ABSTRACT

Scholars interested in problems of inequality are paying increasing attention to the issue of wealth inequality. The paperattempts to provide a broad picture of trends relating to wealth inequality on a global scale. It attempts to highlight the negative implications of rising wealth inequality for the future of just globalization and democratic development. One of the main findings of the paper is that wealth inequality is an equally serious problem for the “global North” and the “global South”. Within the global North, wealth inequality is most serious for the case of the United States, whilst in the context of the global South, China constitutes a clear outlier, with a relatively favorable pattern in terms of wealth inequality. Finally Turkey has experienced serious increases in wealth inequality in recent years and currently occupies the second position in the wealth inequality league table next to Russia, a negative development, requires serious re-thinking about Turkey’s current development strategy