Escaping from inequality: Is Europe trapped by history?

After rising during the early modern age European economic inequality greatly contracted from the 1910s to the 1970s, much as it did in other parts of the world. Even though European mechanisms of pre- and redistribution have held up comparatively well since then, the pressures they face operate on a global scale. While violent levellers have faded and benign influences from homeownership to pensions are losing steam, new technologies such as AI portend further income shifts from labour to capital. The absence of a single Euro-style inequality regime reflects the persistent pluralism of a historically fragmented socio-political landscape. Does that mean there are no collective policy options either?

Speaker(s): Walter Scheidel (Stanford University)

Series: European Studies Centre