New Wealth, Old Poverty: The Urgent Need for New Institutional Arrangements - Itai Sened (Tel Aviv University, Israel)

The world in which we live has gotten to recognize the increasing measures of inequality that came with the transition from the institutional structure of the welfare state to the institutional structure of the neo liberal era that currently dominates the western developed hemisphere. The 62 wealthiest people in the world own the same amount as the least well off 3.5 billion, or 50% of the world’s population. The wealth of these 62 people increased by 44% between 2010 and 2015 while that of the bottom 3.5 billion fell by 41% over the same period. This is happening right now and we are not doing anything to stop or change it, mostly because we are not paying any attention to it. In this lecture, I provide an over view of the phenomenon and some intriguing thoughts about the sources of local, national and global inequality. Central to the argument is the simple fact that the new wealth is mostly intangible while poverty, old and new is very tangible. While the rich accumulate unthinkable stocks of wealth based, mostly, on new and high tech knowledge, the poor lag further and further behind with lesser and lesser access to the sources of the new wealth that emanates from the most exquisite forms of high quality higher education.