Samir Amin

Research Foundation of State University of New York
Income Distribution in the Capitalist System

Author(s): Samir Amin
Source: Review (Fernand Braudel Center), Vol. 8, No. 1 (Summer, 1984), pp. 3-28
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Review, VIII, 1, Summer 1984, 3-28
Income Distribution in the
Capitalist System
S amir Amin
What is at issue when we speak

of income distribution?
Empirical research on income distribution is a relatively

recent phenomenon. It was virtually unknown before the
Second World War but has grown rapidly in the course of the
first 30 years after the war, perhaps under the influence of a
reformist political objective of seeking to improve this distribu-
tion. Today we have measures of income inequality in terms of
Gini coefficients and in terms of graphs of Lorenz curves for a
large number of countries, both developed and under-
developed. What one measures or compares in this research are
monetary incomes (expressed therefore in francs or dollars for
a given moment in time) of persons or households in the active
work force in the sense of national accounting (the social units
of income expenditure), or of real income, which means taking
into consideration a consumer's breadbasket or a price system.
By analogy, non-commodified production (that part of agricul-
tural production that is consumed by the producer, self-created
housing, etc.), with the exception of household production
(and this exception tells us a lot about the concept of social
© 1984 Research Foundation of SUNY
4 Samir Amin
work which is beh

estimated at prices
production. Althou
either the nature,
theory that is be
discussions of distr
theless, to underli
distribution.
This is all the more so since the particular measure of
inequality is subject to innumerable practical difficulties of
measurement, among which are the following:
(1) Although we have precise and valid information con-

cerning consumption, our information concerning income
is much more dubious, if only because tax declarations
are often falsified.
(2) The juridical distinction between the income of individ-
uals and the income of enterprises, particularly those
that have a corporate form, is in part artificial, and some
consumption that is in fact personal is charged off to the
enterprise.
(3) The theoretical distinction between net income and
gross income is, as those engaged in national accounting
well know, difficult to draw in practice. In fact as a
consequence, empirical data concerning income distri-
bution systematically underestimate the real level of
inequality. Still, one can start with the distribution of
consumption and derive therefrom a few hypotheses
concerning the income that is "saved." One can measure
its extent by taking the difference between new national
income and the final consumption of households, and
distributing this total (which includes the income of
corporations) among different categories and classes of
income of social strata that own or control capital and
urban real estate.
But over and beyond these exercises in fastidious collection

of information and its analysis, it is reasonable to ask what is
the significance of the distribution thus measured.
From the point of view of the Marxist critique of political
economy, the concept of distribution relates to a commercial
Income Distribution S
economy, in this case a cap

guarantee "to each according
nor the use values that allo
substitute for exchange valu
not wish to fall into Utopian
that it is the social labor nec
use values in question that
estimates should take into co
not the quality) of the contr
labor, and finally that the n
strictly equal, at least relativ
The transition to Communism - socialism - is based on a
principle less free from the constraints of scarcity: "to each
according to his work." Here the concept of distribution
remains valid, just like that of value. Furthermore, labor
remains unequally productive of value according to its level of
skills. How shall we measure this? The only subjective social
criterion of this measure is the quantity of labor necessary for
the training of skilled workers: the time for their education and
their vocational training. The maximum duration of training is
15 years and the duration of active work life is 30 years. That
means that the maximum gap between the social productivity
of the most skilled labor and that of unskilled labor cannot
exceed a ratio of 1.5 to 1. Any other definition of the gap,
founded on scarcity, for example, is tautological and ideologi-
cal, as we have previously argued (1983b).
The question of the contribution of different workers to
national product in the socialist transition is nonetheless made
more complex if this transition has to be analyzed within a
national framework, which in addition is heir to a period of
capitalist underdevelopment. Productivity of labor will, in this
case, necessarily be very unequal from one unit of production
to another and from one sector to another, according to the
degree of modernity of the means of production they have at
their disposal. This is a practical problem faced by policy in
China for example. The adoption of the extreme principle ("to
each worker according to productivity of his work") in fact
means that extreme inequalities are reproduced, notably
6 Samir Amin
between those in
those in the cou
violate the polit
alliance between
political princip
quantities of wor
units with differ
artisanal units-ind
analysis on the la
of Maoism (1983b
develop product
workers individu
this principle of
practices of inequ
character of a
obvious if one loo
place, productivit
to another. It can
an economy con
equipped with th
consequently wit
One comes close t
countries, and on
That is why, as w
tion of value add
relatively closel
countries, but ver
Third World. In
proves, in our o
level of the worl
national compon
Secondly, the g
for labor is what
ought to be, were
gap in fact result
its history and
exercise of power
Income Distribution 7
result of the history of th

