According to a report from the Wall Street Journal: "Globalization has made the world a more equal place, lifting the economic fortunes of billions of poor people over the last quarter century. Here's the rub: At the same time, it has made richer countries more unequal—squeezing the incomes of the poor and the middle class''".
"'For a while, the financial crisis appeared to have reversed the trend toward more inequality in industrialized countries. But the latest data suggest it was only a brief interruption''.
In about 2010, the pre-crisis trends reasserted themselves, as government stimulus gave way to austerity, unemployment benefits ran out and—most importantly—the actions of central banks boosted returns on financial assets, helping the better off.
As central banks pumped unprecedented sums of money into western economies, the super-rich have thrived as prices of high-end properties in cities such as London and New York have rocketed and equity markets soared.
Figures compiled by Emmanuel Saez of University of California Berkeley and Thomas Piketty of Paris School of Economics showed that in 2012 the top 10% took half of all income earned in the U.S. That's the highest since 1917, the first year for which there is reasonable data.
"I think we have a political problem. At some point, the middle classes in rich countries could turn against globalization," says Mr. Piketty. A world order in which a majority of people benefits—but an influential minority doesn't— may not be sustainable for long.
Some experts see such disparities becoming even more entrenched in the richer economies—with the divisions between the very rich and the rest being decided by whether they have access to capital. If they are right, developed societies will return in some ways to the world of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Branko Milanovic, a former World Bank economist now with the City University of New York, says data from household surveys show that, from 1988 to 2008, real incomes of the poorest 50% in the U.S. grew just 23%.
Their counterparts in the bottom 50% in Germany and Japan fared worse, the poorest Japanese seeing their real incomes fall by 2% in real terms. Meanwhile, incomes of the top 1% of Americans grew 113%, a figure that other studies suggest may be an underestimate.
"National inequalities, almost everywhere except Latin America, have gone up," Mr. Milanovic says.
Globally though, the new working and middle classes of emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil have emerged as big beneficiaries of the last 20 years. The biggest losers are the world's poorest 5%, many in Africa.
