At the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Oxfam’s annual inequality report reveals that In 2024, the combined wealth of billionaires grew three times faster than in 2023. “According to current forecasts, within a decade there will be five billionaires. Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990. Inequality is out of control,” warns the NGO. The data demonstrate capitalist irrationality.
The document states that The ten richest men on the planet have so much money that, even if they lost 99% of their fortune overnight, they would still be billionaires..
According to Oxfam, In 2024, 204 new members of this exclusive club emerged, which is equivalent to an average of almost four new billionaires every week. Meanwhile, the incomes of the poorest people did not show large declines.
According to the document titled “The looting continues”, Each of these billionaires increased their fortune at an average rate of two million dollars a day.. For the ten wealthiest, this figure reaches 100 million dollars a day.
This report was presented within the framework of the World Economic Forum in Davos, coinciding with the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the United States, who was applauded and has strong support from businessmen such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. These businessmen were part of a contingent of super-rich who attended the inauguration as guests of the president after donating significant sums to his campaign and the inauguration ceremony itself.
Oxfam details that poverty has not shown significant decreases since 1990. According to the report, 3.6 billion people in the world live on less than $6.85 a dayin terms of purchasing power parity, a figure that has remained unchanged for more than three decades.
“Currently, 44% of the world’s population is in a situation of extreme inequality, while The richest 1% on the planet concentrate 45% of global wealthaccording to recent data. These numbers show the increasingly obscene inequalities between an increasingly rich minority and an increasingly poor majority.
The ideology of “meritocracy” says that, no matter the social differences, the improvement of living conditions depends on individual effort. Sure? The same report shows that 60% of the wealth accumulated by billionaires comes from inheritances, clientelist practices, corruption or their relationship with monopolistic power. In 2023, the number of billionaires who acquired their fortune through inheritance exceeded those who achieved it through entrepreneurship.
Trump’s friend
For their part, in sectors where monopolies manage to gain a foothold, billionaires observe how their fortunes grow excessively, reaching figures never seen before. According to the Oxfam report, “the rise of monopolistic power is a key factor explaining the increase in the concentration of extreme wealth and inequality globally.” The NGO noted that a significant part of the wealth accumulated by billionaires globally, approximately 18%, comes from their ability to exercise monopolistic power in the markets.
A clear example of this dynamic is Jeff Bezoswhose assets amount to 219.4 billion US dollarsthanks to the dominance of Amazon, a company that concentrates at least 70% of Internet purchases in countries such as Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Spain.
Another case is that of Where is Dangote?the richest man in Africa, with a fortune of 11 billion US dollars, who controls a “quasi-monopoly” in the cement sector in Nigeria and exerts considerable influence in the African market.
It’s capitalism
In a context where social inequalities are becoming increasingly evident, with a small elite accumulating wealth while the majority of the population faces conditions of poverty, voices are emerging that try to exempt the capitalist system as the generator of these inequalities.
According to these positions, the problem would not lie in capitalism itself, but in neoliberalism and they propose as a solution a better “redistribution” of wealth, a stricter regulation of the market. However, this view ignores that inequality is intrinsically linked to the capitalist system in all its forms.
Inequality in current capitalist societies has reached levels comparable to those of more than a century ago. This happens both in the richest countries of the imperialist world and in the semi-colonial and dependent countries, where economic backwardness is aggravated by imperialist plunder. These data contradict the idea that the progress of capitalism, with its increase in productivity and wealth, translates into a general improvement in social well-being. In reality, a small group of billionaires appropriates an increasingly larger portion of the wealth generated collectively.
The wealth generated is a product of nature and human work. But The secret, the best kept business secret, is that the capitalist class bases its profit on the non-payment of a part of the work done by the working class.. This is the mechanism that allows you to appropriate and increase your wealth. More than ever, it is proposed for the working class to defend an approach aimed at a reorganization of society on new bases, a rational and democratic planning of production, to get rid of the strength vest of capitalism.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