capitalist forces. If one arg
capitalism, but only concre
reason why this important
structure of distribution
way.
Still and all one can com
distributions in the contem
struck by the observatio
curves is not at all a chance
all the developed capitalist
are grouped together in a
The distributions in all the
World are, on the other han
(Band B of Figure 4). Two
indicated for each of the
following:
25% of the population receive 10% of the income in the

core and 5% in the periphery;
50% of the population receive 25% of the income in the core
and 10% in the periphery;
75% of the population receive 50% of the income in the core
and 33% in the periphery.
The analysis of this veritable statistical cuisine that we have

allowed ourselves to use to indicate the contours of these bands
would require numerous fastidious pages to read correctly.
The skeptical reader can nonetheless verify these results by
consulting the works undertaken by the World Bank under the
direction of Hollis Chenery, the expert for the World Employ-
ment Program, and works of Dharam Ghai, Samir Radwan,
and others (1979). The distributions of Gini coefficients that
are given locate all the curves that correspond to them within
these bands. For the developed countries these coefficients are
all in the neighborhood of 0.30; for the underdeveloped coun-
tries they go from 0.33 to 0.45. Supplementary verification, for
the countries of the Third World, would show that the esti-
mates of the World Bank all tend to underestimate this
inequality.
8 Samir Amin
Household budget
among the best stat
of the poorest quar
of the population o
37%, respectively, o
percentages go as
follows that our me
distribution. Now i
sumption represen
redistribution comi
lic charity, illegal a
savings are insignif
The rough congrue
countries suggests
to each other today
true. The position
suggests that imp
existence of power
improvement is ex
most advanced So
those of northern
minimal inequality
States) and the les
near the maximal
The distribution of curves of the countries of the Third
World can at first seem disconcerting. There is no visible
correlation between the degree of inequality on the one hand
and, on the other hand, such variables as net industrial product
per capita, the degree of urbanization, and the level of indus-
trialization; but we will see below that a closer examination
will make some sense out of this distribution.
For purposes of comparison we have placed on Figure 4 the
Lorenz curve of China. Inequality is far less there than in even
the most technically and socially advanced capitalist countries,
and a fortiori less than in the countries of the capitalist Third
World. This fact shows the putting into practice, at least
partially, of the principles of Maoism. We have not sought to
measure inequality in income distribution in the U.S.S.R.,
which would require a diff

cially, in addition to the s
price and income system
know that during the pe
town and country reache
extensive accumulation financed in this manner is over. Since
the reforms of the Khrushchev era, inequality is seemingly less
and comes closer to the situation of developed capitalist coun-
tries. The nature and type of privileges that characterize the
U.S.S.R. (for example, those benefiting the military sector of
society) nonetheless render these comparisons artificial. This is
an entirely different kind of society (see Amin, 1983; Castor-
iadis, 1981).
One might, nonetheless, ask some very interesting questions
that will be the object of the developments discussed below:
(1) Can one rise above the empirical level to a higher level of
explanation of the essential reasons that explain the
position of one country relative to another?
(2) Are there any tendencies (toward greater or less equality)
and how might these be explained?
One way to begin to answer these questions would be to

compare the evolution of the empirical distribution over a long
period, for example, over the course of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. The necessary empirical base for such
analysis is unhappily non-existent, although certain elements
permit us to make guesses about the direction of movement in
different, successive phases of the history of the principal
developed capitalist countries and of some underdeveloped
countries. Even were such an information base to be created -
which would undoubtedly be extremely useful- it is unlikely
that an interpretation of its meaning would be "self-evident."
A theory is always necessary to make sense out of data; data
never speak for themselves. What we shall try to do here is
locate ourselves at a theoretical conceptual level that would
allow an interpretation of the present, and, consequently, sug-
gest some questions concerning the laws of capitalist accumu-
lation.
10 Samir Amin
The Distribution of Income

