Early Colonies

For obvious reasons, Colonialism is associated with its most recent incarnation. A distant land with a superiority complex, on a mixture of a commercial and civilizing mission. Money and God. But we have always been wanderers. We know that every person alive descended from a single female who lived in Africa. People arrived in South America in the Paleolithic period when people grouped into small bands and went searching for food.

The early colonists wouldn't have been connected to earlier settlements other than by new wanderers, old lingering words, and a stretched supply line of physical features that adjusted to local conditions. They would mostly have been starting again.

I know how useless I am at a lot of pretty basic tasks. Mostly because I never had to learn them. Either because someone else did them because they loved me, or I could pay. I certainly don't personally know all the people who do things for me, or what doing those things for me entails. I don't even know where my food comes from.

I like the idea of a society where you don't ask anyone to do anything for you that you would not be prepared to do for yourself. That doesn't mean you have to do everything, or could do everything, but it removes the 'those tasks are below me' element.

The life of Genghis Khan, who founded one of the largest Empires the world has ever seen, was not that different from the lowest members of his original band of wanderers. Maybe just a slightly bigger Ger. As we have stopped wandering, the lives of those who stand still seem to have stretched apart.

I wonder how we would think differently if we were part of small groups of 150 people that connected us to everyone else. Names. Faces. Stories. The stuff that makes us human.

A Mongolian Ger

Conspicious Hoarding

I am far more concerned about consumption inequality, and absolute poverty, than I am about wealth or income inequality. Defining goals in relative terms may be how we think, and feel, but it is a moving target. Even consumption inequality only bothers me because it is deeply problematic when people don't have the basics, and others have plenty to waste. Conspicuous consumption is a stupidity tax. A lot of things are expensive because they are rare, not because they are valuable. There is a difference. The harder problem is conspicuous hoarding. Having assets in abundance that are needed that could be shared, that are just kept in case. I don't have a problem with investment in productive assets. Mostly the 'owners' have given control over to managers who will be punished by clients if they don't do a good job. Until everyone has enough to participate, then I think we should feel uncomfortable. We should do something.

Don't confuse value and rarity

Unravelling Apartheid

I am a privileged South African. The nature of the connected world means the comparisons 'my bubble' make is not only to other South Africans. The sports I grew up caring about were Cricket and Rugby. This connects me to the other colonial scatterlings in Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc. I heard a British comedian joke about the 'World Cup' of Rugby, 'The problem with Rugby is that half the teams are us'.

Global Income Inequality

South Africa is one of the wealthier African countries. Depending on the methodology, somewhere in the Top 5 (behind Mauritius, Seychelles and Equatorial Guinea). It tops the global list of income inequality though, along with Namibia and the Comoros. That means that poverty lives right alongside places that feel very much like Melbourne, Vancouver or London. Unemployment levels are structurally at the levels of the Great Depression.

National Income Inequality

One of the easiest ways to irritate a South African is to refer to Africa as a country. When you say you are from SA and someone responds, 'I love Africa, I was recently in Kenya.' Cape Town is 4104 km from Nairobi.  That is about the same as London to Baghdad. London, Baghdad, you know... same, same.

Inequality doesn't vanish when you hop on a plane, whether your destination is Cape Town, Nairobi, Baghdad or London. Global Apartheid does make it easier to ignore Cape Town though. Out of sight, out of mind. As a Soutie, I don't have that luxury. I will always consider bits of the world that are very far apart home. The contrasts will always be vivid. As someone who grew up in Apartheid South Africa, I viscerally feel the importance of awareness.

The challenge becomes balancing treating people the same with the broad brush of 'Global Citizen', 'African', 'Londoner' or 'Capetonian', and being aware of local issues. I can walk down a street in Cape Town, London or Chicago feeling completely out of my depth because of local Apartheid. I can arrive in a city in a foreign country and feel at home.

How do we get the balance right between focusing on our own issues, and not losing touch with reality? Our comparisons tend to be relative, and aspirational. We compare up. Knowledge also tends to be local, so that is where our actions are most powerful. But we are interdependent, and if we pull our focus in too tightly, reality will bite. Hard. When we look 'down', it will be because we are all falling. 

