Inequity

Frank Stilwell: Key facts and ideas

 Frank
Stilwell: The 'Here is political economy at its finest, marrying accessible
analysis with the consideration of practical, progressive
Political possibilities. After Piketty, Stilwell is the must read.’
— Franklin Obeng-Odoom, Contributions to Political
Economy of Economy

Inequality Frank Stilwell is an Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at

(2019, Wiley) the University of Sydney.

These slides are based on:

• His book
• A podcast of a presentation he did for Sydney Ideas
• The graphs are from his slides from that presentation.
 • Poverty difficult to measure universally: i.e. the ‘poverty
line’ in Australia vs. Malawi.

Absolute vs. • Spending power vs. reports of happiness?

Relative
Poverty • People in subsistence communities may be ‘poorer’ than
urban casual labourers but can have better control over
their lives.

• More equal societies report higher contentment and

well-being, regardless of average wealth
 The key question in thinking through these
complex processes question is: who owns what
and who gets what? (p 7)

History, location and geography are essential to

understand inequality. There is inequality between
but also within nations.
The context Economic inequality is multi-dimensional, forming
distinctive patterns according to location, class,
gender, race, ability and disability. (p 5)

It is essential to understand how class, gender,

race, ability and disability intersect, as these
constrain opportunity for groups and individuals.
 • ‘Raising the floor’
• ‘Lowering the ceiling’
• Creating greater inequality of opportunity in the
intervening space

Policies for
RE-DISTRIBUTION
greater • Government taxes and expenditure
equality
PRE-DISTRIBUTION
• Basic income
• Civilising the corporation / challenging corporate power
• Extending the commons (things not in private hands)
Two key texts
• Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014) by Thomas Piketty
• The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (2009) by
Richard G. Wilkinson and Kate Pickett