Latin America: more billionaires, less equity
The report shows that Latin America and the Caribbean today register a record of 109 billionaires, 14 more than at the end of 2024. Their combined wealth amounts to 622 billion dollars, a figure almost equivalent to the combined GDP of Chile and Peru. In the last year, that wealth grew 39%, 16 times faster than the regional economy, a divergence that has no recent precedents.
Oxfam emphasizes that this concentration is not circumstantial. 53.8% of the region’s super-rich inherited all or part of their fortune, well above the world average of 37.3%, which consolidates true economic dynasties. Furthermore, 65% of this assets are concentrated in strategic sectors—finance, telecommunications, media and energy—where proximity to political power is key.
Redistribute or repress: the dilemma of governments
The report’s authors also argue that, faced with growing social discontent caused by the rising cost of living and inequality, governments face a dilemma between redistributing wealth or repressing the population.
According to the diagnosis, instead of opting for redistributive policies, many States are choosing to protect the concentration of extreme wealth, even at the cost of rights and freedoms.
“Governments around the world are choosing to protect extreme wealth rather than defend freedoms, resorting to repression and authoritarianism to silence public outrage,” the report notes.
However, it warns that this repression is not distributed uniformly, but falls disproportionately on human rights and environmental defenders, trade unionists, journalists, women, racialized communities, indigenous peoples and LGBTQI+ people, who face everything from arbitrary detentions and legal criminalization to torture, forced disappearances and murders.
In Argentina, for example, the government issued decrees to restrict the right to protest, and union demonstrations have been met with police brutality and mass arrests, leaving hundreds injured by rubber bullets.
At the same time, “in a scenario of large budget cuts in Argentina, his company Mercado Libre (…) has been the main beneficiary of national tax exemptions, worth $247 million in the last three years,” the report states.
An urgent call to governments
Faced with this scenario, Oxfam urges governments – including that of Mexico – to act quickly. Its main recommendations include effective taxes on wealth and inheritances, national plans with clear goals to reduce inequality, regulation of the political and media influence of elites, and the strengthening of citizen participation and democratic freedoms.
According to the report, it is not possible to sustain full democracy and extreme concentration of wealth at the same time.
With information from AFP