We rise together or not at all.

Saving v Investing

You save for something. Investment is different. Saving is putting money aside. Investing is putting money to work. One of the reasons we know about the Oxfam stat that just 8 men own the same wealth as half the world is that this wealth is predominantly in public assets. This means they own shares in businesses the public can own. The wealthy of old had land, and assets, they put aside for their use. The wealthy of today mostly invest their wealth. Even those that own private assets we don't know about will mostly invest in their money in things the public use in order to make it grow. There are still heaps of rich people who flaunt their wealth through conspicuous consumption, but it is a stupidity tax. The more you flaunt it, the less you'll have.

Money doesn't grow under beds

Careful How You Count

When anything is reduced to a number, something is lost. Numbers are incredibly powerful communication tools, but they oversimplify. Someone may live their lives hand to mouth, but have very big hands, a very big mouth and no savings. They will be rich, but have no capital wealth. A Yogi may live in an ashram off very little. Teaching and living simply. She will be rich, but have no material wealth. A friend tells of Lesotho where life is impoverished when measured in numbers,  but where they are rich in relational wealth. Global Economic Inequality is falling. Poorer countries, especially in South-East Asia, have been catching up rapidly. That doesn't matter much to local inequality. We care a lot more about our neighbours. Numbers are best thought of as questions, not answers.

Equality (Tim)

All of us are equal

(Human Rights Part 3; Part 2 - Life, Liberty, & Security; Part 1 - Free Speech) 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1 states, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” And then article 2 goes on to make reference to specific criteria for discrimination such as gender and race.

Which brings me to the burning question of our age. Why is there still so much racism in this world?  Why are ‘racial’ categories so hard-coded into our thinking, and why is it so hard for people to accept that race is really just a construct. It’s a man-made category without a firm biological basis. Sceptical? Think you can define racial characteristics? Try this thought experiment. Line up everyone in the whole world and order them from the darkest skin tone to the lightest. Now show me the point where one race ends and another begins.

Of course this is an extreme example, and most people would remind me of the common sense reality that everyone can tell who’s black and who’s white in their real lived experience. Can you, though? During the dark days of Apartheid, every South African had to be classified as black, white, coloured or Asian. Unfortunately for the racist architects of Apartheid, biology isn’t that simple, and it was not uncommon for so-called coloured people to be reclassified as white, or vice-versa based on an arbitrary standard like the infamous pencil test. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil_test_(South_Africa)

Ukuguqula lbatyi (the pencil test) 

by Kemang Wa Lehulere

Stories of racial confusion abound. Consider how a person who self-identifies as coloured in South Africa might be called black in America, and vice-versa. How would a Fijian be identified in America? How would an Inuit have been classified under Apartheid? To me the most ridiculous racial category of all is ‘Asian’. That means Russians, Turks, Kazakhs, Mongolians, Japanese, Afghans, Indians and Taiwanese Aborigines are all the same ‘race’.

Clearly, this is absurd, and so the argument in favour of racism is that you would need more fine-grained distinctions. But how much more fine-grained? From an outsider’s perspective, Indian people might look like a unified race, clearly distinct from other Asian peoples like the Chinese. But, from a closer perspective, it could be argued that North Indians (who mostly speak Indo-European languages) are racially distinct from South Indians (who mostly speak Dravidian languages). And so on, ad nauseam.

Finally, there is the argument from genetics. Genetics can prove the reality of race, even when we can’t see it, right? Well, yes and no. One of the most persistent and pernicious racial divisions in the world today is the distinction that is drawn between the black ‘race’ and the white ‘race’. The crux of this binary distinction is that all whites are of European descent and all blacks are of African descent. Unfortunately for the racists, genetics explodes the idea that there is a simple binary distinction between two homogeneous groups. There is no simple binary because there is more genetic diversity within Africa than in the rest of the world combined.

