Mandaluyong, Manila, looking toward Makati. (Photo: Johnnie Miller/unequalscenes.com)
Billionaire wealth has risen three times faster in 2024 than in 2023. At least five trillionaires are now expected within a decade. Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990. Inequality is out of control.
Our latest annual inequality report, “Takers Not Makers” explores how most billionaire wealth is taken, not earned - with 60% coming from either inheritance, cronyism or monopoly power. Furthermore, our deeply unequal world remains colonial in many ways. There is a long history of colonial domination which has largely benefited the richest people. This system still extracts wealth from the Global South to the super-rich 1% in the Global North at a rate of $30million an hour. This must be reversed.
A two-tier world
The billionaire oligarchy grows ever bigger…
Trillions are being gifted in inheritance, creating a new aristocratic oligarchy that has immense power in our politics and our economy.
Four new billionaires per week
In 2024, total billionaire wealth increased by US$2 trillion, with 204 new billionaires created. This is an average of almost four new billionaires per week.
While the working class struggles to get by
People living in poverty all over the world continue to face multiple crises—from the scars of the pandemic to conflict and climate breakdown, driving further poverty, hunger, and inequality.
Poverty will not be ended for more than a century
In its most recent report on poverty, the World Bank calculates that if current growth rates continue and inequality does not decrease, it will take more than a century to end poverty. It also shows that only 8% of humanity lives in countries that have low inequality. Oxfam and Development Finance International’s findings in The Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index 2024 reveal negative trends in the vast majority of countries since 2022.
Most billionaire wealth is taken, not earned
The idea that extreme wealth is a reward for extreme talent is pervasive and strongly reinforced in our media and popular culture. But this perception is not rooted in reality.
60% of billionaire wealth is from inheritance, cronyism or monopoly.
In 2023, more billionaires were created through inheritance than entrepreneurialism for the first time.
Billionaire colonialism
The unearned nature of much of the extreme wealth of the ultra-rich is arguably a result of colonialism and its impacts. Today most billionaires still live in the rich countries of the Global North, despite these countries being home to just one-fifth of the global population.
Historical colonialism and the ruling class
Colonialism, and the ideas that underpinned it, allowed the exploitation of the working-class majority to be taken to an even greater level of extremity. Tens of millions of people across the world have suffered because the ideas of racism and white supremacy gave justification and moral license to unprecedented and systematic levels of brutality, exploitation, and, at times, extermination.
The fruit from the poisoned tree: how historical colonialism impacts present-day inequality
Today’s unequal world is indelibly burned with the brand of brutal colonial history.
This has created a deeply unequal world. A world torn apart by division based on racism and sexism. A world that continues to systematically extract wealth from the Global South to primarily benefit the richest people in the Global North.
Decolonizing our economy and dethroning the super-rich
To contribute to meaningful systemic change, governments must:
- Radically reduce inequality – setting global and national goals to do so.
- Repair the wounds of historical colonialism through apology and reparations
- End systems of modern-day colonialism.
- Tax the richest to end extreme wealth.
- Promote South-South cooperation and solidarity.
- End ongoing formal colonialism in all forms.
A more equal future is possible
There is a long way to go to achieve all that we dream of, but we can find hope by drawing inspiration and motivation from peoples’ movements that fight inequality and resist colonialism.
We stand in solidarity with all those fighting for an equal world. Those fighting each day for economies that are based on care and wellbeing for all, not on the greed of a few.
