Spatial aspects of inequality and poverty among casualism and causality

Economic disparities, both between individuals and between groups within a country or between countries, are an old phenomenon related to the concept of equal opportunities. It appears questionable, also, that they have a value exclusively negative. If, on the one hand, there are those who impute to the disparities a causal efficacy in producing social injustice and immobility, on the other, many support the idea that inequality is an incentive to increase one's own capacities and opportunities. Economic inequality, meaning composite difference between individual income and consumption, is traditionally attributed to a number of causes related to work, the individual qualities, education, race, gender or culture, as well as the social and family contexts of origin. For these reasons, there is an inverse relationship between inequality and social cohesion and, thus, social capital. Despite the undoubted progress that involved most of the countries in terms of growth of the values of human development, of economic growth and poverty reduction, income inequalities detectable through social indicators show that these are increasing in many countries. The calculations made by the UNDP show that almost a quarter of the value of the HDI has been lost in the inequality. Between 1990 and 2005, the decomposition of the IHDI clearly shows that for 66 countries, global inequality has declined only marginally, because the progress in terms of equality in health and education were offset by the increase in income inequality. These analyzes, compared with spatial data available, highlight how geography represents the unavoidable foundation of any development discourse. To make research even more probative, comparative analysis is made within the countries of the North where inequalities are more attenuated both than most poor countries both in intra-regional. In the countries included in the evaluation, also used data show an inverse correlation between the level of public confidence and inequality in income distribution. In Europe where the indices of inequality have lower values, such as the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands, they are found higher levels of trust that come to 66% of the population in Sweden, while in countries with greater inequality, the percentages gradually subside until to achieve a minimum of 10% in Portugal; likewise data concerning different US states show that confidence is all the smaller the greater the economic inequality. The aim of the paper is to highlight how the relationship between poverty and inequality is very evident if not even expanding. Analyzing the effects of inequality, it is possible to highlight the existence of an inverse relationship between this and social capital as cohesion and, therefore, in relation to the network of relationships in which a person is inserted that allow him to more effectively achieve common goals through collective action. The proposed approach, polarized on capabilities and freedom, fits within the debate between equality and poverty, which are two sides of the same coin.