Why do some countries internally
have more inequality in terms of wealth or economic development, whether
between big cities and urban areas, or just from region to region, than do
other countries? I contend that in comparing the internals of one state/country
to those of another, as much “all else equal” should be satisfied as possible.
This can be accomplished to a large extent by resisting the error, or
temptation, to make category mistakes, such as in comparing Singapore with
China—a city to an empire-scale country—or an E.U. state with the entire U.S. Even
European scholars tend to make this category mistake, and scholars from
elsewhere are so used to it that they do not typically point out the category mistake
of treating an Early-modern kingdom state in an empire-scale federal union with
another such union, as if a state in one such union, or a comparable sovereign
state, were itself an empire-scale union. In short, resisting the ideologically-driven
urge to begin with a category mistake would do wonders in making the comparative
work itself more accurate and beneficial.
The full essay is at "Economic Inequality within a Polity."
