Urgent
Need for People's Empowerment and a New Direction for the Economy
Davos Summit and the Growing Impoverishment of the World's People
Some 1,000 people hike to the World Economic Forum in Davos declaring
the climate crisis a world economic failure and demanding a change of
direction. (Common
Dreams)
The World Economic Forum of the global financial
oligarchy is once again taking place in Davos, Switzerland. The Davos
Summit is being held amidst the growing impoverishment of the world's
peoples and in opposition to the necessity for a new pro-social
direction for the economy. Canada, whose governments at the federal and
provincial levels represent supranational private interests in
opposition to the people and their economy, has several contingents
attending the forum financed by the public purse.
Media coverage of the Davos forum is always an extensive exercise in
disinformation to present no alternative to an economy whose inherent
feature is the trend of the rich becoming richer and the poor poorer.
In this regard, the 2020 report by Oxfam on global inequality titled Time
to Care says the world's 2,153 billionaires have more wealth
than the 4.6 billion people who make up 60 percent of the planet's
population.[1] The Oxfam report, released on January 20 in conjunction with the
gathering in Davos, confirms the global trend towards the concentration
of social wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer rich oligarchs. The
report also fuels the diversion that the representatives of the world's
richest people have an interest in a better distribution of wealth to
benefit the growing poor whose rebellion they clearly fear. In this
vein, several billionaires organized into a U.S.-led group called the
Patriotic Millionaires issued an open letter declaring the rich should
pay more taxes. According to their website, the oligarchs are "high-net
worth Americans, business leaders, and investors who are united in
their concern about the destabilizing concentration of wealth and power
in America."
Voicing
agreement with the oligarchs that taxing the rich is a safer option
than a new pro-social direction for the economy, Oxfam writes, "Getting
the richest one per cent to pay just 0.5 per cent extra tax on their
wealth over the next 10 years would equal the investment needed to
create 117 million jobs in sectors such as elderly and childcare,
education and health."
Oxfam India CEO Amitabh Behar, who is said to be in Davos this year to
represent the Oxfam confederation, feeds this narrative saying, "The
gap between rich and poor can't be resolved without deliberate
inequality-busting policies, and too few governments are committed to
these." Behar adds a sense of urgency for the oligarchs to act to
defend their privilege and power saying, "Our broken economies are
lining the pockets of billionaires and big business at the expense of
ordinary men and women. No wonder people are starting to question
whether billionaires should even exist."
To further divert attention away from any serious discussion on the
direction of the global economy and the urgent need for working people
to organize for empowerment through democratic renewal, Oxfam suggests
the oligarchs use the greater exploitation of women as a foil to stop
working people from unleashing their collective power for change. Behar
says, "Women and girls are among those who benefit least from today's
economic system. They spend billions of hours cooking, cleaning and
caring for children and the elderly. Unpaid care work is the 'hidden
engine' that keeps the wheels of our economies, businesses and
societies moving. It is driven by women who often have little time to
get an education, earn a decent living or have a say in how our
societies are run, and who are therefore trapped at the bottom of the
economy."
The Oxfam report reads: "The 22 richest men in the world have more
wealth than all the women in Africa. Women and girls put in 12.5
billion hours of unpaid care work each and every day -- a contribution
to the global economy of at least $10.8 trillion a year, more than
three times the size of the global tech industry."
After citing more facts pointing to catastrophic scenarios that could
disrupt the lives of the financial oligarchy and the economic and
political systems it relies on, the Oxfam report concludes,
"Governments are massively under-taxing the wealthiest individuals and
corporations and failing to collect revenues that could help lift the
responsibility of care from women and tackle poverty and inequality. At
the same time, governments are underfunding vital public services and
infrastructure that could help reduce women and girls' workload. For
example, investments in water and sanitation, electricity, childcare,
healthcare could free up women's time and improve their quality of
life. For example, providing access to an improved water source could
save women in parts of Zimbabwe up to four hours of work a day, or two
months a year."
