The newspaper was an interesting splash of contradictions this morning. On one side of the opinion page, ideas about the reduction of inequality and the pursuit of social justice here in the US by Krugman (let’s do it now, Mr President) and Brooks (let’s take our time: it takes a generation to raise social mobility). On the other, Timothy Egan who applauds Gates’ proclamation that the end of massive poverty is in sight. Almost, 2035. According to Gates, an increase in private philanthropy and governments’ foreign aid (low at the moment) remain essential to the goal of bringing it about. Life expectancy is on the rise, epidemic diseases are being pushed back or eradicated, and birth rates are about to stabilize, not explode, as poverty recedes. The Davos chalet crowd can be satisfied and not worry too much about the cry from Oxfam that inequality is massively increasing and threatening the security of everyone. See its report. Quotes from the second page:

• Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population.
• The wealth of the one percent richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population.
• The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world.
• Seven out of ten people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years.
• The richest one percent increased their share of income in 24 out of 26 countries for which we have data between 1980 and 2012.
• In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post-financial crisis growth since 2009, while the bottom 90 percent became poorer.

Not that Oxfam is a radical organization. It accepts the modern view that the pursuit of personal desires is providential—Adam Smith’s invisible hand—and creates better conditions for everyone all around. Quote from the second paragraph on the first page:

Some economic inequality is essential to drive growth and progress, rewarding those with talent, hard earned skills, and the ambition to innovate and take entrepreneurial risks. However, the extreme levels of wealth concentration occurring today threaten to exclude hundreds of millions of people from realizing the benefits of their talents and hard work.

The first word of this paragraph speaks volumes. How much is “Some economic inequality?” The replacement of a deprecated theology of divine providence (= the Church’s economy of salvation) by a supposedly rational belief in the claimed automatisms of a transcendental economic rationality looks less and less like progress.