in the Core Capitalist Countries
We shall try to reconstruct here the Lorenz curve cor-

responding to the median A of the band of distribution of the
O.E.C.D. countries based on a limited number of hypotheses.
First, if the social formation were a strict case of the capitalist
mode of production, the structure of distribution would be
determined by the rate of surplus-value. If we assume that the
entire population would be proletarianized and that all the
proletarians would sell their labor force at the same price,
which is its value, and if at the same time we assume that the
number of capitalists is negligible, a straight line of type Pi
(Figure 1), whose slope depends on the level of surplus-value,
would typify distribution in a social formation thus reduced to
its simplest, most abstract expression.
We should observe that the slope of the straight line Pi is not
the level of surplus-value, but is linked to it by the transforma-
tion of values into prices and into profits whose rate is equal-
ized. If profits overall constitute 60% of the products expressed
in prices, and wages overall represent consequently 40%, the
straight line Pi of Figure 1 would represent the distribution of
income. But it is not necessarily the case that the rate of
surplus-value would be 60 per cent. This rate can be calculated,
since the quantity of total direct and indirect labor necessary to
produce each of the physical quantities of the different
commodities offered on the market can be calculated. A
certain proportion of total labor would thus be necessary to
produce the commodities consumed by the proletarians, which
could be calculated and which determine the rate of surplus-
value.
In Figure 1 the slope of straight line Pi (40%) is thus the slope
of the basic straight line representing distribution in the case
where the rate of surplus-value results in wages being 60% of
the net product.
If one now adjusts the hypotheses such that the number of
capitalists comes up to 5% of the population, and the income of
each capitalist is at least higher than that of a proletarian, the
Lorenz curve would be represented by the straight line that is
broken into two segments, illustrated by P2 in the graph.
Income Distribution 1 1
Figure 1 : Distribution in the Core of
Pj - Slope of surplus-value (60%).

?2 - Equal distribution between wage
Rj - Unequal distribution between w
R2 - Unequal distribution among wag
Rc - Final adjusted distribution (dot
Now suppose that the pri

unequally distributed aroun
such that the ratio of the upp
4 to 1 . We would have in co
tion income:
24% of the population receives 6. 1% of income;

48% of the population receives 18.3% of income;
12 Samir Amin
72% of the populat

95% of the populat
We observe that th
that the upper qua
the average wage i
source of income o
around a mean of
represents 40% of
the Lorenz curve that describes this situation.
Now let us introduce into the schema the existence of a
certain number of small businesses and of other activities such
as the liberal professions. Let us assume that wage workers
constitute 80% of the total population and that the average
individual income of members of these other social groups is to
be located in the middle and higher sectors of the distribution.
The highest segment of the curve would thus be displaced from
Ri to R2 and the broken line Ri R2 would represent approxi-
mately the empirical Lorenz curve.
One could introduce supplementary factors into the empiri-
cal analysis of reality, for example, the existence of civil ser-
vants paid by a budget based on a tax on profits. That would
hardly change the structure of the curve given that the salaries
in the state bureaucracy are distributed relatively and abso-
lutely in ways similar to those that characterize the wages of
productive workers. The Lorenz curve overall would move
upward going from R2 to Rc (dotted).
We have at last obtained a curve reasonably close to that
that reflects the empirical reality of the contemporary devel-
oped capitalist world. The shape of this curve is determined by
three essential elements: (a) basic distribution between wages
and profits as required by the rate of surplus-value: 60-40; (b)
wage-working sector of 75-80% of the total populations; and
(c) a hierarchy of wages that is 4 to 1. We have, thus,
approximately achieved the following results:
25% of the population obtain 10% of the income;
50% of the population obtain 25% of the income;
75% of the population obtain 50% of the income.

