What causes income inequality and tribal politics | Bill Drayton | Big Think

What causes income inequality and tribal politics
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Bill Drayton, the founder and CEO of social entrepreneurship firm Ashoka, thinks that doing business today relies on being as prismatic and as open as possible. That's how you become, as he puts it, a "change maker." The world doesn't need more specialists, he posits, because well-rounded people open to new ideas and learning new skills can fit just about anywhere.
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FOUNDER AND CEO, ASHOKA:

Bill Drayton is a social entrepreneur with a long record of founding organizations and public service. As the founder and CEO of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, Bill Drayton has pioneered the field of social entrepreneurship, growing a global association of over 3,900 leading social entrepreneurs who work together to create an 'Everyone a Changemaker' world. Ashoka Fellows bring big systems-change to the world's most urgent social challenges. Over half have changed national policy within five years of launch.

As a student, he founded organizations ranging from Yale Legislative Services to Harvard's Ashoka Table, an interdisciplinary weekly forum in the social sciences. After graduation from Harvard, he received an M.A. from Balliol College in Oxford University. In 1970, he graduated from Yale Law School. He worked at McKinsey & Company for ten years and taught at Stanford Law School and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. While serving the Carter Administration as Assistant Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, he launched many reforms including emissions trading, a fundamental change in regulation that is now the basis of much global as well as US regulatory law, including in fields beyond the environment.

Bill launched Ashoka in 1980; in 1984, he used the stipend he received when elected a MacArthur Fellow to devote himself fully to Ashoka. Bill is Ashoka's Chief Executive Officer. He also chairs Ashoka's Youth Venture, Community Greens, and Get America Working! Bill has won numerous awards and honors throughout his career. He has been selected as one of America's Best Leaders by US News & World Report and Harvard's Center for Public Leadership. In 2011, Drayton won Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias Award, Other awards include Honorary Doctorates from Yale, NYU and more.
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TRANSCRIPT:

Bill Drayton: Maybe a good way to get into this is to ask: why are income distributions everywhere getting worse and worse, regardless of the nature of the economy, regardless of ideology? That’s just a fact.

And the second question: why do we have “us versus them” politics (and all the pain and disruption that causes) spreading and spreading across the world? So that’s another fact.

So this is not based on a personality or some economic peculiarity. There’s a deeper force at work.

So let’s start with some other facts. From 1700 to now, the rate of change and the degree of interconnection have both been going up, each feeding the other exponentially.

And the demand for repetition has been going down in a mirror curve. These curves have been going for 300 years, and we’re now at a point that much of the world is already functioning as an everything-changing world where you must be a “change-maker” to be able to play in this game. And those are skills that are almost exactly the opposite of the skills that were appropriate in a world organized around efficiency and repetition.

The old model was: you learn a skill – barber, banking, it doesn’t matter. And then you repeat it for life in workplaces with walls – assembly lines, law firms. And that world is basically gone, except a lot of people don’t know it yet.

And in the world that is all around us, the successful parts of the world, you have to have very different skills. You’ve got to be able to live in a kaleidoscope of contacts that are all changing and are interconnected. And you have to be able to see new patterns and come together in new teams and work with teams of teams.

This is very complex and it requires very specific skills. And the world is now increasingly divided by the new inequality between those that have the skills and are in the new game of change and those who don’t have the skills. And this is very bitter.

The people who are in the game are helping one another get better as it speeds up because that’s what you do with teammates. You need your teammates to be really good.

So that part of the world is getting better and better at ...

[kirawelty]

Excessive greed that harms people should be in the DSM. It is a severe personality disorder and these people should be hospitalized like any other anti-social/psychotic danger to society.

[angelic]

While his point about inequality is likely a factor, it dwarfs in comparison to the real reason of income inequality. The more disposable capital you have, the faster you can grow economically.
Its essentially an exponential curve playing out as long as you can invest intelligently. This is why even in national economies that tax the rich, its still growing.

[michaelemouse]

I like this perspective but I wonder about 2 things: 1) Do most people have the potential to be changemakers? A lot of the skills involved are pretty cerebral. Also, they usually involve moving to a large coastal city, not staying in your hometown. 2) Won't most of the people who need that help, undereducated middle-aged small town WASPs, be reflexively against most of the government programs which could help them, decrying them as socialism?

[creamsykle]

I see a lot of comments saying this guy was too general, made no solid points... so on and so on.
Point one: The people in the top 20% are playing a whole different game then the bottom 80% (this can be seen in the numbers that the 20% incomes grows year after year)
Point two: Those top 20% are helping the other top 20% get better and better at playing this game.
Point three: The bottom 80% can see the other 20% playing a game, but not only do they not understand the in-depth rules, they dont even comprehend the basics
Point four: We need to try and teach at least some of these rules to the bottom 80% or they will become as useless to society as the current bottom 30% are today.