To save the current direction of the economy from collapse and a change
to the new, and to spread confusion as to the root cause of inequality,
Behar urges the oligarchs to act in their own self-interest saying:
"Governments created the inequality crisis -- they must act now to end
it. They must ensure corporations and wealthy individuals pay their
fair share of tax and increase investment in public services and
infrastructure. They must pass laws to tackle the huge amount of care
work done by women and girls, and ensure that people who do some of the
most important jobs in our society -- caring for our parents, our
children and the most vulnerable -- are paid a living wage. Governments
must prioritize care as being as important as all other sectors in
order to build more human economies that work for everyone, not just a
fortunate few."
Regarding India, Behar's own country of origin, the report notes that
one per cent of the population owns more wealth than 70 per cent of the
population. Sixty-three billionaires have more wealth than the annual
budget of the government of India. What the report does not say is that
79 years of independence from brutal British colonial rule have brought
increased misery to a vast majority of the population because the state
ensures that a tiny minority control the decision-making power and
ensure no challenge is organized to its privilege no matter which party
forms the government and which policies are adopted.
Indian governments since independence have adopted "socialism" and
"secularism" along with a "green revolution" to eliminate poverty, and
then "liberalization" and "privatization" and now "Hindutva" and "Hindu
Rashtra." All these different versions of the same state power of the
rich and privileged have been meant to keep the people disinformed,
disorganized and disempowered.
Throughout the
world the dictate of the financial oligarchy is expressed in
supranational neo-liberal policies to use state funds to pay the rich
and build war economies. The peoples' tax monies and increased state
borrowing from private money lenders are employed to further militarize
economies and wage propaganda campaigns such as the Davos Forum against
any efforts of working people to organize to change the world in their
favour. The financial oligarchy is adamant to retain its control over
the economies of all countries regardless of the problems, misery and
wars this creates. It refuses to have in existence any economic forms
unless it can expropriate a portion of the new value as private profit.
The oligarchs gauge the health and success of the economy not by any
objective measure but from their own subjective outlook of whether the
rich are becoming richer and their empires more powerful.
The World Economic Forum in Davos is all about inventing new ways to
fleece the working peoples of the world and divert them from uniting in
their own interests in opposition to the rich oligarchs. Most
governments have become representatives of supranational private
interests in opposition to the people and their economy.[2]
There is an alternative! A new aim and direction for the economy under
the control of the actual producers would begin to solve a country's
economic and social problems. This requires democratic renewal and the
empowerment of the working people using new political and economic
forms and institutions of their own creation.
The supplement to this issue of TML Weekly is
dedicated to discussion on the economy. See "Thoughts on the
Imperialist Economy and Its Recurring Crises and Wars," by K.C. Adams.
Notes
1. Oxfam
says Time to Care is a methodology document and
outlines how Oxfam calculated the statistics in the report and the
dataset. It says:
"Oxfam's calculations are based on the most up-to-date and
comprehensive data sources available. Figures on the share of wealth
come from the Credit Suisse Research Institute's Global Wealth Databook
2019. Figures on the very richest in society come from Forbes' 2019
Billionaires List. Billionaire wealth fell in the last year but has
since recovered.
"Oxfam is part of the Fight Inequality Alliance, a growing global
coalition of civil society organizations and activists that will be
holding events from January 18-25 in 30 countries, including India,
Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa, Uganda and the UK, to promote
solutions to inequality and demand that economies work for everyone."
2. The World
Economic Forum is funded by its 1,000 member companies, typically
global enterprises with more than $5 billion in turnover (varying by
industry and region). These enterprises rank among the top companies
within their industry and/or country and play a leading role in shaping
the future of their industry and/or region. Membership is stratified by
the level of engagement with forum activities, with the level of
membership fees increasing as participation in meetings, projects, and
initiatives rises.
As of 2011, an annual membership costs $52,000 for an individual
member, $263,000 for an "Industry Partner" and $527,000 for a
"Strategic Partner." The admission fee was $19,000 per
person.
In 2014, WEF raised annual fees by 20 per cent, increasing the cost for a "Strategic Partner" to $628,000. (Abhin
Poojary, Analyst at Performics. Convonix)
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