Why Economic Inequality Should be Central to Strategies for the Future

Ingrid Robeyns

doi:10.1080/19452829.2025.2479028

Why Economic Inequality Should be Central to Strategies for the Future

Ingrid Robeyns^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

OFR - Ethics Institute

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

In this article, I develop and defend the claim that we, humanity, will not be able to get significantly closer to a world in which there is ecologically sustainable human development if we do not tackle economic inequalities head-on. This implies that we should focus not only on poverty but also on the entire distribution of income and wealth, including extreme wealth concentration. For national and international policymaking, this means that reducing economic inequality must be one of the central priorities rather than assuming that it is indirectly covered by other social goals such as poverty reduction or formal equality of opportunities, or assuming that it is a problem that will solve itself over time under globalised neoliberal capitalism.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	161-176
Number of pages	16
Journal	Journal of Human Development and Capabilities
Volume	26
Issue number	2
Early online date	18 Mar 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2025.2479028
Publication status	Published - Apr 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Funding

The arguments developed in this article were first presented as part of the event titled \u201CFighting Inequality to Finance Sustainable Development\u201D, a side-event at the February 2025 meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development. The side-event was held at the UN in New York on February 13, 2025 and was organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in partnership with Oxfam and NYU CIC Pathfinders. Needless to say, these organizers do not have any responsibility for any of the arguments presented in this article. I thank those attending for discussions that helped further develop and refine the arguments presented in this article. I especially thank Caleb Althorpe, Jamie Draper, Richard End\u00F6rfer, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Hannah McHugh, and Catharina Neves for written comments on an earlier draft, and I am also grateful for the comments made by an anonymous reader on behalf of the journal. Financial support from the NWO-VICI project \u201CVisions for the Future\u201D (grant number VI.C.211.038) is gratefully acknowledged.

Funders	Funder number
NWO-VICI
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek	VI.C.211.038

Keywords

Capitalism
Economic inequality
Extreme wealth concentration
Global institutions
Poverty
Wealth

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1080/19452829.2025.2479028Licence: CC BY

Why Economic Inequality Should be Central to Strategies for the FutureFinal published version, 742 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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Why Economic Inequality Should be Central to Strategies for the Future

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

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