Boom time for the global bourgeoisie
Jim O'Neill | Tuesday, 22 July 2008
FT Syndication Service
IN the midst of the current widespread gloom and doom in the west, it is important not to lose sight of the true structural themes shaping our era.
Linked to the current mood, commentators often depict an embattled and shrinking middle class, with sharply rising financial inequality. However, globally, this is simply not true. One of the most startlingly positive phenomena for many generations continues to unfold around the world. We are in the middle of an explosion of the world's middle class.
As two of my colleagues, Dominic Wilson and Raluca Dragusanu, showed in a paper Goldman Sachs published recently ("The Expanding Middle: The Exploding World Middle Class and Falling Global Inequality), about 70m people a year globally are entering this wealth group, as defined by those on incomes of between $6,000 and $30,000 (euro3,800-euro19,000,
IN the midst of the current widespread gloom and doom in the west, it is important not to lose sight of the true structural themes shaping our era.
Linked to the current mood, commentators often depict an embattled and shrinking middle class, with sharply rising financial inequality. However, globally, this is simply not true. One of the most startlingly positive phenomena for many generations continues to unfold around the world. We are in the middle of an explosion of the world's middle class.
As two of my colleagues, Dominic Wilson and Raluca Dragusanu, showed in a paper Goldman Sachs published recently ("The Expanding Middle: The Exploding World Middle Class and Falling Global Inequality), about 70m people a year globally are entering this wealth group, as defined by those on incomes of between $6,000 and $30,000 (euro3,800-euro19,000,