Some more unequal

The world today is richer than ever, but the wealth gap between the rich and the poor has also widened to levels last seen at the height of imperialism 200 years ago

- RICHARD MAHAPATRA

A PERSON born today will inherit a world that has never been more affluent. But it is also a highly unequal world, and the gap between the haves and have-nots will further widen as he or she grows up. The first thing the inheritor will realise is that nearly half of the world’s population has neither the wealth nor the capital necessary for a decent life.

Next, the person would find that his or her country is richer than it has ever been. But the government, after going on a privatisation spree for decades, is poorer and holds fewer assets. This means the government is also deprived of adequate wealth or capital to meet an economic shock like that caused by the covid-19 pandemic and is forced to borrow from private sources, adding to the inheritor’s debt. On the other hand, the remaining half of the world's population has become richer; it owns more wealth and earns more income than the country itself. To put it in perspective, global wealth is now concentrated in the hands of a few private individuals, who have, effectively, become the economic rulers of the world.

Such a situation also prevailed in the early 20th century and the periods before it, when western imperialism was at its peak and democracy was not as widespread. However, shockingly, if the inheritor today belongs to the poorest half of the world, his or her income is half of what his or her ancestor in the same population group would have had, way back in 1820. On the other hand, the world’s richest 1 per cent now controls more than one-third of the global wealth generated since the 1990s. In fact, the number of billionaires rose to new records in 2020—the year of the pandemic. Thus, the inheritor is convinced that “the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer”, a trend that has prevailed for a while now.