from his city of birth and growing up neighbourhood. 🎉
@@pbghosh5305 it started before then, but we can say, after the Trilateral Commission the ownership elite became more intense about their control using monitization and debt. This sent inequality and its violence into overdrive, effecting more than the usual casualities of inequality, in America and the world
What rubbish
@@vickygautam1181 May well refer to J. Stiglitz. Be not snooty and supercillious.
@@vickygautam1181I am also from the same city. But that does not make me great.
Prof.Banerji is simply is a great fountain of knowledge. Very very WORTHY listening him.
@@somdevraomadala2473 A dehydrated fountain ,they all fancy white partners !
India too is a prominent example of inequality in every aspect of life, be it income disparity, societal inequality, gender inequality and many other issues and challenges....still the middle class is burdened with high taxes both with direct and indirect taxes...and they are getting simply nothing in the name of tax....
Indirect taxes I'm agreed with you, but when it comes to direct taxes, so only around top 2% white money earners taxed with, rest are black money earners, so yeah taxes are not fair in India, because a normal worker pays taxes whereas majority of MSME owners doing transactions in black and earning way higher than a worker don't. Contractors, Restaurants Owners, Small Manufacturers are significant example of that.
@@Lifelong-Vidyarthi so the question ❓ is being a salaried person getting a fixed income every month I am bound to pay 30 percent direct taxes while other indirect tax are different ( GST etc) and what benefits I am getting forgot about free or even subsidised education for my child not even a decent government hospital...so it's better to move abroad and pay 45 percent direct tax and get atleast bare minimum Education, health and good road infrastructure there 👍
@@abcd51849 Ofcourse moving abroad is a wise decision, If you are getting a chance to move abroad then go ahead if you're not happy in India(Isme koi anti banti national wali baat nahi h).
You missed caste inequality
@@7X-ve5ol yes absolutely 👍👍....
Economic development is collective effort of education, enterprise, entrepreneurship and workers in the system
Prof. Banerjee explained inequality and its consequences brilliantly and has put things so simply. It made sense to even common people. So proud of him
Gratitude to the channel owners for this enriching streaming. I also take this opportunity to convey my sincere respect to Professor Abhijit Banerjee for enlightening us with these deep analysis of past trajectories of inequalities in different countries and the intuitive predictions about future courses of inequalities within a short span of 25 minutes. This talk has glimmered few questions in my mind and I shall now eagerly look forward for answeres in these following issues.
Disclaimer: I am not from economics background and apologise in advance, if my thinking process is crossing subject boundaries or it is not correct:
1. Inequality is here analysed from the perspective of economic wealth, but how it is going to change if we think in terms of natural resources? Riches have far better access to natural resources but still many of these resources ( other than land and minerals) are not necessarily "owned" by them like currency. How the future inequalities are going to look when we also think in terms of biodiversity and natural resources?
2. We usually do not talk about corruption. Corruption also leads to accumulatation of wealth. Is AI with its better and hopefully more impartial accounting capabilities going to alter this scenario?
3. Is it going to bring a better balance in ecenomic world?
4. Topmost riches, NASA are now seriously thinking about multi-planatory expansion. How these neo colonization efforts are going to affect here in mother earth?
5. Social media is invading and is deeply influencing our thoughts, values, belief systems and respond-abilities at mass scale even without our knowledge or consent. Is this phenomenon going to impact the inequality dynamics?
5. I was wondering at the end of the 25 minutes, why climate change is not being discussed for once but I have learnt at the end of this video that this is covered in a separate talk and I am now eager to watch it!
Gratitude again 🎉.
So well explained. If governments, do not pay heed to this research and do not decide full heartedly reduce the in equality in a targeted way, the continuity of growth in equality is going to be hara kiri of human civilization. All out measures from every individual and system is required.
Omg!!!! I have read his book-the Poor Economics he is a noble prize laureate 🎉🎉so proud.
It is an honour to come across a video like this🎉
Awesome dr banerjee. Proud that you have spoken about kolkata. You are absolutely correct and in the world increase inequality and we don't know how much more it will increase if president trump again becomes the president of united states of America the final result expected today.kindly do the best work professor.
