Approximately 300 years or so of capitalism and its success story is that it has produced unimaginable wealth. Of course with the base line of capitalism being unbridled exploitation and selfish gain, that wealth has become extremely concentrated in a very few hands. With that gross wealth concentrated in so few hands, comes power concentrated in so few hands.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently reached a net worth of $105 billion, making him the richest person in the world — and ever in history.It is, of course obvious that if the world's population produces all this wealth and it ends up in so few hands, the majority are the losers. Leaving the parasite world of millionaires/billionaires and entering the real world of ordinary people we see a very different story. While that few can purchase a £150 million yacht to pass their time with, the majority struggle to keep a half decent standard of living.
A recent study released by Oxfam found that the top 1% has owned more wealth than the rest of the world's population since 2015. And the eight richest have the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world — nearly 4 billion people. If these top billionaires continue to see returns on their wealth, we could see the world's first trillionaire in as little as 25 years.
In my previous post "In Despair, I repeat Myself." I highlighted the billions that struggle to survive in the most abject deprivation. A high percentage of those ignored human beings, live in the so called "third world" or developing countries. However, capitalism carries its poverty everywhere, even in the so called "developed world". Some facts from very rich developed Europe.
SCOTLAND:
SPAIN:
Almost one in four (230,000) of Scotland’s children are officially recognised as living in poverty[i]. This is higher than in many other European countries[ii]. In the absence of significant policy change, this figure is likely to rise in the coming years with independent modelling by the Institute for Fiscal studies (IFS) forecasting that more than a third of children in the UK will be living in poverty by 2021/22. [iii] This would reverse the fall in child poverty observed in the UK since the late 1990s. [iv]
There is hope that action will be taken to reverse this trend in Scotland where the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 places a duty on the Scottish Government to eradicate child poverty by 2030.
It comes after stark figures last week showed about a million Scots are now living in relative poverty – including one in four children.
After the economic crisis and years of austerity, child poverty is on the rise in wealthy countries, according to Unicef. In Spain, the proportion of children living below the poverty line increased by nine percentage points between 2008 and 2014, to reach almost 40%.ITALY:
While child poverty in general rose significantly, the sharpest increase (56%) was among households of four people (two adults and two children) living on less than €700 per month, or €8,400 per year.
Those living in “absolute poverty” rose to 5.1 million last year, or 8.4 percent of the population, despite a fourth consecutive year of modest economic growth. That was up from 7.9 percent in 2016 and the highest since current records began in 2005, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported.GREECE:
ISTAT defines absolute poverty as the condition of those who cannot buy goods and services “essential to avoid grave forms of social exclusion”.
Italy emerged from a steep double-dip recession in 2014, but the report shows that the slow growth posted since then has done little to help its poorest.
AND:
Greece shows the second highest rate of severe material deprivation (21.1 percent) in the EU, meaning that more than one in five Greeks can not afford to pay their bills, Eurostat says.
According to a report called “Can you afford to pay all your bills?” released on Wednesday, the European statistical authority finds that more than one five Greeks can not afford at least four of the following:
- a telephone
So no matter where capitalism slithers its cancerous tentacles, the result is the same, unbridled wealth for the few, and unimaginable deprivation for the many. It is a man made economic system, not some immutable set of laws set in stone, we can throw its set of unjust rules in the dust bin and start again, building a system based on the needs of all our people, sustainability and justice.Figures show that between 2010 and 2016, the percentage of children in Greece that were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, jumped from 28.7% to 37.5%; i.e. up by 8.8%.
