Govts urged to rein in ‘billionaire class’

At Davos, Oxfam data showed five men made $869b, while five billion became poorer

LONDON:

The combined fortunes of the world’s five richest men have more than doubled to $869 billion since 2020 while five billion people have been made poorer, anti-poverty group Oxfam said.

An Oxfam report, which comes as business elites gather this week for the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, found that a billionaire is now either running, or is the main shareholder of, 7 out of 10 of the world’s biggest companies.

Oxfam called on Monday for governments to rein in corporate power by breaking up monopolies; instituting taxes on excess profit and wealth; and promoting alternatives to shareholder control such as forms of employee ownership.

Read Super-rich 1% pocket two-thirds of new wealth: London-based charity Oxfam

It estimated that 148 top corporations made $1.8 trillion in profits, 52% up on 3-year average, allowing hefty pay-outs to shareholders even as millions of workers faced a cost of living crisis as inflation led to wage cuts in real terms.

“This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else,” said Oxfam International Interim Executive Director Amitabh Behar. Oxfam said its report, based on data sources ranging from the ILO and World Bank to the Forbes annual rich list, showed such aspirations were far from being fulfilled.

The inflation-adjusted surge in wealth of the top five billionaires was driven by strong gains in the assets of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, LVMH chief Bernard Arnault, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and investor Warren Buffett. Meanwhile nearly 800 million workers saw their wages over the past two years fail to keep up with inflation. REUTERS

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2024.

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