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| An urban slum in Hanoi, Viet Nam. |
The
world's 85 richest individuals possess as much wealth as the 3.5 billion souls
who compose the poorer half of the world's population, or so it was announced
in a report by Oxfam International. The assertion sounds implausible to
me. I think the 85 richest individuals,
who together are worth many hundreds of billions of dollars, must have far more
wealth than the poorest half of our global population.
How could
these two cohorts, the 85 richest and 3.5 billion poorest, have the same amount
of wealth? The great majority of the 3.5 billion have no net wealth at all.
Hundreds of millions of them have jobs that hardly pay enough to feed their
families. Millions of them rely on supplements from private charity and public
assistance when they can. Hundreds of millions are undernourished, suffer food
insecurity, or go hungry each month, including many among the very poorest in
the United States.
"The
number of people living in poverty is growing at a faster rate than the world's
population. So poverty is spreading even as wealth accumulates. It is not
enough to bemoan this enormous inequality, we must also explain why it is
happening."
Most of the
3.5 billion earn an average of $2.50 a day. The poorest 40 percent of the world
population accounts for just 5 percent of all global income. About 80 percent
of all humanity live on less than $10 a day. And the poorest 50 percent maintain only 7.2 percent of the world's
private consumption. How exactly could they have accumulated an amount of
surplus wealth comparable to the 85 filthy richest?
Hundreds
of millions live in debt even in "affluent" countries like the United
States. They face health care debts, credit card debts, college tuition debts,
and so on. Many, probably most who own homes—and don't live in shacks or under
bridges or in old vans—are still straddled with mortgages. This means their net
family wealth is negative, minus-zero. They have no propertied wealth; they live in debt.
Millions
among the poorest 50 percent in the world may have cars but most of them also
have car payments. They are driving in debt.
In countries like Indonesia, for the millions without private vehicles,
there are the overloaded, battered buses, poorly maintained vehicles that
specialize in breakdowns and ravine plunges. Among the lowest rungs of the 50
percent are the many who pick thru garbage dumps and send their kids off to
work in grim, soul-destroying sweatshops.
The 85
richest in the world probably include the four members of the Walton family
(owners of Wal-Mart, among the top ten superrich in the USA) who together are
worth over $100 billion. Rich families like the DuPonts have controlling
interests in giant corporations like General Motors, Coca-Cola, and United
Brands. They own about forty manorial estates and private museums in Delaware
alone and have set up 31 tax-exempt foundations. The superrich in America and
in many other countries find ways, legal and illegal, to shelter much of their
wealth in secret accounts. We don't really know how very rich the very rich
really are.
Regarding
the poorest portion of the world population—whom I would call the valiant,
struggling "better half"—what mass configuration of wealth could we
possibly be talking about? The aggregate wealth possessed by the 85
super-richest individuals, and the
aggregate wealth owned by the world's 3.5 billion poorest, are of different
dimensions and different natures. Can we really compare private jets, mansions,
landed estates, super luxury vacation retreats, luxury apartments, luxury
condos, and luxury cars, not to mention hundreds of billions of dollars in
equities, bonds, commercial properties, art works, antiques, etc.—can we really
compare all that enormous wealth against some millions of used cars, used
furniture, and used television sets, many of which are ready to break
down? Of what resale value if any, are
such minor durable-use commodities, especially in communities of high unemployment,
dismal health and housing conditions, no running water, no decent sanitation
facilities, etc? We don't really know how poor the very poor really are.
Millions
of children who number in the lower 50 percent never see the inside of a
school. Instead they labor in mills, mines and on farms, under conditions of
peonage. Nearly a billion people are
unable to read or write. The number of people living in poverty is growing at a
faster rate than the world's population. So poverty is spreading even as wealth
accumulates. It is not enough to bemoan this enormous inequality, we must also
explain why it is happening.
But for
now, let me repeat: the world's richest 85 individuals do not have the same
amount of accumulated wealth as the world's poorest 50 percent. They have
vastly more. The multitude on the lower rungs—even taken as a totality—have
next to nothing.
- by Michael Parent (Thanks: Common Dreams)
