The facts
There are now 2,755 billionaires on the planet, not including “royalty” and dictators.
In the year 2000, they controlled less than $1 trillion.
Today, they control more than $13.1 trillion.
13.5X in a generation.
And they’ve grown their wealth by $5.5 trillion during the pandemic so far.
The world’s richest eight men now own more than the bottom 4 billion.
On the flip side, there’s never been so many people experiencing suffering and deprivation in human history:
- Systemic inequality pushed 200+ million people into poverty and cost women around the world at least $800 billion in lost income in 2020.
- 690 million people go to bed hungry every night (and the number is rising by 16 million per year.)
- 5.5 million people are moving into slums per month.
- 2.3 million children die from malnutrition every year.
Clearly, there is no limit to the depth of poverty and deprivation to which our global society will allow humans to fall — never forget that millions of children are still trafficked for rape annually and that nine million people die from starvation each year — yet somehow elite individuals are allowed to amass unlimited plenty in a world of deprivation?
It begs the question: Is it moral and right for us to allow individuals to hoard extreme wealth in the face of overwhelming widespread poverty, documented democratic subversion, and environmental catastrophe?
If humanity saw itself as the global family that it truly is, it would be morally impossible to not limit the amount that one family member could control while another suffered and died.
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