ISSUE #65: COVID-19 - The Pandemic of Inequality.
The working class got poorer while the parasite class made billions from the pain of billions.
Gabrila Bucher, Executive Director at Oxfam, recently said the following: “COVID has been one of the most profitable products ever.”
And you can’t argue against the statement she made because COVID-19, which ruined the lives of millions of people, was nothing less than a product for the global elites or the ruling class that literally made fortunes from the sufferings of the working class.
COVID-19 was as much the pandemic of inequality as it was the pandemic of a respiratory disease.
Oxfam - an international organization that claims to be “fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice” - recently released a report by the name “Profiting from Pain” in which they showed that COVID-19 minted a new billionaire every 30 hours. Yes, you read that right. A NEW FUCKING BILLIONAIRE EVERY 30 HOURS, while a million people could slip into extreme poverty at the same pace in 2022, the report said.
According to Oxfam, 263 million people will fall into poverty this year alone, which translates into one million every 33 hours, as almost everything keeps getting expensive, which makes the life of the working class unaffordable.
“Decades of progress on extreme poverty are now in reverse and millions of people are facing impossible rises in the cost of simply staying alive," said Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam International.
"Billionaires’ fortunes have not increased because they are now smarter or working harder. Workers are working harder, for less pay and in worse conditions. The super-rich have rigged the system with impunity for decades and they are now reaping the benefits. They have seized a shocking amount of the world’s wealth as a result of privatization and monopolies, gutting regulation and workers’ rights while stashing their cash in tax havens — all with the complicity of governments," added Bucher.
Another key fact from the report that blew away my mind was that the poorest 40% of humanity do NOT hold as much wealth as the world’s 10 richest men.
The Oxfam report covered the food, energy, medicine, and technology sector - all of which are basic human necessities.
During the first 24 months of COVID, the fortunes of food and energy billionaires have soared by $453 billion or $1 billion every two days.
Moderna, according to report, has been “ immensely successful at converting public funding into private wealth.” Additionally, “The company has created four new vaccine billionaires who are worth a combined $10 billion.”
In the technology sector, Oxfam reports that “ 7 out of the 10 richest people in the world made their money from technology.” Who can forget Elon becoming the richest person in the world in 2021, surpassing Jeff Bezos?
If our current market system of capitalism involves distributing wealth from the bottom half of humanity into the hands of the top 1%, then either the current market system has some serious flaws in it and need immediate fixation OR it is working exactly the way the ruling class wants it to.
If the former was true and the ruing class of the capitalist system really cared about the working class, then it’s not an exaggeration to say that many issues related to our current economic system would have been resolved and wealth inequality would not have been as big of a problem as it is today. But when you look at the current state of the world through the lens of reality , you find that wealth inequality is a much bigger problem today than it was 20 years ago.
That means the latter is true. The capitalist system is working exactly as the ruling class want it to. They want to exploit the wealth produced by the working class as much as they possibly can so that they can add some more zeroes to their personal net worth. The ruling class wants the capitalist system that keeps the working class poor.
If there’s one thing that can be concluded from the Oxfam’s report, it is that the current economic system can’t sustain itself for much longer. We need a system that favors the working class as a whole not just a few individuals.
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