in Agrarian Societies
Consider first the situation of a pre-capitalist agrarian
society. The historical diversity of real situations of these
societies is enormous. Let us therefore presume the model of a
fully tributary society in which the peasantry constitutes 90%
of the population and is subject to equal exploitation, and in
which there exists a dominant state class including its depen-
dents that constitutes 10% of the population and that appro-
priates the tributary rent levied on the peasant communities.
The broken line Ai in Figure 2 represents the distribution of
income in the case of a 50-50 sharing of the income between the
peasants and tribute. Let us observe that in this case incomes
are established directly in products that incorporate labor. In
effect, society is not commercialized and tribute is levied
directly in work and in kind.
If the tributary rent (50% of the product) is levied on
relatively undifferentiated peasant communities, which how-
ever enjoy different and unequal natural conditions resulting in
levels of production per capita going from 1 for the poorest
quartile to 2 for the richest one, the broken line will shift from
Ai to A2 (Figure 2) and we will have the following situation:
22.5% of the population receives 8.3% of the income;

45% of the population receives 19.5% of the income;
67.5% of the population receives 33.3% of the income;
90% of the population receives 50% of the income.
Now let us suppose that an agrarian society originally of this

type is integrated into global capitalist development as a "semi-
colony." A small class of plantation owners and of rich pea-
sants (10% of the rural population) will appropriate tribute in
the form of land rent.
Under the pressure of demographic growth, and in the
absence of an industrial outlet, at the end of 50-100 years a
third of the rural population will become absolute paupers.
14 Samir Amin
Figure 2: Distribution i
Aj - "Egalitarian" tribu
A2 - "Inegalitarian" tri
A3 - (Peripheral) planta
A4 - Moderate agrarian
A5 - Radical agrarian re
A - (dotted line) Rural
This third of the

sants with very sm
comparable to that
We then would
income:
55% of the rural population receive 10% of the income;

77% of the rural population receive 30% of the income;
95%-99% of the rural population receive 66% of the income.
Line A3, which describes t

developed "semi-colony," is rath
the countries of south and east Asia as well as of the Middle
East (from Egypt to Iran) in the period immediately after the
Second World War, 1945-50.
Subsequently, there were agrarian reforms in most of these
areas. If one excludes the Communist countries (China, North
Korea, Vietnam), these reforms, which were more or less radi-
cal, redistributed the land in favor of middle strata to the
detriment of the richest land owners, without modifying the
fate of the poorest half of the peasantry. Furthermore, internal
differentiation became more sharp within the middle stratum
of medium and rich peasants, beneficiaries to various degrees
of the progress of capital accumulation (modernization of
technology, commercial activities, linked money-lending activ-
ities, etc.). The curve thus moved from A3 to a position located
in the band A4-A5, A4 representing the case of slow and timid
reforms and A5 that of the most radical reforms possible. This
has the following possible results:
25% of the rural population receives 6% of the agricultural

income;
income;
income.
The curve that corresponds to this distribution coincides in

fact with a median representative of the real situations in south
and southeast Asia and of the Arab world at the present time,
as one can verify by looking at the various work on the distri-
bution of rural income in these regions (studies of the I.L.O.,
The World Employment Program, and our own studies, 1966,
1982a, 1982b).
It's interesting to note that this structure, which is asso-
ciated, in the present phase of capitalist development, with the
hegemony of the local bourgeoisie (agrarian reforms and
industrialization), can be explained by four essential factors:
(a) the antecedent of a rural class society that leaves at the
disposal of the peasantry only about half of their production;
(b) the expropriation of the surplus in the form of land rent by
16 Samir Amin
large landowners, a
sants; (c) a "natur
range of 1 to 2;
constitution of a s
third of the rural labor force.
The "model" in question corresponds thus, it seems, to the
real situation in Latin America, at least for the large coun-
tries - Mexico, Columbia, Peru, Brazil - but perhaps less well
to the situation in certain regions of central America, typified
by Somoza's Nicaragua and Guatemala. The "model," on the
other hand, is certainly different in Black Africa where the
prerequisite of a local class society is weaker, and the availabil-
ity of land greater. Here distribution is no doubt less unequal,
although precise and sufficient information is lacking. The
tendency is nonetheless in the direction of the emergence of
stronger differentiation, as all concrete studies have shown (see
for example our 1967 study concerning the Ivory Coast).

