At the eve of the twenty-first century, after the world was shaken by a quick succession of financial crisis which resulted in levels of inquality not seen since before the first world war in most developed countries, most economists around the globe were at a loss as to why their theories were not working in real life.
As some of them, more proficient in mathematics than others, explained that exponential growth in a finite system was untenable on the long term, and that humans did not, in the vast majority of cases, act as assumed in their models, it was decided that our economic practices and prejudices needed a global overhaul. In what where to be the most drastic reforms of our century, it was decided that growth would no longer be an absolute priority, and that our ressources should go first and foremost to guaranteeing a decent living standard to everybody. To this end, taxes on big fortunes and high incomes, as well as profits from financial speculation, were raised significantly, and consitently, across the world.
Despite violent protests from the top ten percent, the majority got their way for once, and, after a few years, inegality reached an all-time low in the western hemisphere. As the rich fled to developing countries, which had refused to implement the same tax reforms, that massive injection of capital, and the will of the immigrated elite to live in a nice place, accelerated the devlopment of these countries considerably, and it is now believed that by the end of the century, inqualities between countries around the globe will be almost gone. However, given the fact that most of those now-developed countries hold more natural ressources than the western world ever did, and that they are the only ones still pursuing an agressive capitalist policy, some wonder if we are not going to face a reversed image of the twentieth century in the near future.
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