Eight billionaires own as much wealth as half the planet – the real face of capitalism

Poster produced by the Socialist Party in Ireland

A report published by Oxfam today has once again laid bare the growing gap between the richest and poorest people in the world. Just eight billionaires own the same amount as the poorest half of the world’s population – that’s 3.6 billion people.

Even the capitalists are starting to realise that growing inequality represents a threat to their system. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report for 2017 placed inequality at the top of the list of threats facing society. But despite this realisation, under capitalism the wealth of the super-rich and the gap between “them and us” will inevitably continue to grow. Even during the financial crisis Britain’s billionaires doubled their wealth between 2009 and 2015!

Oxfam CEO Mark Goldring says that this shocking inequality shows that “our economics is broken”, and argued for “a more human economy”. But the system isn’t broken – capitalism is designed to make the rich richer, and it’s doing that perfectly. This report lays out the problem clearly – but its proposed reforms don’t address the fundamental issue of who controls the wealth in society. Workers create the wealth in society, but the super-rich keep it – to change this system we need to take the wealth off the 1%, and fight for a socialist system that will mean we can plan the world’s resources for the majority of people!

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