The disproportionate share of income taken by the very rich in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada led analysts at Citigroup to define those countries as plutonomies — economies “where economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few.”
This graph, from another bank, JP Morgan, shows the U.S. plutonomy …
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Hat-tip to Real World Economics Review Blog
Unfortunately the trend is currently towards a greater degree of social distance and economic inequality both within and among nations. Canadians have not been spaced from this tendency as we are linked to the global capitalist system. The only way out is to implement anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist (aka revolutionary socialist) policies in our respective countries.
Financial assets can been used as a proxy for energy consumption. When a factory, refinery or machine burns energy to create income for its owners, the top 10 percent is benefiting disproportionately from this energy usage.
This shows that greenhouse gas production is not primarily a problem of the masses, but of the rich. They have to transform the processes that generate their wealth.