

Divergence in mind: Why inequality devil is as black as he is painted
https://doi.org/10.32609/0042-8736-2019-4-107-123
Abstract
The paper presents contemporary economic discussions about the problems of inequality and the actual circumstances than make it difficult to take into account not only statistical, but also the socio-political conjuncture of wealth and income divergence. The paper concludes that objective and complex analysis of inequality faces methodological problems — such as discrepancies in the tools for measuring inequality or fundamental disregard for interdisciplinary research perspectives, — and also with disregard of the “subjective” component of the inequality perception.
References
1. Aven P. (2008). Peter Aven about Zakhar Prilepin novel. Russkiy Pioner, October 15. (In Russian). http://ruspioner.ru/cool/m/single/3007
2. Ayvazyan S. А., Kolenikov S. О. (2001). Poverty level and consumption differentiation of Russian people. Moscow: Russian Program of Economic Research. (In Russian).
3. Atkinson A. (2018). Inequality. What can be done? Moscow: Delo. (In Russian).
4. Wittgenstein L. (19 9 4). Philosophic works, Part 1. Moscow: Gnozis. (In Russian).
5. Golosov G. V. (2008). Electoral authoritarianism in Russia. Pro et Contra, No. 1, pp. 22—35. (In Russian).
6. Guriev S., Plekhanov A., Sonin K. (2010). Economics of development based on commodity revenues. Voprosy Ekonomiki, No. 3, pp. 4—23. (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.32609/0042-8736-2010-3-4-23
7. Zamov E. А. (2016). Two paths of political thought of contemporary Turkey. Izvestiya Uralskogo Federalnogo Universiteta, Series 3: Social Sciences, No. 1, pp. 74—80. (In Russian). http://elar.urfu.ru/bitstream/10995/38105/1/iuro-2016-149-07.pdf
8. Ionin L. G. (2010). Update of a conservatism. Moscow: HSE Publ. (In Russian).
9. Easterly W. (2016). The tyranny of experts: Economists, dictators, and the forgotten rights of the poor. Moscow: Gaidar Institute Publ. (In Russian).
10. Kanke V.А. (2009). Philosophy of economic science. Moscow: INFRA-M.
11. Kapeliushnikov R. I. (2016). Inequality: How not to primitivize problem (critical remarks)(Preprint WP3/2016/06). Moscow: HSE Publ. (In Russian). https://wp.hse.ru/data/2016/10/31/1111320083/WP3_2016_06________.pdf
12. Kapeliushnikov R. (2017). Why we should not crusade against inequality . Republic.ru, September 4. (In Russian). https://republic.ru/posts/86142
13. Kapeliushnikov R. I. (2018a). Around the behavio ral economics: some comments on rationality and irrationality (Prepri nt WP3/2018/04). Moscow: HSE Publ. (In Russian). https://wp.hse.ru/data/2018/05/10/1150883668/WP3_2018_04______________.pdf
14. Kapeliushnikov R. I. (2018b). On contemporary state of economics : semi- sociological observations (Preprint WP3/2018/03). Moscow: HSE Publ. (In Russian). https://wp.hse.ru/data/2018/03/22/1163960887/WP3_2018_03________.pdf
15. Makhova A. V. (2016). Evolution of radical right issues in France, Italy and Hungary, 2000—2013. PhD thesis, St. Petersburg State University. (In Russian ). https://disser.spbu.ru/files/disser2/disser/564yPQcn2L.pdf
16. Mises L. (2000). Human action: A treatise on economics. Moscow: Ekonomika. (In Russian).
17. Muravieva V. (2018). Why society does not understand Anatoly Chubais. Forbes. December 13. (In Russian). http://www.forbes.ru/obshchestvo/370359-programmnyy-direktor-ogf-schaste-nastupit-kogda-obshchestvo-poymet-chubaysa
18. Rosanvallon P. (2014). The society of equals.Moscow: Moscow School of Civic Education. (In Russian).
19. Sedlacek T. (2016). Economics of good and evil: The quest for economic meaning from Gilgamesh to Wall Street. Moscow: Ad Marginem.
20. Guriev S., Tsyvinskiy O. (2012). Russia is a leader of wealth distribution inequality. Vedomosti, November 6. (In Russian). https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/articles/2012/11/06/pervaya_sredi_neravnyh
21. Styopin V. S. (2006). Philosophy of science. Basic problems. Moscow: Gardariki. (In Russian).
22. Stiglitz J. (2016). The great divide: Unequal societies and what we can do about them. Moscow: Eksmo. (In Russian).
23. Accounts Chamber of Russia. (2004). Analysis of processes of public ownership in Russian Federation during 1993—2003 period. Moscow: Olita. (In Russian).
