Joseph Stiglitz | The Price of Inequality and the Myth of Opportunity

• America likes to think of itself as a land of opportunity, and others view it in much the same light. But ... to what extent do an individual's life chances depend on the income and education of his or her parents?
• The Globalization of Poverty: Deconstructing the New World Order ~ Michel Chossudovsky

Joseph Stiglitz, Project Syndicate
 
A member of the anti-capitalist Occupy Wall Street movement protests on 5th Avenue, New York. (photo: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

America likes to think of itself as a land of opportunity, and others view it in much the same light. But, while we can all think of examples of Americans who rose to the top on their own, what really matters are the statistics: to what extent do an individual’s life chances depend on the income and education of his or her parents?

Nowadays, these numbers show that the American dream is a myth. There is less equality of opportunity in the United States today than there is in Europe – or, indeed, in any advanced industrial country for which there are data.

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Related:

The Globalization of Poverty: Deconstructing the New World Order ~ Michel Chossudovsky, Described in Global Research
The World Bank and IMF have been the greatest purveyors of poverty around the world, despite their rhetorical claims to the opposite. These institutions, representing the powerful Western nations and the financial interests that dominate them, spread social apartheid around the world, exploiting both the people and the resources of the vast majority of the world's population.