Economics for the underprivileged

Don't judge this book by its clickbait title. The author actually agrees that poverty—no matter how defined—has reduced globally, though at a far slower pace than the rate at which wealth has concentrated at the top.

- SANJEEV AHLUWALIA

The book is in two parts. Part one is titled "The Uneven Economy". It chronicles the fact that "knowledge" workers and capitalists are rewarded much more than skilled wage earners, even though the latter are more "essential" in daily life, as we discovered during the Covid pandemic.

Until "essentiality" translates into a fair share of the income pie, economies will tend to get hollowed out, become less resilient and more vulnerable to global disruptions—a viewpoint similar to US President Donald Trump's current trade and investment agenda. The increasing numbers of billionaires (up from 273 in 1990 to 2,781 in 2024) and their wealth growing faster than inflation (up from $582 billion to $14.2 trillion) are a consequence of the wider adoption of the market-based economy model that promotes the concentration of wealth.

What, then, of "meritocracy"—that valued "invisible hand" of efficiency which allows only the most competitive to survive? Clearly, market economies do promote meritocracy much more than alternative medieval systems or modern state-controlled systems. But meritocracy is insufficient to get rid of inequity. In the US, over 30 percent of children born poor stay poor and fewer than 10 percent become rich. In comparison, fewer than one in 10 children born rich end up poor. Inherited wealth, contacts, and attitudes still determine destiny.