According to a recent report from Oxfam, 85 of the richest people in the world are as wealthy as the poorest half.
The release of the report coincided with the World Economic Forum which is held every year in Davos. This was unlikely to be sheer luck. Perhaps Oxfam was trying to point out that the wealthy are able to create their own arenas of political influence, while the poor are left with rather less opportunity for having their views heard by decision makers?
Not only are the rich able to create their own arenas of political influence they are also, in large measure, able to influence the policies of governments. Tax systems are one example. A report by the tax justice network shows that 21-32 trillion dollars in financial assets are sitting offshore, largely untaxed. Large companies such as Google, Apple, Starbucks etc. are able to pay very little tax or none at all by using tax havens. This shows that the rich have huge resources and are therefore able to circumvent laws that affect the rest of us. The fact that governments are just now beginning to take this seriously is mitigated by the fact that it has taken a financial disaster and a crisis of state coffers to get to this point. The lack of action on tax evasion might have something to do with who the tax evaders are. Either way, the rich are able to mould reality around their own wants and interests in a way that the rest of us cannot.
Does this matter? Is it a problem that individuals such as those named by Oxfam are so very rich, if they earned their money fair and square?
There are many reasons why poverty and inequality is morally unacceptable. Absolute poverty demeans human dignity. Relative poverty, certainly in its more egregious forms, undermines the idea of human equality. Significant material inequality weakens potential and unbalances ‘opportunity’ across society.
All of this is true but doesn’t quite answer why extreme wealth is problematic. After all, some would argue that as long as the poor have an acceptable level of goods, what others have is a matter of indifference.
Perhaps the answer lies not in money but power. Money entails power, and while we insist on the separation of government powers and the decentralisation that is inherent in democracy, we too often fail to recognise that too much money in the hands of the few can effectively obliterate those measures. Or, to borrow the words of political scientist Stein Rokkan, “votes matter, but resources decide”.
This, it should be noted, is regardless of whether the power is in the hands of the state or individuals. Indeed, it is precisely those arguments that are used against big government that have purchase against big business or, in this instance, big individuals.
Christian anthropology recognizes that humans are fallible and flawed. Power has to be constrained, because human institutions are necessarily fallible. Perhaps the same logic applies to extreme wealth.
This is not, of course, an argument against the market or against money, neither of which is seen as intrinsically wrong or wicked within the Christian tradition. Quite the contrary, money and the principle of a fair exchange are presupposed as essential for human flourishing. The problem comes when money stops being the means to an end and starts becoming just an end.
The extreme imbalance whereby 85 of the richest people in the world control as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billon is an inimical to human flourishing even if those 3.5 billion are not objectively poor (which of course most are) because human nature is too scarred by sin to use all-but-unlimited wealth just as it is too scarred to wield all-but-unlimited power.
Eilev Hegstad is an intern at Theos and is currently studying political science at the University of Oslo
Image from wikimedia.org available in the public domain
