This chart comes from this excellent paper by Cristoph Lakner and Branko Milanovic. It shows whose incomes have risen the most (and fallen the most) as a result of this neoliberal globalisation thing we've been having for the past 30 years. The results from the ex-Soviet bloc need to be taken with a real pinch of salt unfortunately, for they use starting figures that most observers consider to be far too high. It's really a stretch to say that Romania today is a poorer place than it was in the dying days of the Ceascescu regime.

However, look over to those who have benefitted. We'd not be all that surprised to see that many of the Chinese deciles have seen their incomes rise. The growth of China is after all the major economic story of these past decades. But look at that UK bottom decile: 5.5% per annum growth in incomes! That rather gives the lie to the idea that the poor are getting poorer, doesn't it? Ireland's Celtic Tiger growth (note that these figures are up until 2008) similarly seems to have beneftted the two bottom deciles in that country.

The net effect of this neoliberal globalisation thing seems to be that the poor are getting rich. And given that that's what we all want to happen then why is it that so many people complain about it all?