Inequality and Discontent: A Nonlinear Hypothesis

At least since Aristotle, theorists have believed that political dis-content and its consequents—protest, instability, violence, revolution—depend not only on the absolute level of economic well-being, but also on the distribution of wealth. Contemporary political analysts have tried to test this ancient assumption using modern statistical methods. Their results are distressingly confusing. One cross-national investigation finds the commonsensical positive linear relation: the more the inequality, the greater the instability. A second study purports to show the opposite relation in the important case of South Vietnam: the greater the inequality, the less the support for revolution. And a third analysis, also of South Vietnam, detects no relation at all between inequality and rebellion.