How tall are the walls?

One map, two walls

Theo Deutinger drew the wall on the outside of wealth in 2009, and put one figure under it: 14% of the world generates 73% of its income. The ledger says he was right. This index’s top band holds 75.7% of world income today — and the two maps disagree about exactly one country.

Ten bricks, no vote

Nobody votes on the wall. People vote, if at all, on a brick. Face match, a freezable ledger on private rails, identity at the door, one biometric stream: ten mechanisms that raise the state’s reach into a phone, all ten laid, in places this index scores 8 and 9.