[MUSIC]. In week three we turn to the subject of social mobility and wealth distribution in late imperial and contemporary China. This is work done together with one of our PhD students at the University of Michigan. Dr. Shuang was now an assistant professor of history at the University of Iowa. So, in week three, we moved from the topic in week two, which was education and social mobility, to social mobility and wealth distribution. We turn for the question in week two, which was who gets who get's what? To the question now in week three or how much did the who get? How much wealth, in other words, do you need to bee in the top 1% of wealthiest households in the United States? In the United Kingdom, and how does this compare to China historically, and to China today? And the answers, again, may be surprising. In the United States and the United Kingdom, you need 8 million dollars, or 8 million pounds to qualify to be in the top 1% of wealthiest households. In other words, you need an enormous amount of wealth, not just being a millionaire doesn't even get you close to being in the top 1%. You need almost to be a ten times millionaire, whether it's dollars or pounds, to qualify to be in the top 1%. So, we're looking at is not a question of, in terms of who gets what. We're not looking at a distribution of have's, and have-not's. We're looking instead at the distribution of have-a-lots, haves, and have nots. Because historically, the vast majority of people were have nots, and the very few, the top 1% were have a lots. in England and Wales, we'll look first at England and Wales, which was the richest nation in the world in the 19th century and early 20th century. Then we'll turn to the United States, which is the richest nation in the world today. And then we'll turn to China in the past and today. In contrast with with the English and the American experience. Now, in England and Wales, according to Peter Lindert, in 1670 the top 1% of households had 49% of all wealth. And by 1875 this had risen to 61% of wealth. By the 20th century according to Rovell, the top 1% had almost 70% of wealth, and then, this proportion steadily declined from 70 to 42%. And later in the 20th century declined to about into the 30s. However, what is quite often less stressed is the contrast between this small Have-A-Lot population and the rest of the population in England and Wales. The bottom 90%, not the bottom half, but the bottom 90%, which in 1911 had only 8% of wealth. And in 1960 still only had 17% of wealth. So, in other words, originally we're looking at a popu, at a population was so surely between a small Have-A-Lot and a very large Have-Not. And then we see in the 20th century is the gradual emergence of the so-called middle class. But it's very late compared to quite often popular assumptions, and it's also not that large. So, here, you can see in the third quarter of the 20th Century for Great Britain overall, the top 1% has, stays roughly consistent somewhere in the low 30% of all wealth. The bottom 80% also stays pretty consistent, only having 15-16% of wealth, was usually a very small number of Haves. So, we're looking at a very large amount of wealth being held by a very small population of Have-A-Lots. A slightly a smaller amount of wealth being held by the larger population of Haves and the still, this persistence of a large population of Have-Nots. How large is this Have-Not population? In the United States, even today, this Have-Not population is about 40% of all households. Those were half the population. Literally, almost half the population has zero wealth. In 1983, it was 0.9% of wealth, in 1998 it's 0.2% of wealth, in 2004 it's 0.4% of wealth, held by 40% of households. So, we can see here is this graph of distribution where in 2004 according to the U.S income survey 1% of households has 34% of wealth. The bottom 40% sorry, has 0.2% of wealth and then you have a small half population. So, Have-A-Lots, Haves, and then, very important to remember, the steady persistence of Have-Nots, the bottom 40%. in the west we recently have had what's called the Occupy Wall Street movement with the slogan of we are the 99%. And the reason for this social movement was sparked actually by academic research from French economists who talked who teach. in Paris at the University of California Berkely. According to these economists, if we compare the mean family net worth of the top 10%, as opposed to the next 15%. Or the next 25%, or the next 25%, or the bottom 25%, what we can see is that from 1995 to 2007, the top 10% doubled in wealth from 2 million to 4 million U.S dollars. Whereas the rest of the entire population, 90%, 80%, 70%, 60%, 50%, 40%, 30%, 20%, 10% is roughly a flat line. So, in other words, what we have is not just persistent inequality of Have-A-Lot's, Have's, and Have-Not's. We have growing inequality with a Have-A-Lot's increasing their share enormously. And then the rest of the population, Have's and Have-Not's really just remaining roughly, roughly stable. So, how does this compare to China?
