Originally Posted by
The Great Zaganza
It's not an excuse, it's a psychological effect:
if the cake grows so that most people's slices stay the same in volume whilst another one's slice grows, it feels to the others who are no worse off like something has been taken away from them.
The ever-enlightening "elephant chart"
The dirt poorest in the world are still right where they were, but up to 70th percentile all got dramatically less poor. India and China are frequent examples of the peak there (
Then it nosedives into the 80th percentile until the very end (basically the poor and middle classes of the developed world). Then, of course, a dramatic spike for the already affluent.
"Share of growth" instead of "cumulative growth" makes these swings even more volatile.
*Unless in the top 2% or so (but nevermind them, they aren't why you're poor, China is! They terk'r'jerbs!)
So yeah, a big swathe of everyday Joes and Janes got next to no growth while literally everyone but them (and people who have been living rough for over a decade already) had some of that "upward mobility" and ta-da.
Resentment!
ETA: but also, seriously myopic, privileged, and entirely self-deluded resentment.