It’s hard to pinpoint an exact date, but sometime in the early years after the global financial crisis the problem of inequality moved to centrestage. Evidence that had once been discussed mostly in academic seminars found a wider audience among people trying to understand what had gone wrong in Western economies. What the figures showed were striking disparities in income and wealth, particularly in the United States, where they challenged the longstanding self-perception of a land of opportunity unshackled by the social rigidities of “Old Europe.”

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