Inequality: A real problem that shouldn't require resorting to Karl Marx to solve.
Reducing inequality is a survival strategy with the coming AI labor disruption.
Inequality is everyone’s problem. You cannot read the statistics below and say that humanity can’t do better.
That’s why OXFAM’s report is worth reading, even if their solutions come straight from Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital.”
Normally, it would be easy to dismiss OXFAM, but we can't afford to with the coming labor disruption through AI. The IMF estimates that 40% of global jobs will be impacted (my article here), and inequality will increase, which makes finding a solution more important than ever.
👉TAKEAWAYS (The problem)
Since 2020, and the beginning of this decade of division, the five richest men in the world have seen their fortunes more than double to $869 billion, while almost five billion people have seen their wealth fall.
If each of the five wealthiest men were to spend a million US dollars daily, they would take 476 years to exhaust their combined wealth.
Seven out of ten of the world's biggest corporations have a billionaire CEO or a billionaire as their principal shareholder.
Globally, men own US$105 trillion more wealth than women - the difference in wealth is equivalent to more than four times the size of the US economy.
The world's richest 1% own 43% of all global financial assets.
The richest 1% globally emit as much carbon pollution as the poorest two-thirds of humanity.
In the USA, the wealth of a typical Black household is just 15.8% of that of a typical white household.15 In Brazil, on average, white people have incomes more than 70% higher than those of Afro-descendants.
Just 0.4% of over 1,600 of the world's largest and most influential companies are publicly committed to paying their workers a living wage and support payment of a living wage in their value chains.
It would take 1,200 years for a female worker in the health and social sector to earn what a CEO in the biggest Fortune 100 companies earns on average in one year.
OXFAM Seeks to Reinventg business: “Injecting democratic ownership and governance into mainstream business could not only help tackle wealth inequalities; it would also drive business decisions that better reflect the issues that matter to society.
👊STRAIGHT TALK👊 (The solutions)
Let me state unequivocally that OXFAM’s report comes across as a modern Marxist manifesto.
Still, it can’t be dismissed because the problem of inequality is real, and some of these solutions will likely be required.
The real question will be, how much civil unrest can we tolerate before these solutions are palatable?
OXFAM’s Plan for Reining in Corporate Power (Possible solutions in Bold)
Revitalize the state
Break up private monopolies and prevent corporate
power from becoming too large
Break up the monopoly over knowledge and democratize
trade and patent rules.
Break up private monopolies and curb extreme corporate
concentration.
Back dynamic public solutions and assert greater public
control.
Ensure no share dividend payments or share buybacks
before living wages and climate justice.
Introduce legally binding measures on mandatory gendered
human rights and environmental due diligence (mHRDD)
Strengthen laws for gender and racial justice
Support and encourage trade unions
Cap CEO pay
Radically increase taxes on rich individuals and
corporations
Introduce comprehensive and permanent taxation of the
wealthiest in every country.
Urgently increase taxes on dividends and capital gains.
Tax windfall profits and move towards permanent taxes
on excess profits.
Move towards a more effective taxation of large
corporations, especially on their cross-border
corporations.
Curb tax avoidance
I don’t care much for any of these but I don’t know how else to achieve a less precarious balance of inequality.
If you’ve got a better way tell me!
Thoughts?
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