Prf . Abhijit Babu from Kolkata we are proud of you
Really? Who cares ? International Jeraffe!
@@chiraranjanbakshi3877 er idea tei lakshir bhandar dicche didi. sob sesh
@@FunnyShotZZ 🤣🤣🤣🤣
❤❤ joy bangla ❤
@@chiraranjanbakshi3877 no one cares about u..
Abhijit da got Nobel ❤
Very, very WORTHY AND INTERESTING.
Finally the people who knows the subject are on UA-cam,let's hear them,not from fancy youtubers
The fact that despite being from South Korea he pronounced Banerjee correctly 😭😭
😂😂 right
Absolutely ❤
What an enlightening lecture of professor Dr. Banerjee sir has delivered as an economics student i have learned a lot things thank you so much WKF for providing such a valuable content..
lot of respect and support for the team of world knowledge forum from india.
05/09/2024 Thursday 09:07AM
Useful lecture for general audience.
We have a permanent growth economic model. It is no longer sustainable or stable. We need an economic model that focuses on efficiency in distribution, and stable resource preservation as a priority.
Yeah, it would be nice if all those inventions (patents) which have had National Security orders slapped on them were released. The ones where energy is in produced in abundance at negligible cost, thereby essentially making everyone in the whole world a millionaire.
That would be freedom. If you were free to pursue your desires. That's the last thing that's going to happen.
Distribution of what to whom ?
@@VonKirda@VonKirda Exactly. This is the key question civilization has been trying to answer for millennia.
The problem is not the distribution, the problem is the question of stability and competition.
The key question to be answered is, what shall the production system look like.
Do you keep factories open only as long as there is profit in doing it=Capitalism?
Do you keep factories open only as long as there exists a need for their products= Socialism/Communism?
No other options exists at this moment, but both of them are unstable.
In case of the Capitalism, the profits might fall and shift, thus, the inequality will never ever ever be solved in such system, NEVER.
In case of Socialism/Communism, the need might exist, but your goods will be always worse and more expensive, and these additional "costs" have to be covered by something, thus, you will have always lack of goods to cover all of the needs. Thereby, Inequality can be only reduced in such system!
So, the task is not to distribute better, the task is, to find eather a new model for production systems that don't have these flaws, or deal with them somehow in better way than it is or was done before.
@@VonKirda Well, goods and services. Housing, education, healthcare, essential goods, and so on. Usually that's what people mean when they talk about distribution. @moqpop we have that answer already.
@nikolaizaicev9297 The OP is on the right track: our financial systems do "rely" on infinite growth, which of course nobody is so deluded to believe it's actually feasible, leading to short-term investment strategies, hypervaluation (Tesla and others...), growth over profit (Amazon...), disregard for sustainability, and so on.
What it should look like? Well, a shift in mentality driven by shifts in policy with the goal of lowering inequality (that is to say increasing access to goods and services, distribution) and incentivizing sustainable production, deincentivizing monopolies (with actual proper enforcing for once), proper taxation (getting rid of tax havens by enforced local taxation), UBI might be an idea (less people should be working, working on the wrong thing does more harm than good), consolidating healthcare (get it as far away from the free market as it possibly can), super high taxation on real estate (buying up 500 houses to put on airbnb should incur major taxes)... and then on until we finally get rid of private property altogether. That list should be enough to get us started. Let's try it out and circle back in a year and see what it accomplished.
Oh ya, I got a novel one too: Ban advertisement. Seriously, just ban it. Wanna sell a toothbrush? There's a communal website (no profit, subsidized) where you type toothbrush and it shows all brands and how to buy one. That's the only "ad" that you can get. Consumption driven by necessity rather than overexposure. There ya go and then all those marketing people can go do something useful and we have proper platforms not subject to sponsorship.
It's wonderful to hear from knowledgeable people. And theyre expected to use their talents for noble purpose and not become puppets of the wealthy masters.
Everyone in India running behind becoming IAS.
WE SHOULD ASPIRE TO BECOME A CREATER OF NEW KNOWLEDGE WHICH TAKES MANKIND FORWARD TOWARDS IMPROVING LIFE AND ITS STANDARD
😂😂😂 people are selfish ...too much to expect
Great Personality
Insightful conversation
I think now less numbers of people are starving to death due to poverty, only thing we have to make sure is that everyone should live a dignified life without facing crimes. We must have a robust system where wealthy people should not be able to annihilate natural resources. Since natural resources can not be manufactured by feeding money.
