User:Adriancronin/sandbox

Total inequality is a phrase that comes from the study of income distribution amongst residents of individual countries and/or regions. A common method of measuring inequality is the Gini coefficient where maximum measurable inequality is described as "total inequality" or '1' or 100%. Conversely, a society which has an equal distribution of income (everyone earns the same salary) would achieve a zero score on the scale.

As labels 'total inequality' and 'total equality' are useful for establishing the polar extremes of how countries can theoretically be ranked according to the Gini index.

In his article on Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century titled 'Total Inequality' (published in the American magazine The Atlantic), Derek Thompson uses the phrase ‘total inequality’ as an umbrella term to describe all of the conditions arising from inequality (i.e. as inclusive of and in addition to the usual material factors) such as the "...psychological, and cultural disadvantages that come with poverty.”

In the film Requiem for the American Dream: Noam Chomsky and the Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power (2015), Noam Chomsky refers to 'total inequality' as a distinct objective marker for comparing the relative economic conditions of the Great Depression and modern North America: "But there was an expectation that things were going to get better, that there was a real sense of hopefulness. There isn’t today. The inequality is really unprecedented.  I mean, if you look at total inequality, it’s like the worst periods of American history."