Dear Mr. President, members of WAPE, distinguished guests, Good morning!I now announce the opening of the Eighth Forum of the World Association for Political Economy, the theme of which is and World Capitalism: Analysis, Policy and Action.First, please allow me, on behalf of the association, to extend the warmest welcome to scholars from over 20 countries around the world, and sincere gratitude to the administrators, professors and staff of Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) as the host of this forum.The World Association for Political Economy (WAPE) is an international academic organization founded in 2006 by Marxian economists and related groups around the world. The mission of WAPE is to utilize modern Marxian economics to analyze and study the world economy, reveal its laws of development, and offer policies to promote economic and social progress on the national and global level. The last six WAPE forums were successively held in Shanghai, Shimane (Japan), Beijing, Paris, Suzhou (China), Amherst (USA), and Mexico City (Mexico) between 2006 and 2012, and have gained significant influence at the global level.The WAPE forum this year will be discussing theories, policies, and actions with regards to the following topics:1. The inequality in the production and distribution of wealth in the world and its causes;2. The occupy movement and anti-inequality struggles worldwide;3. Inequality in Latin America;4. Social policy and reduction of inequality;5. Analyses of the current financial and economic crisis;6. Falling rate of profit in capitalist countries;7. Changing north-south relations in the 21st century;8. Comparison of Latin American model and Chinese/Vietnamese/Belarus model;9. Models of contemporary socialism and its strength;10. Labor Theory of Value and Exploitation;11. Eco-socialism and anti-nuclear power plant movement in the world;12. Modern political economy, etc.Having said that, I'd like to share with you some thoughts of mine about the theme of this forum: and World Capitalism.1. We have observed very large inter-country differences in the level of household wealthAccording to the study of Davies et al. (2011), the USA is the richest country in aggregate terms, with wealth estimated at PPP (purchasing power parity) $201,319 per adult in the year 2000. At the opposite extreme among countries with wealth data, India has per adult wealth of $11,655 in PPP terms. The wealth to income ratio rises with income or wealth, meaning that in poor countries the relative shortfall of wealth is greater than that of income. Global wealth-holding is highly concentrated, much higher than in the case of income. The share of the top 10 per cent of adults in 2000 is estimated to be 71.2 percent and the Gini coefficient to be 0.804. The share of the bottom half is just 1.6 per cent (with 0.784 for Brazil, close to 0.801 of the USA). Measured wealth inequality is higher still if international comparisons are based on official exchange rates, which is appropriate if attention is focused on the rich and super rich: the share of the top decile rises to 85 percent and the Gini becomes 0.893.These statistics indicate that the world's wealth distribution is considerably more unequal than its income distribution, for which Milanovic (2005) reports Gini coefficients of 0.642 and 0.795, respectively, on PPP and exchange rate bases, for his full 1998 sample. Estimated wealth concentration varies significantly across countries and is generally very high (as quoted in Davies et al. 2011). Comparisons of wealth inequality often focus attention on the share of the top 1 percent. That statistic is reported for 11 countries in the past 10 years or so. Estimated shares of the top 1 percent range from 10.4 percent in Ireland to 34.8 percent in Switzerland, with the USA towards the top end of this range at 32. …
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