The motives of the economic game, are to an extent, divorced from natural resources. As people live their lives and pursue their goals, they are not thinking before every action taken, "is this sustainable? How does my behaviour affect the world?" and that is true of even people at the top. They are simply pursuing their goals and playing their roles in society, thinking like the social animals we are, of human things. When it comes to the wealthiest people, it is a real problem, because they can change all of our lives, via lobbying and the organizations they own, while still being ignorant (willfully, or genuinely) of the consequences.
This depends on which part of the world you are from
I can only salute him for his superlative work in Economics and getting the Nobel prize in Economics. ❤🎉😂
Scale is a parameter of humanity. In the '60s there were 6000 international food companies. Now there are 5. The concentration of management is more of a catastrophe than population growth. Our agility is no longer annual but generational. Btw there were no management schools in the '60s either. MBA's have basically ruined equality and ingenuity.
It is simple Sir.
Inequality is an obstinate animal.It never goes away.
It is always there irrespective of time and place.
Noble Winner in Economics giving their analysis based on wrong data.
Thank you so much for providing this on a public platform like UA-cam, so insightful 👍🏻.
Inequality of human life. A subject that has always been in our midst and will never be any lesser ever.
Mr banerjee..Diamond of India
It's far too easy to predict with high confidence that a discussion among economists about inequality will include *no mention* of the idea of sharing natural wealth equally.
A policy of charging fees to industries proportional to emissions, resource extraction or habitat destruction, with proceeds shared equally, would promote sustainability and end poverty. Why is this not part of the public discourse?
I understand how that would promote sustainability. How would that lead to poverty reduction though? Unless you’re suggesting the penalties collected for excessive emissions is routed into education, health and hard infrastructure. If that’s the case, it’s an assumption that governments would do that.
@@claymadness The proceeds from fees would represent the value of natural resources and services, which can be understood as belonging to all. They are made by natural processes, not human effort.
This policy would cause price increases, which would hurt the poor, *unless* fee proceeds are shared equally to all people. *Then*, the poor would come out ahead.
Most people with suits don't know what is to live in real poverty
We don’t need to share out the resources, we need to stop exhuming every resource that’s not absolutely critical for society to function. Nothing is sustainable anymore, in fact we blew past any hopes of sustainability decades ago, now we’re locked into the 6th mass extinction that’s well underway already. Very few people below the age of 40 will be dying of old age.
Our world has become a battlefield.
Kids are taught from a very young age by their families and the society that, destroying one's environment is justified when done for 'The greater good'.
Today in 2024, the condition is so gross that we are reaching tipping points in almost all ecological spheres.
Things can change only when people break the chains and become independent of the few people who pay their salaries, goodies etc. Only by becoming independent of such people can we revive mother earth 🌍
Great Lecture Prof.
Very interesting discussion, lots of insights.
Inequality& equality both are necessary property for human mind & treat carefully.
Not all are born into equal opportunity. Effort through opportunity provides success as relevant thereof. The percentage of success also depends on quality of effort in one's environment as well as availability of " tools , finance and support/ guidance" that one pursues proactively or receives benevolently.
Negative selection plays a big part when you start paying someone to be productive then you create a situation were other will not be productve because they are not be rewarded by the social norm but if you were to remove the incentive the productive people will stop being productive. This has been studies in dogs and other animals when given treats for performance.
Inequality is bound to increase with the disruptions caused by increasing absorption of AI, rising protectionism and the capital intensive nature of modern capitalism.
The breaking point is when it becomes worse than one can survive and no one helps because there's "no incentive to help".
"May I have some more?"
"NO"
Very interesting talk. .... inequality to growth logic. ..!!
I'm happy to see such a prominent economist focusing on this issue. I've said for quite some time that inequality is one of the greatest threats to a nation. I'm glad he brought up the ratio between the CEOs of companies and the lowest paid workers. I've been curious about that, and he confirmed my hypothesis.
