The 200 richest people in the world more than doubled their net worth between 1994 and 1998. But in nearly half the world's countries, per capita incomes are lower than they were 10 or 20 years ago. In 1960, the richest fifth of the world's people had 30 times as much income as the poorest fifth. By 1997, that proportion had more than doubled, to 74-1. The key to a solution to these problems, the UNDP said, is not to stamp out the global economy but to embrace it with the rules and institutions that will ensure it serves people and communities, not just markets and their manipulators.
Markets are neither the first nor the last word in human development.
Many activities and goods that are critical to human development are provided outside the market, but these are being squeezed by the pressures of global competition. The challenge is to find the rules and institutions for stronger governance . . . to preserve the advantage of global markets and competition but also to provide enough space for human, community and environmental resources to ensure that globalization works for people, not just for profits. The gap between people, like the one between nations, also is growing in the global economy, the UNDP report said. Businesses and institutions in the same 10 control 95 percent of all patents issued by the U.S. government over the past 20 years, it said. The major countries and the global corporations may have earned their dominance, but, the report said, this monopoly of power is cutting poorer nations off from a share of the economic pie and, often, from decent health care and education.