4 Introduction defined as being constructed on liberal democratic principles.6 Meanwhile, of the 20 States with the lowest per capita GDP, all but two has been a colony or a ‘protectorate’ of one or more of those States that are now wealthy and ostensibly liberal democratic.7 Their former colonisers are all now in the top 40 States by per capita GDP.8 The history of the world’s States is closely interconnected and so is the reality of the individuals living in and moving between them today. Part of understanding this will need an examination of how today’s liberalism came about and what this implies today. This will be the focus of Chapter 3. Globally, inequality is growing. In 2016, eight men owned the same amount as the poorest half of the world’s population.9 Between 1988 and 2011, the incomes of the poorest 10 per cent increased by less than US$3 a year, while the income of the richest 1 per cent increased by 182 times as much.10 Even amongst formal citizens within those States built upon liberal democratic principles, inequality, poverty and violence can make it difficult to enact their citizenship fully or at all. Such persons may well flourish despite, rather than because of, the State. That something is amiss can also be seen in the number of people migrat ing involuntarily. Reportedly, forced displacement and exclusion today has reached a level not seen since the Second World War.11 At the time of writing, UNHCR estimates that 65.3 million people have been forcibly displaced glo bally. The Second World War is estimated to have displaced around 40–60 million people, the Partition of India a further 14 million. Many of those indi viduals are unable to participate as citizens within the system of States. Saskia Sassen characterises these phenomena within a more general phenom enon of ‘expulsion’, so that individuals (as well as institutions) are being sys tematically expelled from core economic orders.12 In turn, her expulsion can be seen within a much longer-running and wider noncitizen exclusion. In theory, the human rights of all persons are legally protected, both internationally and 6 From highest to lowest: Luxembourg, Switzerland, Macao SAR China, Norway, Qatar, Ireland, Australia, USA, Singapore, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, Netherlands, UK, Austria, Canada, Hong Kong SAR China, Finland, Germany, United Arab Emirates. From The World Bank (2017) World Development Indicators, updated 1 February 2017, data for 2015. 7 The exception is Ethiopia, which was occupied by Italy, but not colonised. Liberia’s colonial history is also more complicated. 8 From lowest to highest: Burundi, Central African Republic, Niger, Malawi, Madagascar, Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo, The Gambia, Mozambique, Guinea, Somalia, Togo, GuineaBissau, Burkina Faso, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Uganda, Comoros. Those colonisers not already listed in the note above include Belgium at 21, France at 23, Italy at 27 and Portugal at 37. 9 Oxfam calculations using wealth of richest individuals from Forbes Billionaires listing and wealth of the bottom 50 per cent from Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook 2016, cited in Oxfam Briefing Paper January 2017. 10 D. Hardoon, S. Ayele and R. Fuentes-Nieva (2016) ‘An Economics of the 1%’, Oxfam. 11 UNHCR (2016) Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2015, UNHCR. 12 Saskia Sassen (2014) Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in Global Economy, Harvard Univer sity Press.