THE MYTH OF INEQUALITY

"Inequality took 30 years to grow, especially in America and England," he says Branko Milanovic. "Everyone knew, but it was an academic debate, a technical matter". Milanovic has been chief economist of the World Bank and now teaches at the City University of New York. He grew up in

the former Yugoslavia and the age when other teenagers desgañitaban encouraging its powerful basketball team, he was "fascinated" by the "Gini coefficient, Pareto and lognormal distributions." From scattered census and pencil, paper and a calculator data, he built his first series to see how the money is distributed in society. "I spent whole nights hanging around those numbers. They often prefer to go out with friends."

Today, Milanovic is an authority on inequality and is naturally delighted that his hobby has become topical.

'What do you attribute this sudden interest? 'I say at the Rafael del Pino Foundation, where a few hours later will give a lecture.

-A -Responds Crisis.

Americans generally well tolerated differences. As I read another great economist Tyler Cowen, "not sit at the front door to complain about how well it will Bill Gates". But the decision to recapitalize banks with public funds unleashed his anger.

'The taxpayer did not understand that the rich are bailed says Milanovic.

The flame that ignited outrage on Wall Street has not only grown since. In Spain, where people do complain about how well it will Bill Gates, he found fertile ground fire. There are only leftist leaders who claim that "the rich are getting richer, while growing masses sink into poverty." Professor of Ethics Adela Cortina believes that "we have reached an excessive level of inequality [...] threatens democracy." And Oxfam says directly that kills. "Every year," he writes in his report govern for the majority, "only in rich countries, 1.5 million people die by income inequality." And research provides evidence led by Naoki Kondo, a researcher at the University of Yamanashi.

Rich plunder the poor, differences never seen in democracy, even deaths: they are serious charges. Three myths that we will analyze in some detail before returning with Milanovic.

TARES. Despite the strength of Oxfam, the relationship between inequality and health is far from clear. The article itself begins Kondo warning that "systematic reviews [empirical studies] have failed to reach consensus because of the discrepant findings."

In theory, "income inequality not only affects the health of the poor, but to that of the upper classes" through the "psychosocial stress of social comparisons odious," writes Professor of Yamanashi.

Kondo and colleagues reviewed thousands of investigations and their results suggest "a modest adverse effect" to begin with, it "interpreted with caution, given the heterogeneity of the work", but also becomes a mere correlation. "If the link between inequality and mortality were causal [...] over 1.5 million deaths could be prevented in 30 OECD countries."

You see, writing Kondo is far more cautious than the melodramatic and categorical assertion that "in rich countries 1.5 million people in the high income inequality die".

Even "if the link between inequality and mortality were causal" and "psychosocial stress of odious comparisons" kill, what should we fight? Does inequality or envy? I do not want deprimirles, but the second we so deeply inscribed in the DNA that, when we have no hand income differences, we invent any other. Tells the anthropologist Christopher von Rueden in an article in the journal Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health on Tsimane. This tribe of the Bolivian Amazon all decisions are agreed. It is a model of society "small and politically egalitarian preindustrial". The perfect anti-capitalist paradise