Income Distribution

Abstract

Since developing countries began to assert themselves forcefully in the world political arena in the mid-1960s, the distribution of income and wealth among nations has been a widely discussed topic.¹ The very unequal division of the world’s wealth was vigorously attacked by the developing countries at the first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1964. Pressures on the developed countries continued at the three subsequent UNCTAD meetings and in other international forums, where various proposals for international income redistribution have been discussed and declarations calling for a “new international order” have been passed. The oil-producing countries demonstrated in the early 1970s that the developing countries themselves could seize the initiative, and the success of the OPEC cartel has led other developing countries to seek the formation of similar arrangements for other commodities ( see chapter 15) .