The Widening Gap

Abstract This chapter demonstrates a shift in the mid-1960s toward a deep skepticism: Global inequality was widening, and the rising expectations of more equality and of development had not been met. The “widening gap” was not going to diminish automatically through the channels of free trade, one-sided approaches to development, or trickle-down economics. The chapter examines United Nations “World Social Situation” reports, development economists Barbara Ward and Rául Prebisch, 1960s papal encyclicals, and African and Caribbean intellectuals. They expanded on explanations for global inequalities, stressing the interconnectedness of development and underdevelopment, and the concept of “neocolonialism.” Redistribution both between and within countries emerged as one major idea for diminishing global inequality. Moreover, structuralist modes of thought and of redesigning the international economic and political system entered into a germination period too, with proposals for a “new international economic order” emerging in the beginning of the 1960s.