in Contemporary Peripheral Capitalism
Contemporary underdeveloped capitalist countries cannot
be treated as though they had only a rural dimension. We must
therefore consider separately the question of the distribution of
income in the rural economy, then in the new urban economy,
and finally combine the two into a national structure.
In the urban economy we find a capitalist sector (which only
employs, let us say, half the active urban population) about
which the analyses made above are valid with the following
slight modifications: (a) a higher level of surplus-value result-
ing in a division between wages and profits of 40-60 instead of
60-40; and (b) a hierarchy of wages that is sharper (6-1 instead
of 4-1). On the other hand, persons in the "informal" sector,
which employs more or less half of the active urban popula-
tion, receive income of the order of magnitude of that of the
poorest quartile of the capitalist sector. In these conditions the
distribution of non-agricultural income looks as follows:
24% of the population of the capitalist sector receive 2.8% of

the income of the sector;
48% of the population of the

of the income of the sector;
the income of the sector;
the income of the sector.
In the informal sectors the incomes are analogous to those of

the lowest quartile of the preceding distribution; that is, if this
population constitutes half of the urban population, they earn
about 6% of the total urban income.
Curve Ai of Figure 3 represents the distribution of income in
the capitalist and informal sectors taken together (75% of the
population receiving less than 10% of the income), and Curve
A2, the adjusted distribution after including the administrative
and small business sectors.
If one wishes to combine the rural and urban curves, one
must obviously take into account two principal factors: (a) the
proportion of urban to rural population, which varies; and (b)
the marked gap between urban and rural net product per
capita, when this product is measured in prices and current
income, as it is in the statistics of the real contemporary
economy. This gap is always of the order of 1 to 3, that is to say,
the product per capita is three times higher in the urban
economy than it is in the rural economy. Once again we insist
on this crucial point, which expresses the mode of operation of
the law of value at the level of the world capitalist system. We
can, therefore, combine the agrarian and urban distributions
into a single Lorenz curve. Assuming that the urbanized popu-
lation is 35% of the whole, one would have the following:
35% of the population (the urban sector) receives 62% of the

income;
65% of the population (the rural sector) receives 38% of the
income.
The combination of the two curves (A2, adjusted urban

sector, and B, the rural world, in Figure 3) gives us the
following results:
25% of the population receives 5% of the income;

50% of the population receives 12% of the income;
75% of the population receives 35% of the income.
18 Samir Amin
Figure 3 : Distribution in t
Aj - Urban distribution (c
A2 - Adjusted distribution
B - Rural world (A of Gr
Rp - Overall distribution (
Rc - Distribution of centr
The broken line R

weighted combinatio
placed on Figure 3 cu
core of the system.
the difference betwe
at the periphery of t
The result thus obtained,

structed on the basis of sim
interesting. The curve obtain
the actual distributions in th
results from the combination
(a) an urbanization that affe
level of industrialization th
well-known fashion (a range
covering a substantial porti
basis of the described distrib
tion of a relatively modern
urban population,
t in which
a so-called informal sector w
rural society marked by arc
productivity approximatel
zone, according to the criter
resulting generalized pover
tion surplus (a third of th
differentiation land among
class of rich peasants forthe
having not modified the str
poor and rich halves of the r
inequality within the rich se
This situation corresponds,
with nuances particular to ea
the contemporary Third Wo
its population: India and S
world, Latin America, and
The question we must answ
transitory, that is to say, w
responds to it and that descr
of developed countries.
The Worldwide Expansion

and the Distribution of Income
The two Lorenz curves Rc and Rp of Figure 3 illustrate the

considerable distance that separates the models of distribution
20 Samir Amin
in the core and the

