A report by the international non-governmental organization (NGO) Oxfam on income concentration and its conditions shows that the rate of concentration in 2024 had a new peak, similar to what occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic. 204 new billionaires emerged on the planet, and the rate of enrichment of the super-rich increased three times compared to 2023. The report precedes the annual meeting of the Davos Economic Forum, which brings together directors of the main business institutions and government leaders in meetings of business and lobby in the Swiss city.
The billionaires, just over 2,900 people, became rich, on average, US$ 2 million per day. The ten richest, in turn, became richer on average US$ 100 million per day. Someone who receives a minimum wage in Brazil would take 109 years to receive R$2 million and, at the current rate, 650 years to receive R$2 million. “Last year, Oxfam predicted a trillionaire within a decade. If current trends continue, there will now be five trillionaires within a decade. Meanwhile, according to the World Bank, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990”, highlights the report, which points out that the poorest 44% in the world live on less than US$6.85 per day .
For comparison purposes, the Global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), increased by around 3.2%, for a population that the United Nations (UN) estimates of 8 billion people. According to the World Bank, Global GDP was US$33.86 trillion in 2000, and reached US$106.7 trillion in 2023, although with a reduction in extreme poverty rates (those who earn less than US$2 .15 per day), which were 29.3% of the world population in 2000 and are still 9% of the population in 2023 data. Oxfam highlighted that the 10% The richest, in turn, hold 45% of all the wealth in the world.
In Brazil, the logic is no different. According to Viviana Santiago, executive director of Oxfam Brasil, in general, we are led to think about inequality in Brazil from the perspective of poverty, but what makes the Brazilian reality complex is thinking about the other side of the coin. “At the same time that we have millions of people in situations of hunger and food insecurity, the huge homeless population, or when we think of people without access to water and basic sanitation, we have the other extreme, which are the very rich, billionaires During the pandemic, while we saw people losing everything and having to live on the streets, ten new billionaires emerged in the country. Today, less than 100 people in the country have R$146 billion”, he clarified.
“At the same time, we have people who work and cannot guarantee their livelihood while, at the same time, there are people who are accumulating millions of reais. These people are appropriating wealth that should be better divided and are not because we have a tax system that does not adequately tax this wealth and its transmission through inheritance. We have a country that favors tax evasion and tax avoidance, while workers cannot avoid these taxes and therefore remain inevitably poor, even after all the reforms have been carried out. on consumption. has 70% of its income committed to consumption, on which taxes are levied”, explained Viviana Santiago, for whom the correlation between the gains of the few and the misery of the many is linked, especially in Brazil, to the role that the people who benefit from this logic exert within the institutions that maintain them. This is what the main study identifies as the constant presence of advantages, whether motivated by oligarchic correlations or bribes, which in turn are among the main conditions for extreme wealth.
The study also identifies the correlation between the maintenance of colonialism, the centrality of financial institutions in the so-called Global North and the concentration of cultural institutions, with cutting-edge universities and technology companies, with the difficulty in combating concentration. This dynamic is, in turn, correlated with the logic of transfer, with taxation of food and inputs used by the entire population and with greater weight on poor populations, such as medicines, in addition to the imposition of high loan rates and draconian payment logic. of external debts, by international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund. The study points out that the global situation is not worse because of Asian growth, especially in China, which was responsible for lifting hundreds of thousands out of poverty.
However, there is a lack of institutional commitment to change this situation, as the following excerpt from the report indicates: ˜Using the most recent budget data on the situation of workers, taxation levels and public spending from 161 countries, Oxfam and Development Finance International present a more up-to-date table in the Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index 2024.125 The index reveals negative trends in the vast majority of countries since 2022. Four out of five countries will reduce slice of their budgets allocated to education, health and/or social protection; four out of five countries have reduced progressive taxation; and nine out of ten countries have gone backwards on labor rights and minimum wages.
According to Viviana, unfortunately, there is another reality that is repeated in Brazil. ˜When we see elites that follow the logic of a country focused on production, but are not attentive to the need for social distribution of wealth, the same colonial logic of appropriation, the same colonial logic of exploitation of work, lives and territories and not building a dynamic that promotes quality of life for people˜, ponders Viviana.
Could they be windmills?
In January 1605, Miguel de Cervantes’ masterpiece, the novel Don Quixote of La Manchawhose character who gives the plot its title states, in free translation, that “changing the world, my friend Sancho, is not madness, it is not utopia, it is justice”. Four hundred and twenty years later, with industrialization and the development of the financial system in this interstice, the conclusions highlighted in the report presented today are still very close. It is possible to change the situation and it is about justice. Oxfam’s proposals to make the world fairer are:
• Radically reduce inequality, establishing global and national targets to achieve this. End extreme wealth. Commit to a global inequality goal that drastically reduces inequality between the Global North and Global South; as an example, the income of the richest 10% should not be greater than that of the poorest 40% worldwide. Establish similar time-bound targets to reduce national economic inequality, aiming for the total income of the richest 10% to be no greater than the total income of the poorest 40%.
• Repair the wounds of colonialism. Former colonial governments must acknowledge and formally apologize for the full range of crimes committed during colonialism and ensure that these crimes enter public memory. Reparations to victims must be made to ensure restitution, provide satisfaction, compensate for harm suffered, ensure rehabilitation and prevent future abuse. The cost of reparations must be borne by the richest, who benefited most from colonialism.
• End systems of modern colonialism. The IMF, World Bank, UN and other global institutions must completely change their governance to end the formal and informal dominance of the Global North and the interests of its elites and wealthy corporations. The dominance of wealthy nations and corporations over financial markets and trade rules must end. In its place, a new system is needed that promotes the economic sovereignty of governments in the Global South and allows access to fair wages and labor practices for all workers. Unequal free trade policies and agreements must be repealed.
• Tax the richest to end extreme wealth. Global tax policy must fit into the new UN tax convention and make it easier for the richest people and companies to pay higher taxes to radically reduce inequality and end extreme wealth.
• Promote South-South cooperation and solidarity. Governments in the Global South must form regional alliances and agreements that prioritize equitable and mutually beneficial exchanges, promote economic Independence and reduce dependence on former colonial powers or the economies of the Global North. Collectively, they must demand reforms in international institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, and promote collective development through sharing, recognition, technology and resources to support sustainable development and resist exploitative global systems. At the same time, governments must strengthen public services and implement land reforms to guarantee access to land.
• End ongoing formal colonialism in all its forms. The remaining non-self-governing territories must be supported to guarantee their rights to equality and self-determination in accordance with Article 1(2) of the Charter of the United Nations and the United Nations Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.
