The Super-Rich Do Not Deserve Their Wealth

By Alan MacLeod

The respected charity, Oxfam published an astounding report today detailing the vast inequalities of wealth in today's society. By year's end the charity predicts that the top 1% of the world will own more than half of everything , leaving the rest of us seven billion with less than they have. This comes on the back of the news that 85 people (few enough to fit on one double-decker bus) own more than the bottom half of all humanity. Its executive director Winnie Byanyima described the scale of global inequality as “simply staggering."

The implications of this obscene distortion of wealth on democracy are chilling. For to have one double decker bus full of people owning so much necessarily condemns billions of human beings to live in desperate, brutal poverty and misery. Even in the richest countries, ordinary people are suffering. In Great Britain , the Joseph Rowntree Foundation revealed today that 40% of families do not reach the minimum threshold of income, meaning they are “too poor to play a part in society.” Adam Smith believed that the measure of a functioning society was the amount of people who could “appear in public without shame,” and “take part in the life of the community.” By this standard, even our most “successful” societies are failing.

These findings make it crystal clear: we can either have billionaires or we can have democracy and freedom. Not both. However, there is still an enduring narrative that the ultra-rich deserve their wealth and get it through their own hard work. Of course, the logical flip side to that equation is that the poor must deserve their poverty. If this really was the case, the top 1% have worked harder in 2014 than in any other year. Michael Bloomberg, comfortably sitting at the front of the bus as the #13 richest person in the world, for example, made $6 billion in the past twelve months, increasing his wealth by a wild twenty-two per cent . And all while holding down a second job as Mayor of New York City. Truly an inspiration for all of us.

And here is the intersection between saturation of wealth and the breakdown of democracy. Those with money do not work harder: money begets money. Those with wealth find ways of extracting more and more from others through corrupt practices. They buy politicians, or become politicians themselves. They pressure governments for favourable trade deals, further enriching themselves and increasing their power. They use legalized bribery to distort the political system entirely; the last US election in 2014 cost $3.7 billion , funded almost entirely by the 1%. And he who pays the piper calls the tune. Thus, law after law is passed to benefit corporations while the social services that sustain a basic level of life for the rest of us are undermined through brutal austerity, leading to its eventual breakdown, as we have seen across the Third World and more recently in Southern Europe . The super-rich's wealth is not down to their own hard work but due to the organized and legalized theft of the century. Our system is failing ninety-nine per cent of humanity.

The Way Forward

Fortunately this cannot go on indefinitely. As Danny Dorling has noted, the increase in share of wealth for the 1% cannot continue at this pace because within eight years they will own everything on the planet. The solution is manifold but we must start by talking about economic democracy.

As the philosopher John Dewey pointed out, until we move from economic feudalism to economic democracy, politics will simply be the “shadow cast on society by big business.” 

We cannot have democracy until we have democratic control of industry, banking, commerce, everything. That will mean asserting democratic control of corporations by their workforce and the government. We should not feel guilty for taking away their toys, they have made their billions already. Richard Wolff has shown this model is a successful alternative to our present system. Thomas Piketty has called for a huge global tax on wealth. Whatever we choose to do, anyone who believes in democracy must oppose and fight the ludicrous concentration of wealth. If we are to have any sort of social justice and a chance at a life without poverty for the rest of us seven billion, we need to act now. The first step is to dispel the myth that those at the top of society deserve all their riches.

Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod is a PhD candidate in sociology and media at Glasgow University and writes for GB Matters .

http://www.countercurrents.org/macleod210115.htm