It helps first to distinguish between two concepts: wealth distribution and income distribution among citizens. Income is the net revenue during a certain period of time, a month or a year, while wealth is the value of assets owned net of liabilities as they stand at a certain date.
Wealth could be negative if debts exceed assets.
In theory, it is quite possible to find a citizen who controls a big wealth but has a small current income. At the same time, one can find a high-income individual who is heavily in debt. However, it is only customary to find high income and large wealth come together and low income and poverty side by side.
There is no equal distribution of income or wealth anywhere in the world of today, not even in a socialist country. The issue, therefore, is not the absence of equality. It is the absence of just distribution of income or wealth.
Social activists aim at minimising the variation of income and wealth, and to allow the poor to get enough to lead a normal life, even at the minimum level.
For good or bad, we in Jordan do not have an accurate survey to demonstrate the state of wealth or income distribution. We do not know with any degree of accuracy what is the share of the richest 20 per cent and the poorest 20 per cent of the Jordanian population.
In this article, I admittedly mix up distribution of income with distribution of wealth as if they were the same, unable to deal with the two concepts separately. The assumption is that high income creates wealth and big wealth generates high income
Conventional wisdom holds that the distribution of wealth in Jordan is not as bad as may be the case in other countries with similar degree of economic development.
If it is true that the richest 20 per cent of Jordanians have three times the overall average, and that the poorest 20 per cent have one third of the overall average, as claimed by a study conducted two years ago by the Centre for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, then the picture is not only reasonable but excellent in comparison to the prevailing situation in an advanced and rich country like the United States.
The distribution of wealth in America proved to be much worse than the public opinion thinks. On average, the American public believes that the wealthiest 20 per cent own around 59 per cent of wealth, while in fact they own 84 per cent. The public believes also that the poorest 20 per cent own 3.7 per cent of the wealth, while they own no more than 0.1 per cent. (see Businessweek of October 25, 2010).
The above facts indicate that the share of the richest 20 per cent of Americans is 840 times the wealth of the poorest 20 per cent, a picture that is much worse when compared to the richest and poorest 10 per cent of the population.
Most likely, the public perception here is not much different. Distribution of wealth in Jordan may also be worse than we think. In fact, many observers believe that Jordan has no abject poverty, homelessness or hunger.
One century ago, Jordanians were almost equal in poverty. They are now very much unequal in wealth.
© Jordan Times 2010