Racism isn’t just lazy thinking that splits humanity into false and superficial categories; it’s also lazy thinking that lumps genetically disparate groups of people into categories which confirm pre-existing biases. And that goes a long way to answering the riddle. Why does racism persist? Ultimately it’s just lazy thinking. And if we want to challenge racism, we all have to give up any kind of lazy stereotyping. We have to treat every individual as an individual and always resist the temptation to split or to lump, because humanity is far too complex, wonderful and beautiful to allow such lazy categorisation.

--- Other posts by Tim Casteling ---

Fire Power

One of the consequences of growing up in Apartheid South Africa was that I wasn't often exposed to huge 'class differences'. I don't like the word class and was brought up by parents regularly enforcing ideas of equality. The people who weren't of similar economic standing (not much better)... The people who didn't have as much fire power, were in servant roles - Gardeners, domestic servants, cleaners, lolly-pop men (helping cross the road), petrol attendants (servicing cars and filling them up), shopping bag packers. Not the stories of opulent colonial living I had heard of elsewhere. There weren't butlers etc. but there were lots of people in 'under roles'. Life was comfortable, and the poverty was hidden over the hills.

There wasn't aggression in my bubble, and relationships were or seemed good. There was an overwhelming sense of order. Schools had school uniforms. Short back and sides haircuts. Teachers were greeted with 'Morning Sir' or 'Afternoon Maam'. Everyone was polite. The naughty boys were the ones who didn't polish their shoes or tuck their shirts in. Even the bullies tend to only threaten to hit people... they seldom did. Lots of bark, not much bite.

As Apartheid ended, and the school I was in (very) slowly transitioned, things didn't change that much. There were some culture clashes. I can remember a difference in noise levels causing problems. Imagine people having loud conversations in a London tube and you will get the idea. Mostly, there weren't 'class clashes'. The guys entering my school had to be able to afford it. School fees rose quickly and there was a constant conversation about 'maintaining academic standards'.

South Africa doesn't have any city with an established underground system. Johannesburg has recently gotten the 'Gautrain' which connects the airport to the city, but the ticket prices still keep it segregated. The taxis and buses were (and are) not something my bubble are power users of. So what ends up happening is you drive from place to place, again with fairly limited exposure to people with different means, who aren't servants. I was told about gerrymandered districts in the US which look like barbells, the two ends connected by a highway, allowing people who agree with each other to drive from bubble to bubble. The same effectively exists where you drive from home, to work, to friends or to your watering hole of choice. Apartheid doesn't need laws, it needs cars.

Gerrymandered Bubbles

My first real exposure to class issues actually came from living in the UK. The idea that there are people with very real differences in financial and social fire power, living right next to each other. Walking next to each other. On the same public transport. There is more visceral interaction between people who aren't in service roles. There is also more aggression. Those social clashes that get spoken about in South Africa are very real elsewhere in the world, and in many cases that I have been involved in are very raw.

I hesitate to say this, because I find it an embarrassing feeling. But I feel it. So here it is. One of the consequences of the massive poverty in South Africa is that the quality of beggars and 'do it yourself' workers is higher. By 'do it yourself', I mean the kind of job for job's sake work you don't get elsewhere. In South Africa, there are lots of car guards. People who watch your car for you while you are away. People who put petrol in for you. These are jobs that aren't, or shouldn't be, necessary... but with >25% unemployment, they get done. Quite often a conversation with a car guard will lead to the discovery that the person is an Engineer, Doctor, or teacher. Sometimes from the Congo or other war torn areas. Beggars are often sober, well educated, and desperate.

As I travel, all of the wealthy countries I have been to still have issues with homelessness and people with mental health challenges. On average, I feel far less comfortable around these down and out people than in South Africa. In South Africa, while there are still people who have the substance and other issues, there are more 'but for the roll of the dice, there goes me' people.

Here in Seattle, I counted about 15 absolutely hammered people on the street the other day that I walked past. Admittedly I walked about 20km, so most people wouldn't see as many as that in any given day. I have had friends as drunk as that. I have been as drunk as that. Not knowing where limbs are going. The star of a one man show. The difference is, my friends and I tended to wake up the next day with a 'I am never again in my life drinking' epiphany and crack on with life. There is more permanence to this checking out of life. There were similar issues in Chicago. I wrote about the experience I had in Edinburgh. When I lived in Bermuda for a while, they also had their challenges. 

