J.K. Galbraith talks about Mexico’s poverty and inequality

Veteran blogger Matt Osborne has unearthed a real gem! This 1977 BBC documentary was the tenth episode of The Age of Uncertainty, John Kenneth Galbraith’s history of economic thought. In this episode, Galbraith examines the economics of poverty and inequality.

The section of greatest interest to Geo-Mexico readers is his overview of the changing relationships between land and people in Mexico from precolonial times to the 1970s. [This ten minute segment starts at minute 4:33 of the video].

Galbraith does confuse his Teotihuacanos with his Aztecs, and clearly many things have changed since 1977, but this video is a great and straightforward introduction to the complex issues of land resources and population, suitable as the starting point for many discussions at high school or college level about land clearance, the financing of land improvement, the Green Revolution, population growth and social organization.

Related posts:

• Mexico’s richest individuals in 2010
• The widening income gap in Mexico; the rich earn 26 times more than the poor
• Trends in income distribution in Mexico: are the poor getting poorer?
• The GINI index: is inequality in Mexico increasing?
• Is poverty in Mexico on the rise?
• The measurement of poverty: the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)
• Vecindades, Mexico City’s inner-city slums
• The disparities in Mexico between indigenous peoples and the remainder of the population