24. Thaler R., Sunstein C. (2017). Nudge: Choice architecture. Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Moscow: Mann, Ivanov i Ferber. (In Russian).
25. Toshchenko J. (2018). Society of trauma. Nezavisimaya Gazeta. January 23. (In Russian). http://www.ng.ru/stsenarii/2018-01-23/9_7156_society.html
26. Urbinati N. (2016). Democracy disfigured: Opinion, truth, and the people. Moscow: Gaidar Institute Publ.(In Russian).
27. Hayek F. (1974). The pretence of knowledge. Nobel Prize lecture. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1974/hayek/lecture/]
28. Hayek F. A. (1992). The fatal conceit: The errors of socialism. Moscow: Novosti, Catallaxy. (In Russian).
29. Hedlund S. (2015). Invisible hands, russian experience, and social science: Approaches to understanding systemic failure. Moscow: HSE Publ. (In Russian).
30. Schtompka P. (2001a). Social change as a trauma (paper one). Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, No. 1, pp. 6—16. (In Russian).
31. Schtompka P. (2001b). Cultural trauma in post-communist society. Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniya, No. 2, pp. 3—12. (In Russian).
32. Yunus M. (2019). A world of three zeros. Moscow: Alpina Non-Fiction. (In Russian).
33. Aguiar M., Bils M. (2015). Has consumption inequality mirrored income inequality? American Economic Review, Vol. 105, No. 9, pp. 2725—2756.
34. Attanasio O., Pistaferri L. (2016). Consumption inequality. Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 3—28.
35. Auerbach A. J., Kotlikoff L. J., Koehler D. (2016). U.S. inequality, fiscal progressivity, and work disincentives: an intragenerational accounting. NBER Working Paper, No. 22032. https://www.nber.org/papers/w22032
36. Azerrad D., Hederman R. (2012). Defending the dream: Why income inequality doesn’t threaten opportunity. Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation. http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2012/pdf/SR119.pdf
37. Berg A., Ostry J. (2011). Inequality and unsustainable growth; two sides of the same coin? IMF Staff Discussion Notes, No. 11/08. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2011/sdn1108.pdf
38. Bowlus A. J., Robin J. (2012). An international comparison of lifetime inequality: How continental Europe resembles North America. Journal of the European Economic Association, Vol. 10, pp. 1236—1262.
39. Brueckner M., Lederman D. (2015). Effects of income inequality on aggregate output. Policy Research Working Paper, No. WPS 7317. Washington, DC: World Bank Group. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/291151468188658453/Effects-of-income-inequality-on-aggregate-output
40. Burgoon B., van Noort S., Rooduijn M., Underhill G. (2018). Radical right populism and the role of positional deprivation and inequality. LIS Working Papers, No. 733, Luxembourg: LIS Cross-National Data Center.
41. Cheremukhin A., Golosov M., Guriev S., Tsyvinski A. (2013). Was Stalin Necessary for Russia’s Economic Development? NBER Working Paper, No. 19425. http://www.nber.org/papers/w19425
42. Corak M. (2013). Income inequality, equality of opportunity, and intergenerational mobility. IZA Discussion Papers, No. 7520. http://ftp.iza.org/dp7520.pdf
43. Corneo G. (2015). Income inequality from a lifetime perspective. Empirica, Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 225—239.
44. Credit Suisse (2018). Global wealth report 2018. Zurich: Credit Suisse Research Institute . https://www.credit-suisse.com/corporate/en/articles/news-and-expertise/globalwealth-report-2018-us-and-china-in-the-lead-201810.html
45. Dabla-Norris E., Kochhar K., Suphaphiphat N., Ricka F., Tsounta E. (2015). Causes and consequences of income inequality: A global perspective. IMF Staff Discussion Notes, No. 15/13. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2015/sdn1513.pdf
46. Davis J. (1959). A formal interpretation of the theory of relative deprivation. Sociometry, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 280—296.
47. DžuverovićN. (2013). Does more (or less) lead to violence? Application of relative deprivation hypothesis on economic inequality induced conflicts. Croatian International Relations Review, Vol. 19, No. 68, pp. 53—72. https://doi.org/10.2478/cirr-2013-0003
48. Feldstein M. (1999). Reducing poverty, not inequality. Public Interest, No. 137. https://www.nber.org/feldstein/pi99.html
49. Ferguson J. (1994). The anti-politics machine: Development, depoliticization, and bureaucratic power in Lesotho. Minnesota: Minnesota University Press.
