Global Wealth: Monopoly or Oligopoly?
Sage Kakkat
Founder SKXYWTF - Global Wealth Fund I World Trade Factory | What in the World! | Jack of all Trades | DEV - AI Wealth Accelerator
The global economy is experiencing a period of astonishing economic alteration. The sweeping changes of the fourth industrial revolution represent the most dramatic structural upheaval in two hundred and fifty years. Revolutions, it turns out, are revolutionary – social as well as economic relationships will be challenged by this process.
At the same time, the economic needs of humanity have evolved from the crude pursuit of material possessions represented by output economics. Society today has advanced to impact economics, adding broader demands for a sustainable and more equitable future to our traditional material demands.
To mobilize global private wealth we must first understand where that wealth is, how it is created, and what policies might risk its destruction. Despite the economic ascent of China in the last two decades, the majority of the world’s wealth and its superrich individuals are still concentrated in the Global North. For Europe, this is very much a legacy of colonialism and empire. By one estimate, the UK extracted US$45 trillion from India during the colonial period. Since the formal end of colonialism, neocolonial relationships with the Global South persist, perpetuating economic imbalances and rigging the economic rules in favor of rich nations. The USA has particularly benefitted from its incredible global economic dominance, especially in the second half of the 20th century. Much of its wealth was born out of slavery and the systematic dispossession of Indigenous peoples. Multinational corporations were invented in the colonial era and this helped facilitate this extraction of wealth from the Global South to the Global North.
The latest data from the UBS Global Wealth Report and the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires demonstrates that despite representing only 21% of the world population, countries in the Global North own 69% of global wealth and are home to 74% of the world’s billionaire wealth.
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The latest inequality report from Oxfam, titled "Inequality Inc.", published on January 15, 2024, provides a stark view of the growing wealth disparity globally. It highlights that since 2020, the world's five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion to $869 billion, a growth rate of about $14 million per hour. In sharp contrast, nearly five billion people globally have become poorer during the same period, experiencing increased hardship and hunger.
This report comes at a time when the world grapples with significant challenges like the pandemic, prolonged cost-of-living crises, climate change, and conflict. These factors have contributed to stalling progress against poverty and widening economic disparities. Oxfam's findings suggest that at the current rate, it could take 230 years to end poverty, yet the world might see its first trillionaire in a decade.
For most people across the world, the years since 2020 have been incredibly hard. For the poorest people, who are more likely to be women, racialized peoples, and marginalized groups in every society, daily life has been brutal. The 2020s, which started with COVID-19 and then saw escalating conflict, the acceleration of the climate crisis and surging costs of living, appears to be turning into a decade of division. Poverty in the poorest countries is still higher than it was in 2019. Worldwide, prices are outpacing pay, meaning hundreds of millions of people are struggling to make their earnings stretch further each month. Protests, strikes and other action by workers have repeatedly made the news headlines as people strive to survive. The sharp increase in the cost of food and other essentials that began in 2021 has become a grinding new reality for many families across the world as they try to buy oil, bread or flour without knowing how much they can afford this time, or how hungry they and their children will have to go today.
The gap between the Global North and the Global South has grown for the first time in 25 years. Global inequality is now at a level comparable to the level of inequality found within South Africa, the country with the highest inequality in the world. Climate breakdown is further increasing global wealth inequality. One study found that inequality between nations is 25% higher than it would have been without the impact of climate breakdown. Protests, strikes and other action by workers have repeatedly made the news headlines as people strive to survive. The sharp increase in the cost of food and other essentials that began in 2021 has become a grinding new reality for many families across the world as they try to buy oil, bread or flour without knowing how much they can afford this time, or how hungry they and their children will have to go today. Governments are finding it impossible to stay financially afloat and face huge debts and escalating costs for importing fuel, food and medicines. Low- and lower middle income countries are set to pay nearly half a billion US dollars a day in interest and debt payments between now and 2029.
Properly mobilizing private wealth is critical in this period of change. Whether as a source of investment or philanthropy, private wealth will shape the opportunities that are presented by technological change. It is private wealth that will lead the funding needed to create diverse, sustainable societies.
Political leaders must call time on the economic model that puts rich shareholders above all else, and instead listen to their citizens who are demanding a fairer, more prosperous economy for all. Trying to wrench back control of the global economy from elites might seem like an impossible task but there is hope.
Ultimately, hope is a choice. The continued path is one where the dominant model is of business and politics at the service of extreme capital, enabled by monopolists and financiers. However, a clear alternative is also on offer: one in which 21st-century transformative public power repurposes our economy; in which regulated and reimagined business creates value for communities and workers as well as owners and executives; in which innovation and ingenuity are not treated as the preserve of the few but unleashed to serve the interests of the many. This choice is one, above all, for governments to make – and for citizens across the world to come together to advocate to make this reality.