All your base (are) belong to us
by Tom Sullivan
Does gigantism precede extinction, or rarity, as Darwin postulated? Think Progress takes note of a study Oxfam released Monday on global inequality. The wealth of the world’s 26 top billionaires now equals that of the bottom half of the population of the planet:
Billionaires have increased their wealth by 12 percent this year, the report states, while at the same time the wealth of the poorest half of the world has fallen by 11 percent.
This consolidation is happening at a rapid rate even for the billionaire class, which according to the report has doubled in size since the 2008 financial crisis. In 2016, 61 billionaires controlled half of the world’s wealth, then in 2017 that number was 43, before becoming 26 in 2018.
With all the hard work bootstrap billionaires are doing to earn that, how do they find time to speak with their yacht schedulers?
This widening economic divide is fueling authoritarianism, Oxfam warns:
Rather than working to heal the divide between rich and poor, some leaders are instead seeking to vilify immigrants, other ethnic groups, other nations, women and people in poverty. In more unequal countries, trust is lower and crime higher. Unequal societies are more stressed, less happy and have higher levels of mental illness.
Venture capitalist Nick Hanauer is famous for his almost-banned TED talk and his caution to “Fellow Zillionaires” that pitchforks are coming for them. Hanauer is still warning of the toxicity of widening inequality. In the forward to the report, he writes:
Only a society that seeks to include all its people in the economy can succeed in the long term. To build such a society, the wealthiest should pay their fair share of tax – and as this year’s Oxfam report demonstrates, right now they are doing the opposite. Top rates of tax on the wealthiest people and corporations are lower than they have been for decades. Unprecedented levels of tax avoidance and evasion ensure that the super-rich pay even less.
There can be no moral justification for this behaviour beyond the discredited neoliberal dogma that if everyone maximizes their selfishness, the world will somehow be a better place. It has no economic justification, either. In fact, it is economically self-defeating, as the ordinary people who drive a prosperous economy are instead impoverished in favour of the bank accounts of billionaires. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the richest in our society can and should pay a lot more tax to help build a more equal society and prosperous economy.
“Public Good Or Private Wealth?” offers three sets of recommendations for reducing the wealth gap “between rich and poor and between women and men” and creating what it calls a “Human Economy.”
Steep declines in global tax rates since the 1970s have accelerated inequality. The productivity-pay gap in the U.S. has grown as well. Americans feel it.
From “The Productivity–Pay Gap” by EPI, August 2018.
Think Progress continues:
In July a report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) revealed that in 2015 the top one percent of families took home an average of 26.3 times the amount the bottom 99 percent took.
The EPI report added that between 2009 and 2015, the income for the top one percent grew faster than everyone else’s in 43 states, as well as the District of Columbia. Despite President Donald Trump’s continued boasts of a soaring stock market, the EPI report revealed that median wages have grown only 0.2 percent in the last year.
Market consolidation and aggregation of wealth and political power in the hands of a few is becoming a proximate threat to the republic. Democracy hangs in the balance.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is not the only member of Congress who gets that. A growing number of Americans do.
All your base (are) belong to us 👾 https://t.co/brwNKJ8wrh— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 19, 2019