alt Hacker NewsGhana's GINI index is only a couple points higher than the US (43 vs 41), and the same as Mexico.
I don't think wealth inequality explains this at all. But what rigid social institutions of any kind tend do is inhibit mobility. Moreover, kinship groups like this tend to lock-in relative wealth by lineage--the wealthiest family of a kin group from 3 generations ago will be much more likely (relative to other cultures) to be the wealthiest family 3 generations from now. Greater mobility means productivity increases faster, which raises absolute wealth for everybody even if relative wealth disparities across the entire population remain constant.
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I don't think social factors are not necessarily a nonfactor, more that this article claims that income equality within kinship groups is a forcing function for lack of economic growth. My claim is that the inequality that these countries face not just between each other within the nation but in our globalized economies, access to resources, capital and labor and thus the downstream effects of smaller markets, less need for labor will lead to less growth. I think you can have economic growth with kinship society if more people within the kinship have greater access to wealth growing, the issue here is that there's limited resources and the kinship society exists as an effect of less resources than the other-way around
> the wealthiest family of a kin group from 3 generations ago will be much more likely (relative to other cultures) to be the wealthiest family 3 generations from now.
I am not sure if this claim is true as well, wealth generally does stay within family lineages across cultures, generally people losing their wealth or even gaining it is an outlier. See any landed gentry in Europe, Asia
Actually; you can see this in America, as income continues to be more concentrated, and more unequal, economic productivity for an individual does go down as there's less opportunity to accrue wealth as before.
> even if relative wealth disparities remain constant.
Relative wealth disparity increases as absolute wealth increases because below a minimum level of income people starve. IE you can’t make 1/10th the median wage in a subsistence economy long term you just die. But a homeless person can survive for decades in the US on ~500$ a month.