From “How to End Global Income Inequality,” Charles Kenny’s Businessweek article that tries to figure out how we got this way and how we can get better:

“In order to close the gap between the global rich and poor, policymakers need to understand how the rich got that way in the first place. Over the last 20 years, there isn’t much evidence that the countries home to the top of global income distribution started saving so much more (PDF) or working so much harder. The vast majority of the global rich got their outsized portion of increases in planetary consumption because they started off rich in 1990. Many were helped along the way by reduced tax rates and—thanks to globalization—more opportunities to make money off investments in rapidly growing developing countries. It is great that this investment is occurring—without it the world’s poor would be poorer. But the distribution of benefits from that investment isn’t an act of God. It’s a decision of man— and it can be changed.”