Oxfam: "85 people have more wealth than the bottom half of the world combined"

[IBleedRed]

Interesting report:


The 85 richest people on Earth now have the same amount of wealth as the bottom half of the global population, according to a report released Monday by the British humanitarian group Oxfam International.

...

"It is staggering that in the 21st century, half of the world's population own no more than a tiny elite whose numbers could all sit comfortably in a single train carriage," said Winnie Byanyima, Oxfam's executive director.


"Widening inequality is creating a vicious circle where wealth and power are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, leaving the rest of us to fight over crumbs from the top table," Byanyima said.


...

A Gallup poll released Monday found two-thirds of Americans were dissatisfied with the way income and wealth are distributed in the nation. The wealth gap was a factor in nationwide rallies last month by fast-food workers seeking higher wages.


Oxfam said the United States has led a worldwide growth in wealth concentration.


The percentage of income held by the richest 1% in the U.S. has grown nearly 150% from 1980 through 2012. That small elite has received 95% of wealth created since 2009, after the financial crisis, while the bottom 90% of Americans have become poorer, Oxfam said.


The uneven gains of the economic recovery, in which many people have had to take lower-paying jobs, have exacerbated income inequality, said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project.


"The people who are losing ground are the people in the middle and the bottom" of the economic spectrum, Owens said.





http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-income-inequality-20140121,0,3481555.story#axzz2r4gsVu7B

Thoughts?

[ChrisK]

Same shit different day.

[tallguy]

Hello bleed red. I have just come across this thread and now realize I have duplicated it's OP with a thread of my own I just posted.

Sorry about that. I'll try and delete it but don't know if I can.

Mods, if you read this, pleases delete/merge mine with this

[Regicollis]

No surprise for us but a story like this get reported in more mainstream publications and can be used as an eye-opener for those who still think capitalism has anything to do with hardworking enterepeneurs and small mom and pop stores.

Sendt fra min HUAWEI Y300-0100 med Tapatalk

[reb]

So? This numbers game is a stupid one. It doesn't mention anything about class and just talks abstractly about "wealth".

[TheSocialistMetalhead]

Like Regicolis said, you can bring this stuff up in conversations and if you feel you're talking to the right person for that kinda thing you can mention class, class struggle and whatever else you want.

Before you can build class consciousness, you have to raise awareness. The average Joe won't really know what you're on about if you use Marxist or otherwise academic terminology. You've got to show them what's up, expose the system for what it really is. Then you can suggest solutions...

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Well, Marx did tell us all about this in Capital. As the wealth of the world increases, it will continuously be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.

[WilliamGreen]

Like Regicolis said, you can bring this stuff up in conversations and if you feel you're talking to the right person for that kinda thing you can mention class, class struggle and whatever else you want.

Before you can build class consciousness, you have to raise awareness. The average Joe won't really know what you're on about if you use Marxist or otherwise academic terminology. You've got to show them what's up, expose the system for what it really is. Then you can suggest solutions...


This is about the best thought raised and how you bring awareness to new crowds of people.

[bcbm]

they're also going to replace most of us with robots (http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-rich-and-their-robots-are-about-to-make-half-the-worlds-jobs-disappear), so there's something else to look forward to.

[piet11111]

Well, Marx did tell us all about this in Capital. As the wealth of the world increases, it will continuously be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.

Along with impoverishment and misery for the rest of us.

[consuming negativity]

I'm all about "raising awareness" or whathaveyou when it doesn't come in the form of liking anti-Kony pictures on Facebook but..

"Among other things, Oxfam wants them to support progressive taxation, pledge not to dodge taxes, pay a living wage to workers at their companies and push governments "to provide universal healthcare, education and social protection" for their citizens."

I hate these liberals who act as though 3.5 billion people being impoverished can be solved with a fucking minimum wage law in the US, and who mislead people with their shitty propaganda into supporting half-measures when people are starving to death. Drives me fucking bonkers. Time isn't on the side of the hungry, the sick, and the destitute. Fuck this waiting around for promises from shithead politicians, you know? And fuck them for exposing the realities of capitalism and then immediately applying a feel-good bandage to them with their propaganda bullshit. Yeah, just hold on and go vote and a politician will make it all better for you.

tbitvgntgv5er

[Ocean Seal]

So? This numbers game is a stupid one. It doesn't mention anything about class and just talks abstractly about "wealth".
This is the wrong approach that the left has towards these statistics. Are they meaningful economic figures to really study in the Marxian sense? No, not really, but are they tactically very imposing? The answer is yes. It is shocking that such a small fraction of the population controls such a propensity of wealth.

[Comrade #138672]

So? This numbers game is a stupid one. It doesn't mention anything about class and just talks abstractly about "wealth".True, but it does mean something. Such inequality can only come from a class society. It is pointing back to classes, even when there is no mention of class.

[tallguy]

True, but it does mean something. Such inequality can only come from a class society. It is pointing back to classes, even when there is no mention of class.
Yes, it pointing to classes. But it does not start with classes. It starts with starts with geology/geography, leading to economics/power, leading to culture/class.

Class proceeds from power, it does not precede it. Class forms as a consequential, after the fact narrative justification of that power.

Eg. I "have more power than you. But, that's okay, so stop complaining, cos I'm one of the "special" people"

Thus, when the article highlights the issue of wealth disparity between a small number of people and the rest of us, when people see on that, they are perfectly capable of divining the class structures that emerge from that disparity and don't need one of the "special people" from the left to spell it out for them.