It stands in stark contrast to other scenes. Walking past the University of Washington with their banners saying 'who we are is why we win', I wanted to go back to formal studies. A beautiful campus with students in libraries, or gyms, or coffee shops, or sitting in parks reading. Students live notoriously simply, but lots of people looking back on student days as some of the best of their lives.

South Africa shows that you need some of the basic financial fire power to crack on with your potential. Some of the wealthy countries in the world show that fire power is not enough. There are some deeper, tougher issues we need to wrap our heads and hearts around.

Building for Tomorrow

At the heart of figuring out what we do, and how we do it, is motivation and incentives. The why. History is wonderfully complex. Britain was at the centre of the darkness of colonialism, but was also one of the powers fighting slavery. Beyond the moral cesspit slavery was, it also made no economic sense. The only reward a slave gets is subsistence. They aren't allowed to own anything. The only way someone would produce more than they need to do to survive each day, is by force. Free people produce more because they have the opportunity to build something for tomorrow.

At the heart of Capitalism is the idea that your labour can be freed. If you produce more than you need for today, tomorrow that extra bit can also work. You can employ your money. Wealth is effectively capital available to work instead of, or in addition to, your labour. The difference is capital doesn't have human emotions, desires, relationships and needs. The only motivation it needs to produce is for it to do something productive. Eventually, if your capital grows enough to support you, you can allocate your time in whatever way you find meaningful, without having to think about monetising it. Capital frees Labour.

People get upset by those with excessive financial assets. I get more upset by people with excessive physical assets. A large house with lots of unused rooms. Property in the prime position sitting idle. Boxes and boxes of clothing and shoes sitting in cupboards in case. Food wastage. All these kinds of physical wealth effectively hoard their use from others. Financial assets are different. They just become a number. Warren Buffett has an estimated $67bn in financial wealth. He doesn't have an underground chamber of shoes, 1,000 cars and a house with 10,000 rooms. Instead he owns shares in real businesses making real things for real people.

Food v Finance

Capitalism shifts the incentives. Buffett says the reason he is so famously frugal in his spending is that he times the cost of everything by 10. Spending money is like firing it. Conspicuous consumption is a stupidity tax. If instead of spending it, he gives it a job, it will grow to 10 times the amount eventually. All he keeps is a 'number'. A number he tries to grow. That encourages him to carry on working well beyond what he needs.

I don't dispute the inequalities in the world. That there are almost 1 billion people in our world living on less than $1.25 a day boggles my mind and upsets me deeply. We have a lot of work to do to give people basic access to education, safety, nutrition and the foundation required to pursue a meaningful life. The basic access most of our parents gave us. I know a lot of Swamis (Yogic Monks) who own nothing but are far further along the road of well being than the richest people I know. They have far more power over their inner worlds. Obsessing over financial wealth is the opposite of what we should be doing.

We can't wave a wand and solve the world's problems. But each day we can do a little bit more. And we don't need permission. There are enough people who care to just get on with it. 

Saving Starfish

There was a story I was told when I was young when people were feeling overwhelmed with all the problems in the world. An old man is walking on the beach and sees a young lady throwing starfish into the water. He asks her what she is doing and she says the sun will dry out the starfish. She needs to return them to the water. He points down the beach at the hundreds of starfish and says she can't possibly make a difference. She picks up another, and as she throws it back to its home she says, 'I made a difference to that one'.

This story was a founding parable for the Starfish Greathearts Foundation and they do great work. I love the tale and the lesson, but I have been mulling over a problem that it doesn't recognise. I am a big believer in the power of people on the front lines to know better than some grand central plan. Often we know the right thing to do without being able to communicate it. On the flip side, we struggle to increase our circle of empathy. In fact we quite often don't even know about the problems beyond those that come into our field of vision. At worst, we actively don't care.

