A/HRC/29/31 believe that laws and regulations are designed to benefit the rich. 25 According to Mr. Stiglitz, in the context of the United States, government plays a double role in current economic inequality: “It is partly responsible for the inequality in before-tax-distribution of income, and it has taken a diminished role in ‘correcting’ this inequality through progressive tax and expenditure policies.”26 20. Inequalities, political capture and the exercise of civil and political rights are closely connected. According to the World Bank, “unequal distributions of control … of political influence perpetuate institutions that protect the interests of the most powerful, sometimes to the detriment of the personal and property rights of others”.27 Writing about the United States, where income inequality is at a historic high, 28 Mr. Stiglitz has argued that the right to participate in the democratic process remains effectively unfulfilled for many poor Americans: “While the days of outright exclusion from the voting process are mostly behind us in the United States, there remains a steady stream of initiatives to limit participation, invariably targeting the poor and less well connected. … The result is that one in four of those eligible to vote — 51 million Americans or more — are not registered.”29 Paul Krugman has written that “extreme concentration of income is incompatible with real democracy”.30 21. Economic inequalities seem to encourage political capture and the unequal realization of civil and political rights. High levels of economic inequalities “may create institutions that maintain the political, economic and social privileges of the elite and lock the poor into poverty traps from which it is difficult to escape”.31 This vicious cycle may be broken when civil and political rights are enjoyed more equally, as illustrated by the case of Chile. Under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet during the 1970s and 1980s, income inequality worsened, then improved after democracy was reinstated (although it is still higher than it was in the 1960s or early 1970s).32 Another example is Rwanda, where gender equality is enshrined in the Constitution and a quota system has contributed to more than half of the members of Parliament being women, making it the only country in the 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 8 the highest levels of formal education, are the ones most likely to participate in politics and make their needs and values known to government officials.” See Task Force on Inequality and American Democracy, “American democracy”, p. 5. “A survey in six countries (Spain, Brazil, India, South Africa, the UK and the US) showed that a majority of people believe that laws are skewed in favor of the rich – in Spain eight out of 10 people agreed with this statement. Another recent Oxfam poll of low-wage earners in the US reveals that 65 percent believe that Congress passes laws that predominantly benefit the wealthy.” See Oxfam, “Working for the few: political capture and economic inequality”, briefing paper, 20 January 2014, p. 3. Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality. See World Bank, World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development (2005), p. 22. “Indeed, the top decile share in 2012 is equal to 50.6 percent, a level higher than any other year since 1917 and even surpasses 1928, the peak of stock market bubble in the ‘roaring’ 1920s.” See Emmanuel Saez, “Striking it richer: the evolution of top incomes in the United States” (University of California Berkeley, 2015), p. 3. Available from http://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes2013.pdf. Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality. Paul Krugman, “Oligarchy, American style”, New York Times, 3 November 2011. See Combating Poverty and Inequality: Structural Change, Social Policy and Politics (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.10.III.Y.1), p. 6. Dante Contreras and Ricardo Ffrench-Davis, “Policy regimes, inequality, poverty, and growth: the Chilean experience, 1973–2010”, in Giovanni Andrea Cornia, ed., Falling Inequality in Latin America: Policy Changes and Lessons (Oxford University Press, 2014).