Here's How We Distribute The Wealth, At The Moment

By Hamilton Nolan  |  January 22, 2018 | 5:23pm
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Every year, when all the world’s most powerful people gather in Davos, Oxfam releases a report quantifying the state of global economic inequality. It’s one of the most aptly-timed annual reports! Here are the grotesque highlights.

There are now just over 2,000 billionaires in the world. Last year saw that group of people accumulate $762 billion in new wealth. Here is how unequally the fruits of the world’s labor were distributed in 2017, according to Oxfam: “82% of all of the growth in global wealth in the last year went to the top 1%, whereas the bottom 50% saw no increase at all… 42 people now own the same wealth as the bottom 3.7 billion people.”

For a more focused perspective: “The three richest people in the US own the same wealth as the bottom half of the US population (roughly 160 million people).”

Take all of the billions of dollars in economic growth in the world last year. Give eight of every ten of those dollars to the very richest people on earth. To the poorest half of people, give none of those dollars. That is the sort of distribution that our current economic system is producing. If you think that this is in any way tenable or tolerable, you are all fucked up.

Unionize your workplace and purge the Republican party from the face of the earth. Then we’ll go from there.

[The full report]

 
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