Joe: Lewis, I'm going to give you a number: 80. That's roughly how many times richer the top 10% of the world is compared to the bottom 10%. Lewis: Wow. Eighty times. That’s a staggering gap. I can’t even really picture what that looks like. Joe: It’s almost impossible to visualize. But here's the real shocker: your passport, not your talent or your hard work, is the biggest factor deciding which group you're in. Lewis: Hold on. You’re saying where I was born matters more than what I do? That feels… fundamentally wrong. Where is this idea coming from? Joe: It comes from a fascinating and, as the title says, 'idiosyncratic' book called The Haves and the Have-Nots by Branko Milanovic. Lewis: Branko Milanovic. The name sounds familiar. What’s his story? Is he some kind of radical philosopher? Joe: Quite the opposite, actually. He's a top-tier economist who spent nearly twenty years as a lead researcher at the World Bank. He’s a data guy through and through. But what makes his work so compelling, and why this book got such acclaim, is his method. He uses everything from Jane Austen novels and Roman history to the income of Barack Obama's grandfather in Kenya to explain one of the biggest, most complex issues of our time. Lewis: Okay, I’m intrigued. An economist who talks about Jane Austen. That’s not a combination you hear every day. It sounds like he’s trying to make this topic, which can be incredibly dry, feel human. Joe: That's exactly it. He argues that to understand inequality, you can't just look at spreadsheets. You have to look at it from three different altitudes. First, you have to see the gaps inside our own countries. Then, you have to zoom way out and see the massive chasm between nations. And finally, you have to put it all together and look at the whole world as one single, global society. Lewis: Three different lenses to view the same problem. I like that. It feels like we’re about to put on a new pair of glasses. Where do we start?

Joe: Let's start at home. With the first lens: inequality within a nation. This is the kind we're most familiar with—the gap between the rich and poor in our own city or country. Lewis: Right, the 1% versus the 99%, that whole conversation. But how does he make that fresh? We’ve been talking about that for years. Joe: He takes us back in time. To a place we all think we know. He asks a simple question: just how rich was Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice? Lewis: Oh, I love this. I mean, you know he's loaded. He has Pemberley, this giant estate. But I have no frame of reference for what that actually means. Was he like a modern-day millionaire? Joe: Oh, much more than that. Milanovic does the math. Darcy's annual income was about 10,000 pounds. Using historical data, Milanovic calculates that this would place him firmly in the top 0.1% of earners in England at the time. In today's terms, that's an income well into the millions of dollars a year, putting him in the same league as a top CEO or a hedge fund manager. Lewis: You're kidding! So he was basically a 19th-century billionaire, or close to it. And Elizabeth Bennet's family, the Bennets? Where did they land? Joe: They were comfortable, but in a completely different universe. Their income put them in the top 1-2%, which sounds great, but it was a precarious position. The whole plot of the novel, all the drama and anxiety about marriage, is driven by this economic reality. The Bennet girls had to marry up, or they faced social and financial ruin. Lewis: That’s a perfect example. It’s not just about having nice dresses and going to balls. Their entire life's trajectory, their happiness, their security, was dictated by this financial gap. It wasn't just a number; it was their destiny. Joe: Precisely. And that's Milanovic's first big point. For most of history, inequality within a nation was about these rigid social classes. He quotes the famous economist John Maynard Keynes, who had this almost benevolent view of the super-rich back then. Keynes said they were like "bees" who "saved and accumulated," and their massive wealth was justified because they invested it, building the factories and railways that benefited everyone. Lewis: Like they were doing society a favor by being so rich they couldn't possibly spend all their money on themselves. That’s a… generous interpretation. Joe: It was the prevailing view for a long time! But Milanovic shows how that started to change. The focus shifted from these broad classes—capitalists, workers, landlords—to individuals. Thanks to things like the income tax, we started getting data on personal fortunes, and the conversation shifted to fairness and individual opportunity. Lewis: So we moved from thinking about "the working class" to thinking about "your specific income." But the underlying dynamic that Darcy and the Bennets faced, that idea that your starting position has this immense gravity, that still feels very real today. Joe: It is. Milanovic argues that while the costumes have changed, the fundamental questions of economic justice remain. He brings in the philosopher John Rawls, who had a brilliant way of thinking about this. Rawls said we should imagine we're designing a society from behind a "veil of ignorance," where we don't know if we'll be born rich or poor, healthy or sick. Lewis: And from that position, you'd want to create the fairest possible system, because you might end up at the very bottom. Joe: Exactly. Rawls argued that from that perspective, inequalities are only justified if they benefit the least well-off people in society. It’s a powerful moral yardstick to measure the gaps we see in our own backyards. Lewis: Wow. So from Mr. Darcy's fortune to a philosophical thought experiment. It’s a really elegant way to frame the problem. But you said this was just the first lens. What happens when we zoom out?

