Rich, poor ... what does it matter? "The poor will always be with us," right? Bill Gates gives money to AIDS programs in Africa, after all. Having resources like that to throw around can't be all bad.

Or is this rising tide of enormous inequality actually an enormous problem, requiring enormous solutions?

If you suspect the latter, check out the work of Keith Hart, an anthropologist who has also worked a "consultant, journalist, publisher and gambler". A long
summary of his book "The Memory Bank" (pictured above, published in 2000) can help you get your quota of heavy, but enlightening reading. It's a kind of neo-Marxist mega-analysis of the global money system, where it came from, and where it's going, ending with a call for a kind of middle-class revolution, or transformative change driven by people's willingness to engaged in principled, voluntary activity for the common good. Very de Toqueville. Very pie-in-the-sky, maybe.

Very worldchanging.

With thanks for Aromar Revi for the tip.