Nicola Persico, Fighting Pollution: What China Can Learn From Britain. Fortune, Mar 10, 2015 (blog).
fortune.com/2015/03/10/fighting-pollution-what-china-can-learn-from-britain/
Quote:
"In the 1729, Britain was in a similar position as today's China. Back then, the 'workshop of the world' was not China, but Manchester. * * * Manchester was so unsanitary that life expectancy at birth was only 27 years, compared to the British average of 41.
"Britain entered the industrial revolution as an oligarchy, and came out a democracy. By the time the ‘Age of Reform’ was over (1830-1884), all English male heads of households could vote. Despite Karl Marx’s prophesy [sic; in both British and American English, “prophesy” is a verb and prophecy, a noun] of class struggle, this democratization happened peacefully. A reading of the historical evidence suggests that the democratization process was harmonious because environmental and health issues created elite support for it.
* “Age of Reform” is NOT a proper name in the history of any nation.
Max Roser, Income Inequality. OurWorldInData.org, 2015.
ourworldindata.org/data/growth-and-distribution-of-prosperity/income-inequality/
, where Figure 2 caption ("More than 700 Years of Income Inequality the UK (1290-2010) – Income Share of the Top 5% and Gini") contains top panel (whose heading is "Share of Total Income Going to the Top 5% of Income Earners; All series refer to pre-tax incomes") and bottom panel (heading: Gini Index; All series refer to pre-tax incomes").
The source, listed to the right of the Figure, is: Peter H Lindert, Chapter 3 Three centuries of inequality in Britain and America. In AB Atkinson and F Bourguignon (eds), Handbook of Income Distribution. vol 1 Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2000, pages 167-216. www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1574005600800068
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