Oxfam’s inequality report1 is published each year on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. So what ? The ultrarich are even more ultrarich? Are inequalities growing? Nothing new there. So let’s talk about the Iowa primaries and public sector deals.
Yes, let’s talk about it.
We are in an era of multiple post-pandemic fractures (faltering democracies, growing conflicts, technological excesses, disinformation, climate disruption, rising costs of living, regression of human rights, etc.), where the majority of the world’s population – and particularly women – are struggling to maintain a somewhat dignified standard of living and, above all, a minimum of hope. Noting that wealth is increasingly concentrated in a few hands and that their beneficiaries are prospering and escaping redistribution rules will not help to lessen divisions and calm the atmosphere towards institutions and elected officials in a year where nearly half of the world’s population goes to the polls.
The five richest men have doubled their fortune since 2020, five billion people have become poorer. Four of the five richest Canadians have increased their assets by two-thirds since 2020.
Corporate taxes have fallen by half since 1980 in the OECD. A trillion profits find their way to tax havens. Three quarters of unpaid care work is done by women, and also supports the economy, but this invisible work is never quantified. Oxfam estimates it is worth US$10.8 trillion.
The richest 1% have more negative impact on the environment than the poorest two-thirds.
Private monopolies
Let’s talk about private monopolies. In 20 years, 60 pharmaceutical companies have merged to become the 10 Big Pharma and we have seen the devastating effects on the lack of access to vaccines for populations in countries in the South. Two multinational companies control 40% of the agricultural seed market. And among Big Tech, three-quarters of global advertising spending goes to Meta, Alphabet and Amazon. The ultra-rich run these companies and benefit from the dividends.
This increased concentration of economic and political power by private monopolies and the wealth of their shareholders and managers marks our lives every day: our salaries, our food, our medicines and vaccines, our data and our media or even our climate-related health. .
Billionaires prosper, private monopolies are busy reaping profits by evading taxes as much as possible, influencing public policies to restrict wages, restrictive regulations (unions, equal pay, patents, etc.), protections for public services, avoiding the fight against climate change to which they contribute, harming small and medium-sized businesses which cannot compete with such titans. The solutions to combat this concentration of power of megacorporations and the ultra-rich, which fuels inequalities, lie in strengthening the transformative public power of the State which must:
– invest in public services where a majority of women work: health, education, care, justice, food, housing, transport, just ecological transition; increase regulation and transparency; support public monopolies when they provide a service to all;
– regulate businesses to end private monopolies and reorient the economy: govern patents, demand concrete actions in favor of climate transition, pay decent wages, allow unionization, pay taxes, and obtain equality of rights types and offer grants or loans if these businesses comply;
– eradicate tax havens and increase progressive taxation of the ultra-rich on their wealth and companies on their excess profits; who can do without 1800 billion dollars for public services and the just transition?
– support alternative economic models and companies which also serve the interests and rights of the greatest number; without harming the planet, helping cooperatives, the social economy… which create value for the community and the workers and also the owners.
Impossible ?
Maintaining this system is not an option. The current model is unsustainable and indecent for our societies to live in peace and freedom.
This report is open to debate, discussion, but also action. Let us have the courage of ambitions that bring us together and give opportunities to all. How can we do without the innovation, the ingenuity, the talents of billions of people because they do not have the same opportunities.
How can we allow anger at injustice to be fueled, because governments let it happen.
We want governments to act and regulate in order to correct these abuses which are profoundly disrupting our societies, before it is too late.
The Iowa primary and utility deals tie in perfectly with our report, don’t you think?
reference: www.lapresse.ca