Growing number, power of the rich

Globally, the number of the superrich is rising at a faster rate than before. A global real estate consultancy, Knight Frank, in a recent report says, the US's billionaires own 40 per cent of the wealth (about USD5.7 trillion) owned by all the world's billionaires. And the country is home to 30 per cent of the world's billionaires and 40 per cent of the global rich who own USD10 million and above. Though last year China was home to 20 per cent of the world's highly rich people who owned USD10 million and above, other countries in the South are also rapidly moving to reduce their billionaire gap, the most prominent among them being India with its 191 billionaires, 26 of them springing up within a year (in 2024)! Traditionally, rich countries of Europe such as France are also scrambling to secure their place in the billionaires' club with Russia and Brazil following close on the heels. Now, what does this growing number of the superrich mean for a world where the richest 10 per cent grab 52 per cent of all incomes, while the poorest half get a sliver of 8.5 per cent, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF)? And the rise of the nouveau riche gobbling up the lion's share of the national incomes of some countries in the South like India is nothing to celebrate about. Going by 'The News Minute', TNM for short, a Bengaluru-based digital news platform of India, 26.4 per cent of Indians still live below the poverty line. TNM's  report, which is based on a recent study published in a prestigious  peer-reviewed academic journal focused on agrarian studies, the 'Review of Agrarian Studies', however, challenges the Indian government's claim that that the country's poverty rate has dropped to just 5 per cent. Consider that with about a quarter of the population still living in extreme poverty,  according to the World Inequality  Lab (WIL), a research laboratory focused on studying inequality worldwide, the share of India's top 10 per cent population in the country's national income has surged to 60 per cent in recent years compared to what it was in the 1990s. Unsurprisingly, the bottom 50 per cent has to be happy with what is left after the rich take their share. And, given the quick rise in the number of the new class of the rich, the majority population's share of the national income is going to shrink further. So, what is the income level of India's top 1 per cent wealthiest people? They earn 23 times the income of an average Indian. It is no surprise then that though India in1991 had only one billionaire, in 2011 the number rose to 52.

The World Bank, in its latest estimate, says that in many poor settings, the poverty rates remain higher than they were five years ago and that 2020-30 is set to be a 'lost decade'. Clearly, the UN's most ambitious project of achieving 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 and thereby, among other things, eradicate poverty in the developing countries by 2030, could make little or no significant progress. Small wonder that the  (UN) project's goal has remained as elusive as ever. Despite the Covid19, the Ukraine war etc., contributing to stagnation of the world economy, who benefited most from the misfortune that befell the world's poor as a result? In this connection, the Oxfam's report, titled, 'Takers not Makers', says that in 2024 alone, the world's billionaires amassed USD2 trillion in wealth. Notably, some four billionaires were created every week in 2024. This points not only to the accelerated rate of wealth accumulation by the few, but also to their growing power in society. No wonder, the lot of about 3.5 billion global poor has not seen any improvement since1990.

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