UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres highlighted how vast inequalities around the world have led to current crises during his speech on the Nelson Mandela Day. He lamented that “all of us are not sailing in the same boat” as widespread inequality had not only impeded human development across the world but also hindered efforts in tackling Covid-19.
On the ideological front, capitalism and neo-liberalism have, through their idea of self-interest, gone a long way in increasing inequality; while on the technological front, fast means of communication and transport have made it possible for capitalists to conduct businesses across different continents in order to accumulate wealth by exploiting the vulnerable. In the past, ancient foragers would make their livelihood through hunting. There was no concept of hoarding or amassment of wealth. After the agricultural revolution, farmers were able to stock up commodities, in turn giving birth to the idea of inequality. With the invention of money, the subsequent takeover of the capitalists, and the advent of the industrial revolution, conducting large-scale businesses and piling up wealth in the form of money became facile and inequality among masses soared. During the last decade of the previous century, neo-liberalism gave a new-found direction to economic globalisation which ultimately made industrial owners richer and more affluent as they were able to organise manufacturing, distribution and consumption of goods on a global level.
Today, the richest 26 people own as much wealth as the bottom half of the whole population of the world. It is high time for the governments worldwide to tax the rich heavily, support the poor and put a stop to the burgeoning inequality.
Qasim Aslam
Lahore
Published in The Express Tribune, July 23rd, 2020.
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