BLOG: In an age when an individual can be richer than entire countries, Mike Zeidler, one of CTP’s co-founders and Board member invites us to reimagine our fetishising of extreme wealth.
The Sunday Times Rich List was published this week. It is an annual ranking of those who have accumulated the most personal wealth, regardless of the worth, or lack of worth, of whatever they did to get that wealth. Very like the national obsession with the ‘growth’ of GDP (our collective expression of how much we have produced and consumed), so too at the personal level – the endless growth of one’s bank balance is still celebrated in lists and column inches. When you step back and look at it, accumulating more money than you can ever use is an odd thing to be congratulated for.
The list has been going since 1989, when there were ‘just’ nine billionaires. Today, the news is full of the ‘sharp decline’ of billionaires from 165 last year, to ‘just’ 156 now – that’s still 44% of the list.
It’s worth remembering the difference between a million and a billion is mind-bogglingly huge. A million seconds is about 11.5 days – a billion seconds is just shy of 32 years. So 44% of the Rich List have amounts of money so great they are hard to imagine.
The ‘poorest’ on this list have £350m, which is already a vast, vast fortune. It would take someone on the national average wage in the UK (£37,500) nine thousand three hundred and thirty three years to earn as much. That’s 115 average lifetimes.
The yawning gulf between the richest and the rest has been making many of the ‘reasonably’ rich feel increasingly concerned. Extreme wealth of this scale can (and often does) interfere with political systems, unfairly exploit resources and flout both national and international laws.
So it’s heartening to see how some of the rich are championing the idea of ‘Exploring an Extreme Wealth Line’ to their peers. The report, written by our partners at the New Economics Foundation Fernanda Balata, Hollie Wright and Danny Sriskandaraja was produced in partnership with Patriotic Millionaires, who point out that the Rich List contains enough money to pay for ALL of the UK’s annual healthcare needs three times over – and that just doesn’t seem right.
Balata reported that more than 370 millionaires from 22 countries have petitioned elected leaders to tax extreme wealth in order to protect democracy and enable global investment that would lift billions out of poverty.
The idea could easily get bogged down in a debate about exactly how to draw the line – some suggesting the simplicity of a $10m ‘enough is enough’ cap, and others proposing a protocol allowing discussion about what’s spendable, reasonable or fair, all set against known facts about the harms that can be caused.
For me, the important thing is to notice that extreme wealth is not something to celebrate – it’s a flag inviting us to be on guard. When an individual or a family has more money than entire countries, their potential to influence global affairs is a huge risk.
BUT – unless the majority of the population sees extreme wealth as a problem rather than success, it’s hard to see how elected leaders can challenge the unaccountable power of the ultra rich.
So while it’s brilliant to see people like Patriotic Millionaires and Millionaires for Humanity lobby to get excessive wealth under control – what can we (the general public) do to lend them our support?
I worry it’s too easy for people to rail against ‘the rich’, minimising discussion of the broader issue, which is actually about managing the ways money is allowed to work. Money, after all, is only a promise – so perhaps the question we need to be asking, is ‘what’s the promise we want our money to make?’
The Thriving Places approach takes this question and puts it to use in every part of our local and regional economies – what do we want to grow – what are the things worth investing in if we really want to thrive? How can we all be part of a movement to be asking this at every level, from the individual to the global? What we measure influences what we value – so let’s measure each of our impacts on a better world for us and future generations, and put those most successful at that on the front of every newspaper in the land.
Mike Zeidler, Co-founder, Centre for Thriving Places
Comments are closed.