there a historical t
linked to the mov
difficult subject w
(a) There is no hist

words, the distribu
economic and socia
divergent, are aut
"Marxist" form by
class struggles in al
the bourgeoisie an
international com
cupied in the int
capitalist system wo
diverse situations.
(b) There is a historical tendency of immiseration and of growing
inequality (going from A to B). It remains to be analyzed why
this should be so (resulting from what predominant force that
cannot be counteracted by opposing forces) and at what level it
is so (at the level of each capitalist state separately, at the level
of the totality of developed or underdeveloped countries, or
even at the level of the world-economy including both the
center and the periphery.
(c) There is an historical tendency operating in the direction of a
progressive reduction of inequality (going from B to A). The
situation of the contemporary periphery is simply that of a
transition toward capitalist development that has not yet been
completed.
The thesis of immiseration in Marx presumes a basic trend

involving the long-term rise in the level of surplus-value. This
plays in the final analysis a determining role in the distribution
of income in the capitalist mode of production. The hierarchies
of wages and of secondary redistributions are located around
an axis essentially determined by this rate.
In this case it is necessary to indicate precisely the following:
(a) The augmentation of the rate of surplus-value does not involve

ipso facto a reduction in the level of profits. In this complex
question our position has been stated elsewhere (1973).
(b) The stability of the overall p

observe in developed capitalis
does not necessarily imply the
value. In effect the concept of
terms of the productive sectors
actually measure quantitatively
the other hand, in the "service
productivity by remuneratio
does it mean to say that a doct
his "productivity"? It may be
value when its rate-rises require
the expansion of the tertiary
have spelled out the import
secondary distribution and K
the stability of the global st
responses to the problem of
developing faster than the ind
surplus-value is rising
(c) The eventual rise of the rate
maintenance of the stability of
expansion of the tertiary sec
contrary - the increase of r
incomes (including that of pea
in productivity. This parallel
requisite of realization.
The thesis of immiseration is an abstract formulation of a

concrete question. Does capitalist expansion progressively
benefit the largest number of people in terms of their relative
standard of living or does it tend to polarize society?
We know quite well the concrete history of accumulation in
the developed core capitalist countries. Over and above local
variation, one plausible generalization may be formulated
along the following lines. The peasant revolution, which in
those areas marked the beginning of the era of capital, reduced
inequality in the countryside wherever it was radical. This
reduction came at the expense of the "feudal sectors," but at
the same time it impoverished a minority of poor peasants who
were pushed into the cities. The wage worker initially received
a low level of wages determined by the income of the poor
22 Samir Amin
peasants. This level

at this level (or even
of the landless pea
point in time (abo
income of "middle"
in conjunction with
tendency toward eq
income, although th
each stage of the ac
structures of the a
stage of capital, th
dency to reduce ine
tion within imperia
tional division of labor favors social redistribution. Still one
cannot generalize, since the comparative evolutions of Sweden
and the United States, for example, are quite different.
One is thus led willy-nilly to an inability to pursue this
analysis on the core countries in isolation; one has to place this
evolution within the framework of the world-system. Our
thesis here is that the stability of distribution in the core
countries in the contemporary era does not exclude, but in fact
supposes, a much more unequal distribution in the periphery.
The realization of value at the level of the system as a whcfle
requires this complementary opposition of structures.
One is thus led to the unavoidable question: What is the
trend of the movement of distribution in the peripheries? What
one observes is that distribution is more unequal in the Third
World than in the contemporary developed core countries.
One is less sure about what the trends were in the periphery in
the course of the history of integration into the world capitalist
system. But, although precise information is quite partial in
this regard, it seems quite clear, if one interprets the results of
most of the work in this domain (to which we refer the reader),
that the most marked trend is in the direction of the increase of
inequality, at least in the course of the last century (1880-1980).
A thesis frequently advanced is that inequality is the price of
accumulation and that once the first phase of accumulation is
passed (by the reduction of the

