It's been that way since life became at the level of protists.
What has? Social stratification? How can we ell?
It's not just the global South that's impoverished ... large numbers of people in the North are living in wretched conditions. While Russia acquired a number of millionaires and billionaires post-Soviet Union, the majority of its citizens saw their standard of living decrease drastically in the ensuing years. The moneyed elite in Russia are living large, whereas a large portion of the rest are living in 19th century conditions. You could tell a similar story, more-or-less (maybe not quite as extreme in most places) about every other country in the global North.
Conversely, while the majority of citizens of the global South is also impoverished, there's a small but significant number of people whose standard of living is actually higher than most middle-income people in the North.
A truly equitable world with the peoples of the global South and North able to determine their own destinies would be the ruin of the systems which keep this kind of stratification in place - though not necessarily ruin of the people who benefit from them. And as far as I'm concerned, ruining systems of stratification is a bit (actually, quite a bit) like ruining a system like slavery - all to the good.
This is not a great or a grand world, it's mostly been a harsh and brutal one and only in the last century or so has that moderated to a great degree even in the Rich countries.
Maybe if you only look at it from the top. Looked at from the ordinary, everyday point-of-view of the third estate, the people who've hardly ever had a real say in their own destinies, you see something quite different, something impressive, something truly inspiring.
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What has? Social stratification? How can we ell?
It's not just the global South that's impoverished ... large numbers of people in the North are living in wretched conditions. While Russia acquired a number of millionaires and billionaires post-Soviet Union, the majority of its citizens saw their standard of living decrease drastically in the ensuing years. The moneyed elite in Russia are living large, whereas a large portion of the rest are living in 19th century conditions. You could tell a similar story, more-or-less (maybe not quite as extreme in most places) about every other country in the global North.
Conversely, while the majority of citizens of the global South is also impoverished, there's a small but significant number of people whose standard of living is actually higher than most middle-income people in the North.
A truly equitable world with the peoples of the global South and North able to determine their own destinies would be the ruin of the systems which keep this kind of stratification in place - though not necessarily ruin of the people who benefit from them. And as far as I'm concerned, ruining systems of stratification is a bit (actually, quite a bit) like ruining a system like slavery - all to the good.
Maybe if you only look at it from the top. Looked at from the ordinary, everyday point-of-view of the third estate, the people who've hardly ever had a real say in their own destinies, you see something quite different, something impressive, something truly inspiring.