WALTER SCHEIDEL ON HOW TO FIX INEQUALITY

Our 2020 How To Fix Democracy series is focused on the relationship not only between capitalism and democracy, but between democracy and inequality. Walter Scheidel is a distinguished historian at Stanford University, and an expert both in the historical and contemporary history of inequality. He’s the author of The Great Leveler, a book focused on the history of inequality. So there are few people better able to discuss the relationship between democracy and inequality than Scheidel.

Andrew Keen: Walter, in your historical analysis of inequality, how radical is contemporary economic inequality compared to the past?

Walter Scheidel: It depends on what metrics you look at if you apply the standard measurements like the share of income or wealth held by the richest one percent or what is called the coefficient that measures inequality across society. In the US at least we are pretty much back to where we were before 1929 and that was really the high point of inequality in the US. So, by that measure you could say inequality today in the US is about as high as it has ever been. But of course, at the same time the US is also much richer than it has ever been. So, the poor are less poor in absolute terms, but the richer are even richer than they used to be 100 years ago.

Andrew Keen: You’re a classical historian and so a lot of your research and your…