We often think of leaders as people who will get things done. The leader has the power and represents groups of people's interests to make sure everyone is heard. That doesn't work if decision making is best left in the hands of individuals. I think a leaders role is perhaps to remove obstacles and let people get on with it, but also to ask tough questions. To point out inconsistencies.

A blaring inconsistency for me is the noise being made by 'the 99%' in America. The inconsistency lies in the fact that most of those 99% are in fact part of the 1%. You need just $34,000 annual income to be part of the global elite. The global median salary is $1,225.  I am not saying that inequality in America is not a problem. I just have two issues I need help with.

The first is wrapping my head around why people who don't think money buys happiness should be so concerned about there being people who have lots more than them. As soon as you benchmark your own happiness on someone else's level of wealth I think you can lose track of what is important to you. I am not saying that there aren't impoverished people in America. I would argue that most of them have 'enough' already. Most of them are cultural billionaires. In fact, if you are reading this blog, you are probably also a cultural billionaire. Money is a seductive measure because it is easy to quantify and compare. The good stuff can't be compared. The good stuff is priceless. We may just be scared of the good stuff and so making a noise about inequality gives us a way to kill time.

The second issue I have a problem with is getting emotional about 'high bar' problems when there are still lots of low bar problems for us to solve. There are enough people in the world that have enough to spare to deal with issues like ending absolute poverty. In America. In the World. That isn't the kind that depends on what other people are earning. That is the kind that ends lives.

I think it is good to focus. I think individuals are best placed to pick up the starfish and throw them in the water. If you live in a liberal democracy with a strong constitution, you don't need government to sort everything out. You don't even need consensus to sort some of the big problems out. You just need to care about the big problems first. The American '99%' can make a huge difference to global inequality if they want to. Perhaps that is the role of leaders, not to govern, but to tell stories. And to build a bigger tribe.

Bishopscourt and Bonteheuwel (by Tota Tsotsotso)

Guest Post: Tota Tsotsotso

In order to be polite company, we are told to avoid politics, religion and sex. These topics get the blood boiling and can prevent any possibility of people getting along. These topics also matter to people. Jonathan Haidt wrote a wonderful book trying to get to the bottom of why good people disagree. Part of his argument is that logic can only take you so far. We don't really believe what we believe based on logic. That comes second as an explanation (or excuse) for what we believe.

He suggests that we should talk about these thorny topics. If we don't, things that are very important parts of our happiness get shelved or cause rifts. At university we had a free speech board which occassionally touched a nerve. The rest of the time it was empty due to apathy or beer. Living together in University Residence, Tota and I met at around both the board and the beer. He is good people. He has been venturing into some of the tougher topics online and I share one of his posts from yesterday here.

[Travel troubles mean I am struggling to post a pretty pic of Tota, I will change that the first chance I get]

Bishopscourt and Bonteheuwel
by Tota Tsotsotso

Don't let them convince you otherwise, South Africa is going places.... We bemoan so much, and there really is reason to do so. This democracy is being tested, as it should be. The rainbow nation experiment is failing. I, and a lot of people having been a minority in holding that view. The truth is, we aren't drones or little kids thrown together on a play ground and told to figure it out and be friends. We belonged to a polarised society that actually had to confront each other and settle into a truthful existence. The last 20 odd years have been a shameful falsehood; enough to keep the peace, but not enough to build a nation. Until the plight of a cold homeless child in Bonteheuwel is emotionally draining to that middle class family in Bishopscourt, we aren't building a nation. We are just a bunch of little children on a play ground told to get along. Until we learn from history and learn from each other, we will remain divided. We are at a critical point in SA. All our institutions are failing. We are like an old house with a great structure. We need a massive refurbishment. And it's on the way!! I'm sitting here having a cup of tea before a conference in the heart of Sandton, and I'm surrounded by global citizens ready to do business with South Africa. 

