Heroes Not Zombies

The economist, Thomas Picketty, recently wrote this on his blog – “In France, the combined wealth of the 500 largest fortunes has grown by €1 trillion since 2010, rising from €200 billion to €1.2 trillion.”

What he’s highlighted here is the massive increase in the wealth of the already wealthiest in the world over the last decade or so. There are lots and lots of other figures you can find if you go searching for them, but they are all examples of exactly this phenomenon – while there is great child poverty, millions of people suffering from a “cost of living crisis” and a decline in Public Services in European countries, some people……those who already hoard the most…..have been absolutely coining it in. This is despite such “crises” as the pandemic and the war between Russia and the Ukraine.

At the same time, politician after politician complains about “the National Debt” and how “we can’t afford” to give people decent lives, decent houses and decent jobs.

There have also been a number of articles in recent times about what has been coined the rise of the “inheritocracy” – increasingly, this large shift in wealth away from the general public into to hands of a tiny minority, is leading to more and more younger adults becoming wealthy because they happened to choose the right parents. This isn’t a meritocracy. And it isn’t about rewarding those who work the hardest and contribute the most. There’s a trend underway, and Picketty highlighted that trend in his best seller, “Capital” – that capital is growing faster than the economy, so inequality will continue to increase.

It strikes me there’s something seriously wrong with this system. But let me just pull another issue into this, because these are the things rattling around my brain this morning – the other thing we hear politician after politician go on about is “growth”. “Growth” – the answer the Life, the Universe and Everything! In the UK Labour have built an entire set of policies on this premise – get “growth” and all the good things will follow – better family incomes, better Public Services, less hardship. But, don’t you ever stop to wonder – “growth of what?” I do. Not least because it’s clearer than it’s ever been that we live together on one, finite, massively interconnected planet. We cannot keep growing the global temperature. We cannot keep growing the oceans of plastic waste. We cannot keep consuming more (just consuming more, it apparently doesn’t matter what) every single year. At some point, we’re going to hit the buffers. Aren’t we?

Look, I don’t have all the answers. It’s just that these are a couple of the issues which trouble me these days – both issues, which, along with Climate Change, pollution and species loss – lead me to conclude – there is something deeply wrong with this current world economic/political system.

What do you think?