Global Courant
Charity says billionaires are $3.3 trillion richer than in 2020 as the annual gathering of business elites takes place.
The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes since 2020, says charity Oxfam, which raised the alarm about unchecked corporate power as business elites hold their high-profile annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
The five men are worth a combined $869 billion after growing their fortunes by $14 million an hour over the past four years, Oxfam said in its “Inequality Inc.” report released Monday.
Despite the growth in the fortunes of the five – LVMH chief Bernard Arnault, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, investor Warren Buffet, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Tesla CEO Elon Musk – five billion people have become poorer over the same period, according to Oxfam.
Billionaires are $3.3 trillion richer today than in 2020, while a billionaire runs seven of the world’s 10 largest companies, the London-based charity said.
If current trends continue, the world will have its first trillionaire within a decade, but poverty won’t be eradicated for 229 years, according to the anti-poverty group.
Oxfam International interim director Amitabh Behar said no one should have a billion dollars.
“We are witnessing the beginning of a decade of division, with billions of people suffering the economic shockwaves of pandemic, inflation and war, while the fortunes of billionaires soar. This disparity is no coincidence; The billionaire class allows corporations to deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else,” Behar said in a statement accompanying the report.
“Runaway corporate and monopolistic power is a machine that generates inequality: by squeezing workers, dodging taxes, privatizing the state and fomenting climate collapse, corporations are funneling endless wealth to their ultra-rich owners. But they also channel power and undermine our democracies and our rights.”
Traditionally, Oxfam releases its annual report on inequality just before the opening of the annual World Economic Forum (WEF), which was launched in the early 1970s by the German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab to defend ‘stakeholder capitalism’.
The charity said companies are paying around a third less in taxes than in recent decades due to a lobbying ‘war on taxes’, which has starved governments of money that could be used to benefit the poorest in society.
Oxfam said governments must cap CEO pay, break up private monopolies and introduce a wealth tax to raise $1.8 trillion annually.
‘We have the proof. We know the history. Public power can rein in runaway corporate power and inequality, making the market fairer and free from billionaire control. Governments must act to break up monopolies, empower workers, tax these huge corporate profits and, crucially, invest in a new era of public goods and services,” Behar said.