Nature has a way of exiting what shouldn't be. There is lots of emigration talk (what's new) and migration to Cape Town. Long may that continue!! People should be free to live in the type of society that they desire. But if you step back and look at the bigger picture, South Africa's middle class strongly reflects that from 100 years ago. This nation won't settle until there is an even distribution of land and wealth and opportunities. Society evolves, so we probably won't be talking of minerals in 200 years. Whatever age we are living in in 200 years time, equality and equality of opportunities needs to be the dominant bias. This country will settle into whatever it was suppose to be. The current turmoil clearly means we weren't ready, and definitely weren't ready to be a rainbow nation. This will happen when our idea of a democratic and united South Africa are more common. 

My favourite and most rousing statement by Barack Obama is the following, and I'm hoping a derivative of this will be applicable one day to our glorious Republic;

"We are not a collection of red states and blue states, we are, and forever will be the United States of America."

*Tota jumps up scream "Go Barack"!!*

Enjoy your day.

Levels of Moral Development (by Patrick Madden)

Guest Post: Patrick Madden

A few friends of mine have become life coaches. For people who aren't religious, there can be gaps from no longer having a community of people who regularly get together to talk about life, and leaders (beyond your friendship circle) who care about your self development. We think of seeing a psychologist when things are going wrong, but what about when things are fine? My understanding of a life coach is someone whose thought and supportive conversations can help people flourish. I think it is a wonderful idea.

I met Patrick at University. He is a thoughtful, interesting guy and a wonderful listener with more than eight years of daily mindfulness practice. He works with The Potential Project and you can find out more about what he does through his website and blog. This will be the first in a four part series of guest blog posts. I have been chewing on this subject too. I am always very passionate about the groups I am involved in. A proud Westville boy. A proud KwaZulu-Natalian. A proud South African. A proud employee. At each stage I realised how destructive it was if there wasn't a bigger group to extend that pride to. If you aren't able to form a 'Bigger Tribe', at some stage Patriotism just becomes a form of Xenophobia or Racism.

Levels of Moral Development
by Patrick Madden

I met my soul again last night in a dream. It feels like it's been a long time. I was sitting with my mother and she asked me about they way I think about life. I took a while to respond and when I did I talked about the sadness of this human society, where some are so rich they can buy a superyacht and sail around the ocean while others have to sort through garbage heaps for food.

As I spoke, I wept. The grief was immense and fast and powerful, like a torrent pouring through me at the wretchedness of it. In some strange but real way, the sadness was blissful because it was intense and pure and unsullied by self-consciousness. I knew I was contacting something real.

So today I’m slightly less sanguine, slightly less buffered by knowing and an easily achieved self-conscious irony from the rawness of my heart. Slightly less buffered doesn’t mean unbuffered, by any means. The heart of my waking self is less ardent and unfiltered than the one I felt in that dream. I’m more conscious of the sheer discomfort of reading ‘moral messages’ and how easily they can be read as preachy. So I want to write about the importance of thinking clearly about moral development.

(I get up and make a cup of tea. My tone changes.)

A change of Tea Tone

Morality is a developmental line of intelligence, just like cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence, social intelligence, somatic intelligence and others. These lines develop at different speeds in different people, so in rare cases we can find, at the extremes, a selfish genius (high cognitive intelligence, low moral intelligence) or a gold-hearted idiot (the opposite). For people who work with people’s development (like coaches) it’s helpful to have a way of thinking about the degree of development their client possesses on each of those lines. Thus, we think about – and, in some circles, speak about! – levels of development.

To discern the level of someone’s moral intelligence, we observe what their actions (much more than their words) reveal about whom and what matters to that person. Who/what belongs to their class of morally relevant entities, and who/what does not?

For a very young child, that class is a class of one: me matters. That’s egocentric morality, illustrated nicely in the blithe self-interest of a typical two-year-old.

In older children, if they develop normally, that class expands to include our immediate family and then further, to include our clan or tribe. This is ethnocentric morality: people who are like us in an important way deserve moral consideration, people who are unlike us in that way do not, e.g. Tutsis over Hutus, Christians over Muslims, Jews over Arabs.

Ethnocentrism remains until we value all humans (but still not so much non-humans) regardless of tribe: that’s humanist morality. We might later include non-human animals in the class of the morally worthy, perhaps by eating a vegan diet.

