Prior to the Davos World Economic Forum of the super-rich and super powerful, the accelerating concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands has been again headlined by researchers. This article in today’s Guardian describes the startling trend:
Oxfam’s research, published today, shows that the share of the world’s wealth owned by the best-off 1% has increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% in 2014, while the least well-off 80% currently own just 5.5% … on current trends the richest 1% would own more than 50% of the world’s wealth by 2016 … just 80 people own the same amount of wealth as more than 3.5 billion people (down from 388 people in 2010).[This BBC website article explores the statistical basis of this and other types of assertions and Jeremy Williams’ blog has a link to the Oxfam Report] It is worth considering how this distribution of wealth might relate to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals starting January 2016.