From Prosperity to Precarity: Mapping the Global Fault Lines of Inequality

This paper examines the multifaceted dynamics of economic inequality as a global challenge with profound implications for international stability and development. Drawing on both empirical data and historical analysis, the study explores how intra-national disparities such as unequal access to income, wealth, education, and health interact with international structural asymmetries rooted in colonial legacies, trade imbalances, and uneven technological diffusion. It argues that despite decades of global growth, inequality has persisted and, in many regions, intensified due to a convergence of policy failures, financial deregulation, and unbalanced forms of globalization. The paper identifies five major drivers of contemporary economic polarization: asymmetric globalization, technological acceleration and the digital divide, regressive tax systems, labor market fragmentation, and the unchecked financialization of economies. Through detailed case studies ranging from African migration to Europe, political crises in Latin America, and socioeconomic fragmentation in the United States it demonstrates how economic disparities not only erode domestic cohesion but also destabilize global governance, fuel populism and forced migration, and hinder collective responses to transnational crises. In its policy section, the paper outlines a comprehensive agenda focused on four pillars: reforming global taxation (e.g., wealth taxes and a global minimum corporate tax), enhancing and democratizing international financial institutions, investing in human capital and digital access across the Global South, and promoting transparency and fairness in global value chains. The conclusion calls for a renewed global social contract rooted in inclusive multilateralism, equity, and sustainability. It also highlights priority areas for future research, including the political consequences of inequality, technological disruptions, and regional variations in resilience. Economic inequality is thus reframed not as a developmental side issue, but as a central fault line shaping the future of global order.

کلیدواژه ها:

Economic Inequality ، Globalization ، Wealth Concentration ، Social Instability ، Global Governance