Another issue of inequality is that it shifts how resources are allocated. When wealth is concentrated it will shift demand away from certain industries in favor of more luxurious industries. This is because the needs and consumption patterns of people who are very wealthy are different from those who are poor. This can create a distortion where there is actually a greater need, per capita, for more necessary products and services, but due to a lack of resources the need goes unmet.
While I won't write a whole dissertation in the comment section of a UA-cam video, I do feel the need to stress the sheer importance of inequality and the plethora of negative effects as a result of its exacerbation.
Proud of you Professor ❤
Very good talk! Tax the Rich!
On-spot analysis. Hopefully there will be the necessary conclusions and consequences on the political level. Thank you for raising awareness. ❤
In India the education in child level should be in regard to productivity and ambition to become valuable😘
Inequality will always be there...if not why people will work hard and achieve their target
to remain equal
We are proud of you,sir.🙏🙏🙏
Very interesting discussion and interview.Proud of you Dr. Banerjee 🫡🙏
So long as we have developed countries vs developing countries vs underdeveloped countries, inequalities will never end.
Excellent insights!! 👏👏
In india if u earn 2.9 lakhs a year or 25 k a month u become top 10% income earners in india so people who saying im middle class etf u aint middle class.
Excellent session, I loved brutally honest take on AI especially about Indian best minds about to be at brink of losing jobs, something that most elite professionals aren't understanding in its entirety.
Thank you all for this share, so many young concerned faces, shocking state of affairs, worldwide, the fact that the wealthiest seem to be able to find nothing to spend the gross wealth on anything with so many shameful lacks for so many in a world when we have the capacity to provide for all and for the first time enable the human spirit and innate human creativity. The psychopaths it seems have indeed taken over the asylum.
Woww he is teaching in MIT😮
He is too much Senseless in So many Matters 🎉
To summarise:Total wealth of the world has become like our brain.. we only use 1% of it 😎
Without defining what equality or equilibrium means, how can people effectively discuss inequality? By definition, one might suggest distributing wealth to everyone. But how is this a practically feasible solution in the real world? It’s difficult to understand how highly educated individuals at prestigious universities can earn substantial salaries for their lectures while also discussing inequality.
I am proud because Abhijit Banarjee is also a Bengali ❤❤❤
Inequality is by the design and desire of our society
Is this a desire?or manipulation by those who are in the upper layer already?
Whatever may be the topic of conversation, some people are myopic enough to centre it around conspiracy. How can inequality be an outcome desire?. Or conspiracy by upper layer etc etc. Whether one likes it or not, inequality was and still is a present in every country under any idealogies, be it capitalistic or socialistic. Even during communist regime, Soviet Union was divided into two classes - a privileged class or secretive group of Commissars,who formed into an upper layer and the proletariat. So is the case now. Even when the socialism/Communism died ( China is a communist country only in name),the basic structure of the world has not changed. The whole world and not a single country, is ruled by a privileged elite comprising of the richest people as the professor mentioned with a difference that the rule is not based on an ideology like the Soviet Commissars,but based on wealth created through scientific and technological advancements. However much you curse or abuse, inequality is not going anywhere.
Like religious/racial discrimination in the final year, of secondary school, that uses positive action in order to oust/ replace some students with others from another religious/racial group, even though they may not be the best performers. How does this impact on the student who is ousted, who may have worked very hard under extenuating circumstances.
Peace is diplomatic economic development and prosperity is positive reinforcement of economics
Quite informative and so thoughtfully conceived and deliberated discussion
Nice to Listen!🎉 THANKS RESPECTED SIR!🙏
Excellent Presentation 🌹
*LOVE FROM INDIA*
Nope 🙅♂️
saar love from Lundia saar, street sheeter kanglu mukherjee saar
@@llaehtannandella free free Balochistan ❤️
An excellent lecture on Inequality, exposing some of Myths about Inequality and last but not the least is how increase Inequality will affect the lower class, the middle class and the higher class of the rich and poor Countries. In addition the clarity of the lecture is superb. I thank him from the bottom of my heart because what he said is important information for all concerned. ❤❤🎉🎉😂
Great to watch, before sleeping.
The main reasons of drastic inequality are as follows :
1, Most people have strong mindset of GREED . They want to have more benefits even practicing illegal and unethical acts.
