Seven Centuries of Inequality: Historical Wealth Concentration, 1300–2010

In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. claimed in a speech at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." At a time of increasing living costs, sky-high housing prices, and the rising tide of populism, just how true was MLK's claim?

Using research from Guido Alfani writing for the World Inequality Lab, this visualization compares seven centuries of historical wealth concentration for Italy, Germany, the UK, the U.S., and France. In particular, the chart compares the Gini index of wealth concentration, where perfect equality is expressed as a 0 (each household or individual has the same wealth) and perfect inequality is expressed as 1 (one household or individual owns everything).

Key Takeaways

• The long-term trend has been one of increasing inequality, save for two notable exceptions: the century or so following the Black Death (1347–1352) and the period beginning with the First World War to around the mid-1970s.
• It's estimated that the Black Death killed half of Europe's overall population, while the world wars were responsible for tens of millions dead, and the destruction of physical and financial capital at a scale never before seen. In other words, only significantly destructive catastrophes can arrest the march of inequality.
• The case of the Thirty Years War, combined with another outbreak of bubonic plague, reinforces the "catastrophe=levelling" conclusion, where population declines in some parts of present-day Germany exceeded 50% and regional inequality decreased at the same time.