He was not unambiguous at all, he was straight forward and on point, and if you think he wasn't, you are someone who does not understand the game.

[Relaxotron]

In the 1950s, a typical CEO in America made 20 times the salary of his or her average worker. In 2018 the CEO pay at an S&P 500 Index firm was about 361 times more than the average worker. Is this really the sign of a fair society?! Seems feudalism is making a comeback pretty soon if the same trend continues.

[davorianware]

Waiting for the comments that say "because people don't work hard anymore" or "because 'they' are biologically inferior".

[RedWinePlease]

Maybe the problem started in the early 70's when services became a greater part of the economy than manufacturing. When that happened people became the most expensive part of a business rather than machines and equipment. Wages are sticky. Machines can be replaced w/o moral going down. Not people. Now productivity, the cost reduction to produce a widget or service, is based on machines, software, and processes not people. Why give increased wages for merely a good attendance record?

[Gustavo-rxqp]

This is a good video, I would like to add that the combination of the specific skills demand and the increase in corruption, results in the concentration of wealth in a few families.

Greetings.

[memorabiliatemporarium]

This one is among the most important Big Thinks I've seen.

[elfboi]

One word: Capitalism. What we need is some type of collective ownership of the means of production instead of private property. It doesn't matter if robots take all our jobs if the people own the robots. Just imagine a world in which nobody needs to work and everything is free.

[mustafaahmed]

I have a better question...
Why is this man's (Bill Drayton) voice so calm and soothing?

[BugRib]

Identity politics certainly doesn’t help anyone.

“Your fact-based opinion isn’t relevant because you haven’t walked in so-and-so’s shoes.” Sorry, no. Objective truth does exist, and not being a member of a particular ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation should not enter into any fact-based discussion about policy or solutions to problems.

IMHO.

[a.e.m.]

Income inequality is due to one thing; capital accumulation.

If people can own private property and can extract value from the labor of others in order to consolidate more property and capital, there is going to be a perpeutating cycle in which wealth distribution becomes more and more unbalanced.

The solution is simple, democratise the workplace, end private property.

[ratatataraxia]

I just want to be able to afford groceries again. I haven’t cooked in two years? 7-eleven is my grocery store because I just can’t catch up on rent. If I had a UBI I could actually eat well and have the energy to go out and find opportunities, as it is all I can afford to do and have the energy for is sleep.

[rodigoduterte]

This is interesting topic, I also love a healthy political life like this

[thstroyur]

Don't have pure laissez-faire capitalism, don't have States but states. There; fixed everything for ya

[Mr_Case_Time]

Would anyone in this comments section be intellectually honest in saying that they do not want to be rich? Nothing to do with need, purely a question about desire.

[smilinxig]

i think this is the best time for all of people to know what the SECRET is

[theodoremccarthy]

This guy's whole take is a deceptive oversimplification of both history and the current state of the world. It's also redolent of the narcissism of the post modern "creative class", who assume they have a special talent and knowledge that others lack.

[rxmclaren]

What causes income inequality and tribal politics in modern society? Laziness and fear...i could be a millionaire, hell i could be a billionaire...why do i still live paycheck to paycheck? because, like the rest of the world in my situation, i am a lazy person! now i am not lazy in that i sit around all day with my thumb up (we'll just leave that there), rather i am too lazy to seek that which will make me better in life...i also fear the unknown...how am i going to get where i need to be in order to be a millionaire/billionaire? i dont know...it is that part which we all fear...we all fear trying to figure things out on our own...we have all lived in a society, at least with in the last 20 or so years, where everything is handed to us...if you cant make it, heres a program to get you there but you will become addicted to it...you will see the ease in which you can use these programs and not work as hard or work as often, then you will see your life get slightly better, keeping you from attaining your goal of being a millionaire...that is where the base of the laziness comes in...for those who are blaming capitalism, i implore you to toss anything that has made your life easier...it came from capitalism...your Iphone, your Android based phone, your air conditioner, those sweet Nike's that make it easier to walk around, that super efficient car you drive...all of it was created on the back of capitalism...and sure the rich have been bribing politicians since antiquity...its not a new concept...if you folks can come up with a solution better than capitalism that actually works (dont even mention socialism) i will make this promise to you...i will no longer be lazy...i will no longer be afraid...i will come out of my sheltered existence and explore they new future with you...