Why does Milanovic compare class with location when it comes to measuring income

inequalities world-wide?

Why does he think that migration nowadays is the best pathway to upward social mobility?

Melisa Yilmaz-137611

In the 19th century European climate, the striking claim put forward by Marx and Engels was

to explain income inequalities between societies with socioeconomic classes. There were two

major socioeconomic classes: the capitalist class, which owns the means of production, and

the proletarian class, who sell their labor for a living. The number of middle-income people

who were not included in these classes was very small.

But according to the author, the concept of class is no longer sufficient to explain the

economic inequality between societies in the 21st century, and the concept of location should

be invoked instead. To reach this conclusion, the author compares the income levels of people

from different income groups living in different countries. Accordingly, the incomes of the

poorest people in certain countries like America and the richest people in countries like Brazil

are actually equal, that is, the incomes of the rich and poor people in different countries are

not equal as predicted by the class concept.

The author argues that one of the most important reasons for this change between the 19th

century and the 21st century is that the rich people and therefore the rich countries got richer.

Data obtained by comparing the post-tax wages that the same occupational groups can spend

on food in different countries show that income declines dramatically across locations.

In the context of this income difference that occurs depending on the location, the author

argues that the common interests of the classes and thus class conflicts may disappear
depending on the income of the people of the same class in different locations at very

different rates. According to him, if income is determined or influenced by location, the world

order will force people to migrate from low-income places to high-income places. The author

emphasizes that the only way to prevent this situation is to hide information about income

averages and that this is not possible in the global information age we live in. After all,

according to him, the threat of the 21st century, unlike the 19th century, is not class revolution

and oppression due to class conflict, but immigration pressure from low-income countries. In

this context, the only way to control the migration movements and eliminate the global

migration problem is to bring a solution to the huge income inequality among the world's

societies. However, as this process will take a very long time, migration is still the most

important remaining key mechanism for raising the incomes of the poor.

Focused article:

Milanovic, B. (2012). Global inequality: From class to location, from proletarians to migrants.

Global Policy, 3(2), 125-134.