tend to reduce this inequalit
popularity in quite diverse c
Right to certain Anglo-Saxo
Warren (1980) and the criticism
(notably by A. Brewer [1980],
[1980, 1982]) take more or less
This work seems to us to subst
the world expansion of capit
same time that it unifies, the a
is reduced to its unitary tende
partisans of theses of unificat
that the accentuation of inequ
argument of the World Bank,
students.) This lighthearted
political significance from the
that capitalism worsens the sit
but will improve it subsequentl
problems of our society, but t
This argument is aggravated b
critics' work of political anal
captialist formations and their
qualitative distinction between
formations.
Without entering into the details of this debate, to which we
refer the reader, let us say that our thesis here is that the most
radical bourgeois national projects in the Third World are
probably doomed to failure and to submission to the require-
ments of transnationalization. Along with this thesis of "com-
pradorization" of the bourgeoisie of the periphery, we believe
it is possible to affirm that the distribution in the Third World
does not tend to move in a direction from more to less inegal-
itarian, even slowly. If any movement can be observed, it is
rather one in the other direction, in the direction of increasing
inequality. Given this fact, which has every likelihood of
remaining true for decades to come, we deduce a thesis con-
24 Samir Amin
cerning revolutionar
tion at the global lev
The idea of progress
lag in time is obviou
but always false. Th
oped countries offe
countries will be tom
of capitalist
history
lie, remains quite ali
In the logicof this v
ity in distribution i
only, without qualit
merely of greater in
operation and the de
qualitatively differ
countries.
If in fact one allocates different resources (unskilled labor
and skilled labor, capital) to the final consumers (the different
strata of the population according to their income, which they
receive directly and indirectly through investments and public
expenditures), one discovers the following:
(a) In the core countries the different resources are allocated to the
consumption of each stratum in proportions that are more or
less the same as the share of consumption of each of these
strata. For example, if the necessary consumption (by which
we mean necessary for the reproduction of the labor force)
represents 50% of the total consumption and 50% of the
surplus consumption, the share of capital and the labor force
of different levels of skills (low, medium, high) allocated,
respectively, to necessary consumption and surplus consump-
tion are 50-50 for each of the categories of resources (capital,
unskilled labor, skilled labor).
(b) In the periphery, on the other hand, the rare resources are
allocated to the consumption of the richest stratum in pro-
portions that are greater than the proportion of their con-
sumption in total consumption. This "distortion" of distribu-
tion to the benefit of higher

distribution is inequal. For ex
employment of medium and h
secondary education, techni
education), the Arab world surp
of global consumption, absorbs
opposed to it being the same p
1982a). Furthermore, one note
same time for an increase of in
and after 1974) and an increase
rare resources. One notes, furth
marked in the Arab world (wh
capita is higher) than in other r
and sub-Saharan Africa) and tha
rare resources is similarly more
The productive apparatus of th

thus not the reproduction of t
earlier stage of their evoluti
qualitatively. That is the meani
tional division of labor. These d
while the Lorenz curve is stab
moves in the direction of A i to A2, that is toward less
inequality, in the periphery it moves in the direction of B2 to Bi,
toward greater inequality. The distortion in distribution is a
condition of enlarged reproduction, of accumulation at the
world level.
In this sense the thesis of Marx concerning immiseration is
perfectly visible at the world level. If distribution tends to be
more and more unequal in the periphery, whose population
constitutes the majority of the world-system, and stable in the
core, it obviously evolves toward greater inequality at the
global level. Is not the fact that immiseration is manifested at
the global level but not at the level of the core countries one
more proof that the law of value operates at the global level and
not at that of individual isolated capitalist formations? How-
ever, immiseration operates in the periphery not only by means
26 Samir Amin
Figure 4: Distribution in
A - Band of distribution of core countries.
B - Band of distribution of peripheral formations.

C - China.
of the increase of the rate of surplus-value but also via the

indirect extraction of surplus labor in non-capitalist forms
whether they are long existing or newly created.
Our analyses assist us in understanding the position of the
Lorenz curves in the different underdeveloped countries in
Band B. If the gap between the productivity of (archaic)
agriculture and (modern)

proportion of industrial pro
trialization, then there is a
become less strong in the "s
as Mexico) than in countri
structure (such as Rwanda
The analysts of the World B
thesis of the stages of grow
between net domestic produ
distribution. The more the
This is self-evident if one s
the totality of developed a
system, for inequality is
furthermore, countries wit
tautological since it denies i
studied - that core and pe
quantitatively.
We thus return to the thesis of immiseration at the world
level.
References
Amin, Samir (1966). L'Economie du Maghreb, 2 vols. Paris: Minuit.
Amin, Samir (1967). Le Développement du Capitalisme en Côte d'Ivoire. Paris:

Minuit.
Amin, Samir (1969). "Niveau des Salaires, Choix des Techniques de Production et
Repartition du Revenu,*4 in A.D. Smith, éd., Les problèmes de la politique des
Salaires dans le Développement Economique. Geneve: Cahiers de THES, 320-48.
Amin, Samir (973). L'Echange inégal et la Loi de la Valeur. Paris: Anthropos.

