Inequality, Work, Poverty and Economic Policies: A Link to Explain the Latin American Protracted Malady

Or centuries, inequality has worried philosophers, economists, politicians, governments. The evidence that at least since the mid-1970s inequality has increased reinstated the debate about its roots, effects and policies to treat it. By focusing in income rather in wealth concentration economic theory obscured the roots of many forms of inequality, let it be income, wage, education, health inequality, and hid the primary distribution of income. By doing so, economics presents these effects as causes of inequality and acts on the former, thus leaving the latter intact. This paper presents some of the theoretical elements that have shaped the analysis of inequality since mid-XX century and have supported the economic policies to address inequality. It ends with a review of long-term inequality in Latin America.