We Are Banana Republic

All my life I’ve heard Latin America described as a failed society (or collection of failed societies) because of its grotesque maldistribution of wealth. Peasants in rags beg for food outside the high walls of opulent villas, and so on. But according to the Central Intelligence Agency (whose patriotism I hesitate to question), income distribution in the United States is more unequal than in Guyana, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and roughly on par with Uruguay, Argentina, and Ecuador.

From Introducing the Great Divergence, the first in Timothy Noah’s Slate series The United States of Inequality.

Actually the term “banana republic,” which Noah uses in his piece, doesn’t refer to income inequality alone. It refers to a certain banana growing company and its interventions in Latin American politics and land use battles.

Still, the United States is unique in its level of income inequality among industrialized nations. And that gap has real consequences for social mobility, social justice, and national stability.