2. Most people do not have KIND HEARTS. The sense of sympathy is totally ignored.
3. According to Buddhism , ordinary people have five basic desires : Fortune ( money) , Sex , Fame (reputation) , Eat and Sleep.
Thank you Dr. Banerjee. Your presentation was very insightful. Appreciate it.
Please share your thoughts in a book which can be useful for reference.
People should concentrate on long term growth so there is fundamental growth of economics and e-commerce economy
In these times of increasing inequality and unsustainability, Mahatma Gandhi ji’s ideas of Aparigraha (non-possession), which includes conscious consumerism and sustainable living, and Atmanirbharata (self-reliance), which encompasses economic independence and resilience through self-empowerment, are more relevant than ever. Just as the seemingly impossible task of abolishing apartheid was achieved through Gandhian ideals of non-violence, rooted in self-empowerment, we can address today’s crises by embracing these timeless values.
Thank you Sirs🎉
Abhijit is solving problems, guys.
Biharis are creating problems, guys.
@@orca_ball Woo! you are so intelligent, I would recommend you to preserve your brain.
You have factor the wealth generating class and others. Wealth generators are always financially better off than the employees! You can’t call it inequality!
I will differentiate between the material world and the world of life in this regard.
I think for any particular society in any part of the world material equality is very much necessary for social harmony and it is much more natural and logical than people and economists and intellectuals actually took care to recognise.
For example even in ancient times outside cities most part of the world had the same kind of flora and fauna, natural environment, weather in that localised natural place. And all these things existing in nature were material resources for the people living there.
Also, whether due to that similar natural environment or due to ancestral genetic similarities or something else the variety in human life and life of any other particular species inside any one such location was minimal. The result was social cohesion and much less internal social strife.
However, it was just inside the large settlements/cities where a more variety in human life was observed and those large setttlements invariably came up in regions devoid of natural sustainable capability like arid and desert lands of egypt, middle east and southern pakistan and arid lands of india.
So those places had big settlements probably due to necessities of gathering natural resources from far off places with either trade or conquest and living together to make the people sustain themselves in an inhospitable terrain.
It was alao these regions which gave up great empires , lots of conflicts and unifying religions.
It was also these places which had high inequality in material possession, had internal social strifes rather than inter community strifes and the reason lies in the unnatural man made setup of those places necessitated due to lack of natural resources.
So, to sum up:
Places with natural resources:
1. Homogeneity in local population.
2. Small settlements sustaning on naturally available materials and simple life with less innovation needed by human beings for sustainability.
3. Social cohesion within society.
4. Strifes with dissimilar societies.
5. The more resourceful the region the smaller and more cohesive the community.
Places without natural resources or with inhospitable environment
1. Large settlements and more ingenuinity and complex human created solutions to problems
2. Heterogeneous population.
3. Dissimilar distribution in resources within society, inflexible social hierarchy , in short steep inequality within society both on material level and as time progressed under same conditions even at human level too.
3. Social strifes within society, need for strongly held society through human created systems like empires, kingdoms or through ideas and religious beliefs.
4. The society within was dissimilar itself and large settlements usually were not close to each other and often separated from each other by large tracks of the first group - the small agrarian settlements. So inter settlement strifes were rare ,more crucial was oppression and exploitation of the small settlement agrarian inhabitants living close to the large settlements by the later.
5. The less resourceful or inhospitable the region the greater the need for large settlements.
A dynamic inequality where the individuals reinvest in the economy is a much better tradeoff.
Let s have inequality because Nature is like that. And we will never change that......
Even a layperson like me was able to identify the first 2 reasons, low tax for the rich and high executive salaries and we all know about rich people evading even the tax that is due by using loopholes. The rationale of the CEOs is that they deserve high lat , then shouldn't they bear consequences for going bankrupt and taking funds from tax layers money again ? Shouldn't they return what they took in the years of their tenure ?
correct
Wonderful conversation
We should teach economic literacy to everyone starting high school
Humanity is caught between two extremes. 1. Capitalism, where greed drives the economy. The down sides are exploitation, inequality, social tensions, wars, human rights violation, climate catastrophe etc etc. 2. Socialism, where state has upper hand in economic activities. Down sides are, power concentration, curb on Innovation , corruption, inefficiency, drop in productivity etc etc.
