Inequality,noun — a parlous state of unfairness to which solipsistic western societies are inexorably being dragged despite strenuous attempts by politicians to be seen opposing it.
Usually, ideas in economics shuffle quietly around academia with only the odd one bursting out into the political arena. It is rare for a subject to inspire first an international wave of street protests and then for the scholastic dialectic to get under way.
While the inchoate and ultimately ineffectual Occupy movement of 2011-2012 popularised the idea that most of the gains of growth accrue to the richest 1 per cent, a book by a French academic has given the issue more salience.