That’s not the end of the story, necessarily, but it’s enough to illustrate the principle. Next in this series: three important points that inform effective thinking with these levels, and how the levels appear to each other.

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In writing a blog about several topics in which I admit to being a complete beginner, I am going to have to rely heavily on the people I am writing for who cumulatively know most of what I am likely to learn already. I would love it if some of you found the time to write a guest post on the subject of happiness or learning. The framework I use for thinking about these things is what I call the '5 + 2 points' which includes proper (1) exercise, (2) breathing, (3) diet, (4) relaxation, (5) positive thinking & meditation, (+1) relationships, (+2) flow. Naturally if you would like to write about something that you think I have missed, I would love to include that too. If you are up to doing something more practical, it would be awesome if you did a 100 hour project and I am happy to do the writing based on our chats if that is how you roll. Email me at trevorjohnblack@gmail.com 

Big Hand to Big Mouth

The pursuit of equality can be a direct obstacle to the pursuit of happiness. Equality forces relative comparison. In order to impose equality, you may have to remove liberty. I think liberty is a more attractive goal. Branko Milanovic wrote a great post yesterday on the fact that `Wealth is not income and income is not consumption'. It is a good reminder that statistics should be treated as questions rather than answers. One of the first questions you should ask back is what is the measure ignoring. Usually you have to look at something in lots of different ways to get a sense of the problem. Averages, for example, are very dangerous. One of my favourite quotes comes from Howard Marks in 'The Most Important Thing' who said 'Never forget the six-foot man who drowned crossing a river that was five foot deep on average'.

To super-summarise Milanovic' point. There are plenty of people in wealthy countries who have zero or negative net wealth but live to a very high standard. To work out wealth, you subtract all you owe from all you own, and ignore income. Where there is lots of financing or someone earns a fat salary, their lack of wealth will certainly not be visible to someone in the street. Someone who lives hand to mouth can have a very big hand and a very big mouth. When it comes to consumption, there are limits to what a mouth can fit in it. Arguably it is the size of the stomach that decides what is needed for equality, and the person who eats till they are 80% full that is happiest. If you live in a rich country, you are typically a cultural billionaire. How do you incorporate into the picture of someone's equality the happiness of their city? How do you incorporate that someone with a very high income may be time impoverished? How do you incorporate scale limits which prevent the very wealthy from being able to control everything - you still only have two eyes, two ears, a limited memory and an annoying lack of omnipresence.

Being someone who practices Yoga, I have many people I know who have chosen a life of volunteering. Some live in beautiful surroundings. They have no wealth and their income is close to board and lodging. They spend their days teaching yoga, cooking, cleaning, reading, exercising and sitting thinking about their breathing. They are happy. They would fall into the wealth and income measures of poverty. Some live on very, very simple diets and could possibly fall into measures of consumption poverty if those measures were poorly designed. Outside the Ashram, others have also chosen a different path. I wrote about Bill Cunningham whose view is 'If you don't take the money. They can't tell you what to do. That is the key to the whole thing.' He is a Cultural Billionaire and has zero interest in wealth or income equality. To force it on him would be to remove his liberty.

I have just finished binge watching the first season of Marco Polo after completing Borgia. While the focus of the series is on political wranglings of the elite, most of the normal people were living in poverty. Power seemed like a pageant to give desperate people some sense of belief that their hunger may end. The kings of those days would marvel at the material wealth and living standards of common men of today. When things are working, we don't have anyone who has the power those kings had. I still bristle at politicians who talk of being 'in power' or 'majority rules'. No one should rule. Constitutions and Laws decide what you can and can't do. There is often discussion over who the most powerful people in the world are. Obama's new wrinkles will argue against his candidacy. Janet Yellen will get some supporters, and her main role is just to influence a interest rate that most people in the world probably have no idea of. Putin may flex his muscles but all that does is decrease his influence.

There is still a lot of extreme poverty, prejudice and powerlessness in the world. We need to be careful what we measure, what it means, and if it is important.