World's top billionaires winners in economy 'built to redistribute wealth upwards', Oxfam expert says
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00:00 Rebecca Riddle is policy lead for economic and racial justice for Oxfam America, and
00:04 she joins me now live from New York.
00:06 Rebecca, thank you for joining us.
00:08 This new report shows that the world's wealthiest five men have more than doubled their fortune,
00:13 while nearly 800 million workers have failed to keep up with inflation.
00:16 How does the report explain the extraordinary growth of billionaire wealth at the top of
00:21 the economy that we're seeing this decade, while 60 percent of the world has been made
00:25 poorer?
00:26 Well, first, thank you so much for having me on.
00:29 It's a real pleasure to be here.
00:31 Yes, and globally, as you saw in the clip that just preceded this, we're really facing
00:36 a new Gilded Age.
00:37 It's a decade that's been defined by division, with those at the top experiencing just astronomical
00:42 growth while the vast majority are left behind.
00:46 During that same time, as you said, 60 percent of the world's population has gotten poorer.
00:51 We have to remember that for many, this has been a really challenging decade, with a pandemic
00:56 that devastated lives and economies, with an extended cost of living crisis, with climate
01:01 breakdown and more, workers' wages failing to keep up with inflation.
01:05 Billionaires, on the other hand, many of them have never done better.
01:09 Their wealth overall is up, as we see, the five richest men has more than doubled.
01:14 The thing is, those men are winners of a global economy that's built to redistribute wealth
01:19 upwards.
01:20 The thing we need to recognize, and what we really focus on in this year's report, is
01:24 how corporate and monopoly power is at the heart of this model.
01:30 Give us a bit more details there.
01:31 What does that mean exactly, this underestimated role of corporate power, like you say?
01:37 What we found is that billionaire wealth on the one hand and corporate power on the other
01:42 hand are intimately connected.
01:45 A really increasingly small number of increasingly powerful corporations are redistributing wealth
01:50 upwards, essentially enriching a class of modern-day men.
01:53 If you look, for example, at the top 10 biggest companies in the world, a billionaire is either
01:58 running or the principal shareholder of seven of them.
02:01 We found that corporate power is reaping record profits around the world right now, but also
02:06 driving inequality economy-wide, including along lines of race and gender.
02:10 They're dodging taxes, paying out eight out of every $10 in record profits to shareholders,
02:16 and driving the climate crisis.
02:18 Right.
02:19 We're seeing, I mean, some of the numbers are incredible.
02:21 Like Apple, for example, we heard your director say earlier, is valued at more than the GDP
02:25 of France.
02:26 But again, much of the world is struggling.
02:28 Wage growth has not kept up with inflation.
02:31 Prices are up.
02:32 Just explain to us a bit more, why has inflation not had as big an effect on big corporations?
02:37 Yeah.
02:38 Inflation has in some ways enabled corporations to use their outsized market power to really
02:43 command record profits.
02:45 So we've just experienced decades of rising corporate concentration that have really ushered
02:51 in a new global era of monopoly power.
02:54 And now monopolies corner industries from food to tech to pharma, and that gives them
02:58 a lot of power over our everyday lives and economies.
03:02 It gives them the ability to decide what food we're going to eat, to decide what wages will
03:07 be paid.
03:08 And so what we see is that a really small number of ultra-powerful firms are able to
03:12 funnel massive amounts of money to wealthy shareholders while they're doing it at the
03:18 expense of ordinary people through, you know, using their power to drive down wages, dodging
03:23 taxes and so on.
03:25 So the report says, and you were mentioning this earlier, that the wealth gap has been
03:28 quote supercharged since the pandemic.
03:31 Just explain that to us.
03:32 Why?
03:33 Yeah.
03:34 You know, at this point, after the last very few tough years that most people have had,
03:41 progress against poverty has, global poverty, has largely stalled.
03:45 We found the wealth at the bottom 60 percent of humanity actually fell in the last three
03:48 years.
03:49 But then if you look at what's happening at the top, you just see astronomical growth.
03:54 Take the five richest men, right?
03:56 So that's Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, and Warren Buffett.
04:01 Their portfolios have done amazingly.
04:04 They're up above 800 billion dollars with a growth rate of 114 percent in the last three
04:11 years.
04:12 And that really matches in many ways the record profits that companies have made at the same
04:15 time.
04:16 So, you know, if you look at the top about 148 countries or companies, rather, we found
04:21 that they just raked in one point eight trillion dollars, which is 52 percent up on their average
04:27 profits.
04:29 So what's the answer then?
04:30 I mean, how do you rein in these these corporate and billionaire power plays?
04:35 Yeah, we believe we need a new era of public action, that it's really only public power
04:41 that can rein in extreme wealth and billionaire power and corporate power.
04:45 So even champions of the corporate sector recognize that things need to change.
04:49 And, you know, companies can take voluntary steps and they absolutely should.
04:53 But we also need governments, governments that are dynamic, accountable and effective
04:56 to really step up if governments shape the market to be fair, if they break up monopolies,
05:02 empower workers and really tax corporations and the ultra wealthy.
05:06 Well, you know, that type of decisive regulation will make a real difference.
05:10 We're also calling to reinvent the business model.
05:13 So, you know, you see social enterprises and co-ops that are showing you can have dynamic,
05:18 effective businesses that much more democratically share the proceeds than the sort of, you know,
05:23 shareholder capitalism model we're used to.
05:26 And then finally and crucially, we're calling on governments to embrace and invest in public
05:31 services.
05:32 We don't need to leave everything we care about to the whims of private equity and billionaire
05:36 monopoly men.
05:37 You know, we can really build strong public services that deliver for all.
05:43 So, you know, on the one hand, we are living in a global gilded age.
05:47 But on the other, a more equal world certainly is possible.
05:50 We're seeing examples of the type of inequality busting policies being put in place today.
05:56 And we're really optimistic about what it will look like if we adopt those more widely.
06:01 Rebecca, just to wrap up very briefly, is there a best in class already, a country or
06:06 a company that can be held as an example for the rest?
06:10 You know, I would love to highlight the incredible work of workers right now.
06:14 And they have been not only, you know, especially the essential workers working really hard
06:18 during the pandemic to take care of so many people.
06:22 And I include in those workers the many unpaid carers around the world.
06:25 So I think I'd love to single out, you know, their leadership in recent years as, you know,
06:30 organizers, as people really making our economies work.
06:33 On the other hand, we do see governments that are stepping up and really doing good work.
06:37 So I'm thinking of, you know, the level of ambition of the U.S. government in suing Amazon
06:41 for its use of monopoly power, or the leadership shown by African countries that are stepping
06:46 up at the U.N. saying we need a new international tax architecture.
06:50 And so really around the world, whether it's, you know, activists in the streets or governments
06:56 that are really stepping up, we are seeing cause for hope.
06:58 All right, Rebecca, thank you for that.
07:00 Rebecca Riddle, the policy lead for economic and racial justice at Oxfam America.
07:05 Thank you.
07:06 Thank you.
07:06 Thank you.