Dear Editor,

The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their wealth since 2020, while five billion people got poorer.

It must be noted that these men have increased their wealth from US$405 billion in 2020 to US$69 billion in 2023.

The richest 1 per cent own 43 per cent of all global financial assets, and the global economy is run by a small handful of billionaire oligarch capitalists, who get richer and richer by maximising rent extraction. It, therefore, means that these capitalists are not reinvesting the wealth; instead, they are enriching the wealthy investors who own these companies, in terms of buying back stocks or paying out dividends.

They are concentrated in the colonial nations of the Global South and have power over governments and policies. For example, at the World Economic Forum (WEF), held every year in Davos, Switzerland, Western governments, including the US and the EU, oftentimes determine what their economic policies will be, which very often benefits the wealthiest capitalists in the world at the expense of the vast majority of the working class.

A huge concentration of global corporations and monopoly power is exacerbating economies globally. Seven of the world’s 10 biggest corporations have either a billionaire CEO or a billionaire as its principal shareholder. According to Oxfam Briefing Paper 2024, if each of the five wealthiest men were to spend US$1,000 per day, it would take 476 years to exhaust their combined wealth. Meanwhile, low- and middle-income countries are set to pay half a billion US dollars per day in interest and debt payments between now and 2029.

Interestingly, just 0.4 per cent of over 1,600 of the world’s largest and most influential companies are publicly paying their workers a living wage.

Owen Mckenzie

Policy analyst

mckenzieowen28@yahoo.com