Amn, Samir (1982a). The Arab Economy Today. London: Zed Press.
Amin, Samir (1982b). Irak et Syrie, 1960-1980. Paris: Minuit.
Amin, Samir (1983a). "Expansion ou Crise de Capitalisme?" Third World Quarterly,

V, 2, Apr., 361-85.
Amin, Samir (1983b). The Future of Maoism. New York: Monthly Review Press.
28 Samir Amin
Baran, Paul & Sweezy, Pau

Brewer, Anthony (1980).
London: Routledge & Keg
Castoriadis, Cornelius (1981
Ghai, Dharam et al, eds. ( 1

London: Macmillan.
Schiffer, Jonathan (1981). "The Changing Pattern of Development or the Accumu-

lated Wisdom of Samir Amin," World Development, IX, 6, June, 515-37.
Smith, Sheila (1980). "The Ideas of Samir Amin: Theory or Tautology,** Journal of
Development Studies, XVII, I, Oct.
Smith, Sheila (1982). "Class Analysis Versus World Systems: Critique of Samir
Amin's Typology of Under-development," Journal of Contemporary Asia, XII,
7-18.
Warren, Bill (1980). Imperialism, Pioneer of Capitalism. London: New Left Books.

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Research Foundation of State University of New York

Income Distribution in the Capitalist System

Income Distribution in the

What is at issue when we speak

Empirical research on income distribution is a relatively

© 1984 Research Foundation of SUNY

work which is beh

(1) Although we have precise and valid information con-

But over and beyond these exercises in fastidious collection

economy, in this case a cap

result of the history of th

25% of the population receive 10% of the income in the

The analysis of this veritable statistical cuisine that we have

which would require a diff

One way to begin to answer these questions would be to

The Distribution of Income

We shall try to reconstruct here the Lorenz curve cor-

Figure 1 : Distribution in the Core of

Pj - Slope of surplus-value (60%).

Now suppose that the pri

24% of the population receives 6. 1% of income;

72% of the populat

The Distribution of Income

22.5% of the population receives 8.3% of the income;

Now let us suppose that an agrarian society originally of this

This third of the

55% of the rural population receive 10% of the income;

Line A3, which describes t

25% of the rural population receives 6% of the agricultural

The curve that corresponds to this distribution coincides in

The Distribution of Income

24% of the population of the capitalist sector receive 2.8% of

48% of the population of the

In the informal sectors the incomes are analogous to those of

35% of the population (the urban sector) receives 62% of the

The combination of the two curves (A2, adjusted urban

25% of the population receives 5% of the income;

The broken line R

The result thus obtained,

The Worldwide Expansion

The two Lorenz curves Rc and Rp of Figure 3 illustrate the

in the core and the

(a) There is no hist

The thesis of immiseration in Marx presumes a basic trend

(a) The augmentation of the rate of surplus-value does not involve

(b) The stability of the overall p

The thesis of immiseration is an abstract formulation of a

peasants. This level

passed (by the reduction of the

tion to the benefit of higher

The productive apparatus of th

B - Band of distribution of peripheral formations.

of the increase of the rate of surplus-value but also via the

agriculture and (modern)

Amin, Samir (1966). L'Economie du Maghreb, 2 vols. Paris: Minuit.

Amin, Samir (1967). Le Développement du Capitalisme en Côte d'Ivoire. Paris:

Amin, Samir (973). L'Echange inégal et la Loi de la Valeur. Paris: Anthropos.

Amin, Samir (1983a). "Expansion ou Crise de Capitalisme?" Third World Quarterly,

Baran, Paul & Sweezy, Pau

Ghai, Dharam et al, eds. ( 1

Schiffer, Jonathan (1981). "The Changing Pattern of Development or the Accumu-

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