IN the film, I, Daniel Blake, on limited release but well worth seeing, the pain of social inequality is clearly portrayed in Britain – a so-called ‘rich’ country. Flinders Street Station, nearby, is yet another illustration of those not benefitting from the Australian economy. But, when these little cameos of disadvantage are placed on the world stage, a global portrait of inequality becomes frighteningly clear. Oxfam has produced a “killer fact” for all of us to contemplate. In 2016 Oxfam estimated that 62 people owned the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population. But this year it is down to eight. Just eight men have as much wealth as 3.6 billion poor men, women and children.
But every year there are regular attempts at rubbishing the new statistic. A rather specialist box in Oxfam’s new paper for the Davos meeting both explains the origins of the new number (better data) and addresses the expected counterarguments.
In January 2014 Oxfam calculated that just 85 people had the same amount of wealth as the bottom half of humanity. This was based on data on the net wealth of the richest individuals from Forbes and data on the global wealth distribution from Credit Suisse. For the past three years, they have been tracking these data sources to understand how the global wealth distribution is evolving. In the Credit Suisse report of October 2015 the richest 1 per cent had the same amount of wealth as the other 99 per cent.
This year they found that the wealth of the bottom 50 per cent of the global population was lower than previously estimated and it takes just eight individuals to total their wealth holdings. Last year it was estimated that the cumulative share of wealth of the poorest 50 per cent was 0.7 per cent; this year it is 0.2 per cent.
This news attracts attention but who is going to do anything? The problem is systemic but no less worrying because Australia is part of the growing inequality. Little wonder that elites are under the microscope and the political system is losing credibility.