Society
Göran Therborn
The Enigma of Inequality
The world’s greatest sociologist argues that “inequality begins in the womb.”
The inequality of the 21st century as seen by an international authority on the topic.
How unequal is our world today and why?
Lesson Plan
- Lesson Length : 12 Lessons ㆍ 1 hours 23 miutes
- Language : 한국어, English, 简体中文, Spanish, French
The inequality of the 21st century as seen by a world authority on the issue.
In November of 2022, 33% of participants listed “poverty and social inequality” as a leading concern in the monthly What Worries the World survey, through which Ipsos tracks public opinion across 28 countries. It was the first time in 18 months that COVID-19 didn't hold the top position. A year later, "poverty and social inequality" still holds the number two position, only behind inflation.
Göran Therborn has devoted his academic life to understanding globalization and inequality. Therborn says that inequality begins even before conception in the mother’s womb, with the mother’s health and economic circumstances affecting the fetus’s health. Children born to rich parents inherit not only wealth but various privileges. They are also able to receive a much higher-quality education than children in lower classes of society. People with university degrees have a higher life expectancy than those without, and civil servants who are higher up live longer than those at the bottom, like janitors or administrative assistants.
Inequality exists between countries as well. Damages caused by climate change are more likely to affect the poor people of developing countries than those of developed ones. COVID-19 mortality is higher in people of color, like blacks or Hispanics, than whites. Is there any way to address inequality and the polarization it leads to?
Göran Therborn gives us the answer with his keen insights and expertise as humankind stands at a crossroads.
Full Bio
Göran Therborn
- Professor Emeritus, University of Cambridge, UK
- Affiliated professor of sociology at Linnaeus University, Sweden.
- Former professor of political science, Catholic University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
- Former co-director of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Uppsala
- Former Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences, UK
- Swedish Lenin Prize for a writer in a “critical and rebellious left tradition” (2019)
- Honorary Prize of the Equality Fund (Sweden) (2018)
Göran Therborn is a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and an affiliated professor of sociology at Linnaeus University, Sweden. He began to make a name for himself by writing for Zenit, a Swedish syndicalist magazine when he was twenty. Making an impression as a rebel in the field of sociology through his criticism of established academia, Therborn went on to publish controversial papers in the European progressive journal New Left Review.
He is the author of 40 books, including What Does the Ruling Class Do When it Rules? (1978), The Ideology of Power and the Power of Ideology (1980), Inequalities of the World (2006), From Marxism to Post-Marxism? (2008), and The Killing Fields of Inequality (2013). He is one of the most cited academics in sociology, with his works having been translated and published in 24 languages. Therborn retired from teaching in 2010 but continues to study family, gender, gender relations, inequality, modern radical social ideology, cities and power, and the formation of the middle class from various perspectives.
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