What happened to Turkey’s 99 percent?
13 June 2016
When the Occupy Wall Street protests began in Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park five years ago, the catchiest slogan was “We are the 99 percent!” The rationale behind the protests was the share of income and wealth of the richest percentile in the U.S. and the inequality of distribution. Since 2000, the richest 1 percentile of the U.S. society owns around 37-38 percent of the total American wealth. At the turn of the millennium, Turkey’s wealth distribution was almost identical to that of the United States; the richest 1 percentile of our society owned 38 percent of the total wealth in Turkey. If I was to say, “today’s situation is quite different; the share of the top 1 percentile in Turkey is around 55 percent, and Turkey is competing for world leadership,” would you be happy that Turkey i
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