50. Friedman M. (1957). The permanent income hypothesis. In: M. Friedman (ed.). A theory of the consumption function. Pri nceton, NJ: Pri nceton University Press, p. 20—37
51. Gimpelson V., Treisman D. (2015). Misperceiving inequality. IZA Discussion Paper, No. 9100. http://ftp.iza.org/dp9100.pdf
52. Gumuscu S. (2013). The emerging predominant party system in Turkey. Government and Opposition, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 223—244. https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2012.13
53. Gurr T. R. (1970). Why men rebel. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
54. Hayek F. (1942). Scientism and the study of society. Part I. Economica, Vol. 9, No. 35, pp. 267—291.
55. Holmes S. (1995). Passions and constraint: On the theory of liberal democracy.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
56. Kopczuk W. (2015). What do we know about the evolution of top wealth shares in the United States? Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 47—66.
57. Letzter R. (2016). A college professor wrote a biting explanation for why so many professors are Democrats. Business Insider, 26 August. https://www.businessinsider.com/why-are-so-many-scientists-democrats-2016-8
58. Mankiw N. G. (2013). Defending the one percent. Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 27, pp. 21—34.
59. Mayor T. H. (2015). Income inequality: Piketty and the Neo-Marxist revival. Cato Journal, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 95—116. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=32198D1B8C3EA694D22B6A419745A179?doi=10.1.1.672.9193&rep=rep1&type=pdf
60. McCloskey D. N. (2016). Bourgeois equality: How ideas, not capital or institutions, enriched the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
61. Norton M. I. (2014). Unequality: Who gets what and why it matters. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 151—155. https://doi.org/10.1177/2372732214550167
62. O’Doherty M. (2018). The legacy of Viktor Orbán and the Fidesz party in Hungary. New York: Lulu.
63. O’Connor N. (2017). Three connections between rising economic inequality and the rise of populism. Irish Studies in International Affairs, Vol. 28, pp. 29—43.
64. Ostry J., Berg A., Tsangarides C. (2014). Redistribution, inequality, and growth. IMF Staff Discussion Notes, No. 14/02. https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2014/sdn1402.pdf
65. Ovcharova L., Tesliuk E. D. (2008). Sensitivity of poverty and inequality statistics to alternative definitions of households welfare. Illustration using the NOBUS survey. Russia Programmatic Poverty Assessment Program. The World Bank. http://www.socpol.ru/news/docs/Sensitivity_Poverty_Russia.pdf
66. Pen J. (1971). Income distribution: Facts, theories, policies. New York: Praeger Publishers.
67. Randazzo A., Haidt J. (2015). The moral narratives of economists. Econ Journal Watch, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 49—57.
68. Rector R. (2014). Poverty and homelessness are not serious problems in America. In: N. Merino (ed.). Poverty and homelessness. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, pp. 59—63.
69. Roberts K. (1977). Voting over income tax schedules. Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 329—340
70. Romer T. (1975). Individual welfare, majority voting, and the properties of a linear income tax. Journal of Public Economics, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 163—185
71. Runciman W. G. (1966). Relative deprivation and social justice. Berkeley: Berkeley University Press.
72. Sabelhaus J., Schneider U. (1997). Measuring the distribution of well-being: why income and consumption give different answers. Hannover Economic Papers, No. 201. Leibniz Universität Hannover. http://diskussionspapiere.wiwi.uni-hannover.de/pdf_bib/dp-201.pdf
73. Schoek H. (1969). Envy. New York: Harcourt Brace and World.
74. Toynbee P., Walker D. (2008). Unjust rewards: Exposing greed and inequality in Britain today. London: Granta Publications.
75. Veblen T. B. (1899). The theory of the leisure class. An economic study of institutions. London: Macmillan Publishers.
76. Watkins D. (2014). Rooseveltcare: How social security is sabotaging the land of selfreliance. Ayn Rand Institute.
77. Watkins D., Brook Y. (2016). Equal is unfair: America’s misguided fight against income inequality.New York: St. Martin’s Press.
78. Winkler H. (2017). The effect of income inequality on political polarization: Evidence from European regions, 20 02—2014.Unpublished manuscript, World Bank. http://www.ecineq.org/ecineq_nyc17/FILESx2017/CR2/p11.pdf
79. WIR (2017). World inequality report 2018. World Inequality Lab. https://wir2018.wid.world/files/download/wir2018-full-report-english.pdf
Review
For citations:
Telin K.O. Divergence in mind: Why inequality devil is as black as he is painted. Voprosy Ekonomiki. 2019;(4):107-123. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.32609/0042-8736-2019-4-107-123