Joe: This is where the story takes a dramatic turn. As huge as the gap was between Mr. Darcy and a tenant farmer on his estate, Milanovic argues an even bigger, more consequential gap opened up later. It's the second lens: the gap between entire countries. Lewis: You mean the difference in average income between, say, someone in Switzerland versus someone in Somalia? Joe: Precisely. And this gap is a relatively new thing in human history. Milanovic shows that back in 1820, around the time of Pride and Prejudice, the world was poor, but it was much more equal between nations. The richest countries, like Great Britain and the Netherlands, were maybe three times richer than the poorest, like China and India. Lewis: Okay, a three-to-one difference. That’s significant, but it’s manageable. I can wrap my head around that. What is it today? Joe: Today, the ratio between the richest and poorest countries is more than one hundred to one. Lewis: Wait, say that again. One hundred to one? That’s not a gap; that’s a canyon. A completely different planet. How did that happen? Joe: The Industrial Revolution. It was the great catalyst. A few countries in Western Europe and North America got on this escalator of economic growth, and their incomes shot up. Most of the rest of the world was left behind, standing still at the bottom. Milanovic calls this "The Great Divergence." Lewis: And this is why you opened with that line about the passport. It’s not about your class within a country anymore; it’s about which country you belong to in the first place. Joe: That is the single most profound point in the book. For most of human history, the biggest factor determining your wealth was your social class. Today, it's your citizenship. An American living below the poverty line is still, in global terms, better off than a huge percentage of the world's population. Your passport has become your most valuable economic asset, and you get it by pure luck. Lewis: That completely reframes how I think about privilege. It’s not just about the advantages you have within your society; it’s the advantage of being in that society to begin with. But what about globalization? We always hear about the economic miracles in China and India. Hasn't that started to close the gap? Joe: Yes and no. This is another one of Milanovic's brilliant, nuanced points. If you weigh countries by their population, the rapid growth of China and India, lifting hundreds of millions of people to a better standard of living, has actually caused population-weighted intercountry inequality to decrease recently. It's a huge success story, maybe the biggest in human history. Lewis: That’s fantastic news! So things are getting better. Joe: But here's the catch. Milanovic uses a great quote to describe the situation: "You have to run very, very fast just to stay in the same place." Even with China's incredible growth, the absolute income gap between it and the United States is still enormous. Because the U.S. started from such a high point, even its slower growth adds more dollars to its average income each year than China's faster growth does. The canyon is still there. Lewis: So we have these two massive, opposing forces. The rise of Asia is pulling the world closer together, but the legacy of the Great Divergence is still keeping it far apart. It’s a global tug-of-war. Joe: A perfect way to put it. Which brings us to the final, and most mind-bending, lens. What happens when you combine these two pictures? The inequality within countries and the massive inequality between them?

Lewis: Okay, so we're putting it all together. What does the world look like if we treat all 8 billion of us as citizens of one single, global nation? It sounds like it would be the most unequal society imaginable. Joe: It is. Milanovic calculates the "global Gini coefficient," which is the standard measure of inequality. A Gini of 0 is perfect equality, and a Gini of 100 is total inequality where one person has everything. Most countries fall somewhere between 30 and 50. The global Gini? It's around 70. Lewis: Seventy? That's higher than any single country on Earth, right? Even countries we think of as being incredibly unequal, like Brazil or South Africa. Joe: Exactly. The world as a whole is more unequal than any of its parts. And when you break down who is where, the picture is stark. Almost all of the world's top 1%—the global elite—are citizens of Western Europe, North America, or Oceania. The bottom half of the world's population is almost entirely from Asia and Africa. Lewis: So the global class system is mapped almost perfectly onto geography. It’s a world of haves and have-nots, separated by borders. This feels… unstable. What does Milanovic say are the consequences of living in a world like this? Joe: This is where he introduces his most powerful idea for the modern world: the "Trilemma of Globalization." He says in our current era, you can have any two of the following three things, but you can't have all three. Lewis: Okay, I’m ready. What are they? Joe: The three are: one, massive globalization and economic integration. Two, huge income differences between countries. And three, tightly controlled borders with limited migration. Lewis: Let me see if I get this. You can't have a hyper-connected world with massive wealth gaps and also expect people to just stay put in the poor countries. Is that the core of it? Joe: That's the trilemma. Something has to give. For globalization to continue, either the poor countries have to get much, much richer, closing that hundred-to-one gap... or the rich countries have to accept far more migrants seeking a better life. The third option is to pull back on globalization itself. Lewis: That is a stark choice. And we're seeing it play out everywhere, in political debates about trade, immigration, and foreign aid. It’s not a theoretical puzzle; it’s the central tension of the 21st century. Joe: It is. And Milanovic uses a chilling example to show the stakes. He points to piracy off the coast of Somalia. It seems like a local problem, right? Anarchy and poverty in one failed state. But those pirates threatened global shipping lanes, affecting the price of oil and goods for everyone. Poverty in one corner of the world doesn't stay in that corner anymore. In a globalized world, your neighbor's problems eventually become your problems. Lewis: It’s the ultimate argument for why we should care about global inequality. It’s not just about charity or ethics. It’s about pragmatism and self-preservation. An unstable, deeply unequal world is a danger to everyone, even those at the very top.

Joe: And that, really, is the power of Milanovic's book. He takes you on this journey through three different perspectives, from Jane Austen's drawing rooms to the entire globe, to build this one, undeniable conclusion. Lewis: It feels like the main takeaway isn't just a set of facts about who has what. It’s a fundamental shift in perspective. He’s forcing us to see the architecture of global inequality. Joe: Exactly. The final, profound insight is that we are living in a world where the accident of birth—your citizenship—has become the new global class system. It’s a form of status that is inherited, incredibly difficult to change, and it determines your life chances more than any other single factor. Lewis: In the past, you might have been a peasant who could never become a lord. Today, you might be a citizen of a poor country who can never legally become a citizen of a rich one. The castle walls have become national borders. Joe: That's a perfect analogy. And Milanovic's work, which is so praised for being innovative and accessible, leaves us with this incredibly challenging reality. He doesn't offer easy solutions, because there aren't any. He just lays out the facts and the stark choices of the trilemma. Lewis: It really makes you think... if your passport is the new class system, what responsibility do we have to the people on the other side of that line? Joe: It's a question with no easy answers. A lot to think about. Lewis: Definitely. Joe: This is Aibrary, signing off.