World's Most Equal Countries

Video Description

The top 1% controls the lowest share of wealth in these ten countries. Data source (especially charts 6-5 and 3-6): http://bit.ly/2fGkpa1 Subscribe to TDC: https://www.youtube.com/TheDailyConversation Music: Midnight Memories (TDC Remix) by Glimpse https://soundcloud.com/glimpse_official Video concept, written, narrated and produced by Bryce Plank Video co-designed, edited, and scored by Robin West Script: Our last video broke down where the 1% controls the most wealth, now let’s look at the 10 countries that are best at preventing too much wealth from accumulating at the top. Tenth is Switzerland, with the highest median wealth in the world. Investors love parking their money there because the Swiss political and economic system is on lock. This constant injection of foreign capital helped the country survive the global recession that battered the rest of the world. France is ninth. Government spending accounts for half of the economy and it owns shares in many companies like banks, energy utilities, transportation providers, telecommunications firms. This gives the French people more control over working conditions and wages so they aren’t exploited as much as workers in other countries. The Netherlands is the eighth most equal country. 56% of its wealth is owned by the top 10%. That seems like a lot, but it’s actually one of the lowest rates in the world. The government uses aggressive taxation to fight the worldwide trend of more and more earnings going to the rich. Seventh is Greece. The economic crisis that has ravaged the country over the past decade has driven poverty over 30%. The Greek’s problem isn’t keeping wealth out of the hands of the rich, it’s that there isn’t enough wealth, period. Number 6 is the UK, where there are over 2 million millionaires, that’s more than 3% of the population. Over the last century, taxation has cut the one percent’s share of total wealth in half. But it’s on the rise again as earnings are increasingly captured by the top. Fifth is Australia. Only Switzerland and Iceland have median wealth higher than Australia. Mining is one of its strongest economic sectors. The physical demands of that industry could be why Australians focus on fairly compensating their workers. Another wealthy country is New Zealand, the fourth-best nation at preventing its one percenters from plundering all the booty. Like the Aussies, Kiwis are big agricultural exporters. Even though there are a lot of farmers, they’re also a relatively well educated people who wouldn’t tolerate being taken advantage of by elites. Third is Japan. It has the second most millionaires in the world and its capital is the world’s largest city. This combination of development and density has driven the Japanese to embrace a balanced approach to society building through policies that reward success while preventing gratuitous wealth accumulation. The second-most equal country in the world is Belgium. 97% of its 11.25 million people live in cities, which fosters a “we’re all in this together” mindset. Belgium’s capital, Brussels, is also the seat of government for the European Union—the organization that’s been—arguably—the most effective at tackling income inequality in the history of the world. On that note, the country whose 1% controls the least wealth is Hungary. It didn’t create a single billionaire until 2016. It joined the European Union in 2004 and has a universal health care system and provides tuition-free university education to its people. There’s something special about this part of the world as Hungary’s neighbors—Slovenia and Slovakia—also rank near the top of various other rankings of equality. So I want to know why do you think that is? I’m also curious to know where your country came in on this list, or did it make the other list—like mine—of the places where the top 1% controls too much wealth. Thanks for watching, until next time, for TDC, I’m Bryce Plank.