ABSTRACT
This paper chapter how to effectively use Joseph Schumpeter's notion of "Creative Destruction" within a world-systems perspective- that is, a perspective that calls for focusing on the world-economy as a whole as the relevant unit of analysis for understanding the relationship between economic growth and social inequality. It draws upon and further operationalizes the concept of Creative Destruction to track recent changes in the epicenters of wealth accumulation across the world. More specifically, the chapter focuses on an original source of data to argue that the rise and fall of billionaires allows us to identify and map key changes in the accumulation (and redistribution) of income and wealth across the world-economy, changes that have substantive implications for existing patterns of social stratification. Focusing on what Fernand Braudel called the "top layers" of production, trade and exchange, data on billionaires provide a unique empirical basis for mapping sites of accumulation.
