Inequality and wealth in Latin America

Inequality and wealth in Latin America

Current Issue | Vol 25, No 1 | November 2023
Mariana Heredia
For many analysts, Latin America has long stood out as one of the most unequal regions in the world. However, according to Juan Gabriel Palma, in recent decades this characteristic is less a hangover from the past than the destiny to which many developed countries seem to be heading. In his words, “as far as inequality is concerned (and not just inequality!), now it is the highly unequal middle- income countries that show the more advanced ones ‘the image of their own future’” (Palma 2016, 7).
Elisa P. Reis, André P. Vieira, and Felix G. Lopez
In a world that claims to value equality, inequality persists and in many ways is even growing, despite the ethical and pragmatic challenges it poses to social, political, and economic life dimensions. Yet, progressive movements, driven by ideals and interests, emphasize the importance of equity and justice.
Germán Alarco
High inequality of wealth and income (or its concentration) is nowadays an international concern, although in many Latin American countries the only concern is to reduce poverty due to a vision associated with the trickle-down economy (Roberts 2022). From the neoliberal perspective and from that of the groups of economic power, the problem of high inequality is not very relevant.
Alejandro Gaggero
In Latin America, most important local companies are part of business groups controlled by families. Data show that a significant part of the business elite is organized under rather concentrated equity structures, with a lower share of institutional financial investors than those in developed countries (Aldrighi and Postali 2010; Lefort 2005). There is little resemblance to the situation in the Anglo-Saxon world, where most leading companies go public and their equity is in the hands of thousands of shareholders.
Hugo Cerón-Anaya
Is there such a thing as humble skin color? In her study of perceptions of the African diaspora among elementary school students in the city of Guadalajara, Mexico, doctoral student Marleys Meléndez Moré found that children who possessed a phenotype similar to that attributed to Africanness do not self-identify as members of this community in any sense. Instead, the students used the term “humble color” to refer to their dark skin tone.
Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas
Drawing from extensive ethnographic research among upper-class parents affiliated with private schools in Brazil and Puerto Rico, I argue that upper-class parents viewed school choice not only in terms of aspirations for their children but as a reflection of therapeutic, personal growth projects and forms of self-cultivation and self-fashioning to which they themselves aspired.
Sarai Miranda
The goal of this article is to explore and describe how social inequalities are replicated in the discourse of children who are cared for by child and adolescent domestic workers. The local context analyzed is the Mexican city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, where child and adolescent domestic work is part of a social dynamic based on the normalization of servitude relations and hierarchical relations between mestizo families and indigenous and migrant families.
The World Inequality Lab (WIL), Wealth and Inequality Research Focus, CALAS Laboratory of Knowledge, and World Elite Data Base Project
Ben Ansell · 2023
Why Politics Fails: The Five Traps of the Modern World – and How to Escape Them
New York, NY: Viking
Reviewer: Bo Li

Céline Bessière and Sibylle Gollac · 2023
The Gender of Capital: How Families Perpetuate Wealth Inequality
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
Reviewer: Ria Wilken

Leon Wansleben · 2023
The Rise of Central Banks: State Power in Financial Capitalism
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
Reviewer: David Hollanders
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