Its better to strike the middle path.
if your bearings are in the PAST, You are moving backwards while the future must be built with a clean slate.
Professors profess intellect of past always.
Nonsense. You can learn deeply from the past, because many problems stay the same, and fixing them is a matter of not repeating past mistakes. The world of today is caused by events of the past. This is true of individuals, and of entire societies.
@@Arbitrary_Monikerpast measurements is a easy way to manipulate fool(which is 90 pc of the world)....the road to future is not past but present
@@RahulKumar-tp4zr Literally all you learn in school is past knowledge. Atoms don't change. We don't change meaningfully unless given hundreds of thousands of years, as a species. Many many patterns repeat predictably, not just rhyme, in society & in the world. You are thinking of some statistics/economics related specific point, I was talking much more broadly.
Foreigners and investment should be welcomed
Pr0f. Abhijit Bannerjee makes it clear that we are living in the age of inequality since 1980s. It is the essence of liberalisation - privatisation - globalisation paradigm. Secondly, there is negetive corelation between inequality and economic justice.
Both of them hamper harmony and peace in any social system. If we add the problem of chronic poverty in this narrative then it becomes obvious that India, and most of the world, must move out of the LPG frame in order to have a better tomorrow in terms of education, health, housing, social harmony and ecological sustsinability.
In short, we need more attention to scholars like Prof. Abhijit Bannerjee and less to chroni capitalists inspired narrations.
Same, our plot is next to a ditch. But I'm a bit privileged to have basic necessities, grateful for that
Extremely good
Free education,
As an ordinary citizen and a fellow Bengalee, I pay due tribute to Prof Banerjee
But the current mainstream concept of economic growth and resulting distribution of wealth to tackle inequality is unsustainable , although the eradication of abject poverty over the last several decades is remarkable
Outside of the box I would like to draw attention of the viewers to a theological concept mentioned in Sura 43, verse 32 in the Qur’an. Here Allah/God says”Are they the ones who distribute your Lord’s bounty?We(majestic plural) are the ones who give them their share of livelihood in this world and WE HAVE RAISED SOME OF THEM ABOVE OTHERS IN RANK SO THAT SOME MAY AVAIL SERVICES FROM OTHERS….”
Based on this and many other commandments, the religion of Islam has a well developed financial and socio-economic doctrine of tackling inequality and establishing social justice without disrupting the social fabric and harmony
And it worked in practice for over a thousand years
May be it’s time to look into this
It is not education that survive the world. Not strength. Not money. But only if it rains and the system is clean and the air is more pure. Only God ❤🎉.
70% taxes was ridiculous, absolutely correct to reduce it by Reagan.
Good discussion respect from Pakistan
Direct taxes should be increased from 15, 20 to 30%....to reduce inequality in any countries 👍
Essential resources should be preserved so that unlimited wants are satisfied and there should be altered.
Thank you dear sir
I venture to say that the majority of people at this talk are hoping to hear of ways of increasing their own wealth so as to increase their own wealth as in the top .001 percent and not interested in controlling or figuring out how to reduce inequality in the world.
This GUY IS SOLVING ISSUES😂😂
With all his brilliance there is more inequalty and poverty today.
It's like saying with all the best measurement tools, why isn't avg. human height increasing? He is an academic who help study, design how to measure inequality. He isn't the one who can tackle it. Ask your politicians and policy makers the right questions maybe.
Yes there is but their was more inequality when there were kings , after the 1800s inequality had gone down and now it's again getting up
@@NA-dx6ii asking politicians and policymakers isn't enough when global inequality is something that individuals - both in the present as well as the past - have had a hand in fostering inequality, whether it's by passing on intergenerational wealth through inheritance, spending lavishly on luxury goods that were not essential for society or by fostering "crony capitalism".
Many people are responsible for this and it's time that citizens stop playing the role of "armchair critics" and engage in active citizenry roles before pointing fingers at others.
And you have brought noble to your biamru state.
The wages one gets as worker of a company goes back to the same company, when this worker becomes consumer of the product / service this same company manufactures or provide.
Inequality have past present future. No solution.
Good talk. Thank you