World’s top 1% own more wealth than 95 per cent of humanity

Over a third of world’s biggest 50 corporations - worth $13.3 trillion - now run by a billionaire or has billionaire as a principal shareholder

The richest 1% have more wealth than the bottom 95 per cent of the world’s population put together, new Oxfam analysis of UBS data reveals today ahead of the annual UN High-Level General Debate.

Billionaires are exerting new levels of control over economies, with a billionaire either running or the principal shareholder of more than a third of the world’s top 50 corporations. The combined market capitalization of these corporations is $13.3 trillion.

Multilateralism in an Era of Global Oligarchy warns that multilateral efforts to respond to critical global challenges, including the climate crisis and persistent poverty and inequality, are being undermined by the ultra-wealthy and mega-corporations fueling inequality within and between countries.

Despite being home to 79 per cent of the world’s population, Global South countries own just 31 per cent of global wealth.

Amitabh Behar, Oxfam International’s Executive Director said “The shadow of global oligarchy hangs over this year’s UN General Assembly. The ultra-wealthy and the mega-corporations they control are shaping global rules to serve their interests at the expense of people everywhere. The iconic UN podium is increasingly feeling diminished in a world in which billionaires are calling the shots.”

The paper describes a movement toward a global oligarchy, where the ultra-rich, often through their increasingly monopolistic corporations, shape global political decision-making and rules to enrich themselves while thwarting vital global progress.

The top 1% own 43 per cent of all global financial assets. Just two corporations control 40 per cent of the global seed market. The “big three” US-based asset managers - BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard - hold $20 trillion in assets, close to one-fifth of all investable assets in the world.

Behar said “While we often hear about great power rivalries undermining multilateralism, it is clear that extreme inequality is playing a massive role. In recent years the ultra-wealthy and powerful corporations have used their vast influence to undermine efforts to solve major global problems such as tackling tax dodging, making Covid-19 vaccines available to the world and canceling the albatross of sovereign debt.”

Oxfam details three recent examples of extreme inequality eroding multilateral efforts and where civil society and Global South leaders have offered inequality-busting solutions:

• Powerful corporations undermining tax cooperation. The OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Sharing (BEPS) fell short of realizing its potential, with new rules for profit allocation that will deliver only tiny extra revenues for lower-income countries of as little as 0.026 per cent of their GDP. The exclusion of financial services from OECD rules is a carve-out attributed to lobbying from countries with large banking and financial sectors. Global South countries, led by African countries, are instead advancing negotiations for a fairer tax convention at the UN that, along with Brazil’s leadership at the G20, offer a pathway for fairly taxing the super-rich and mega-corporations.
• Big Pharma resisting efforts to break up their monopolies over Covid-19 vaccine technologies to unlock supply. Monopoly control over vaccine production was highly profitable during the pandemic. In 2021 alone, the seven largest manufacturers generated an estimated $50 billion in net profit from the sale of Covid-19 vaccines, resulting in huge payouts to rich shareholders and the emergence of new vaccine billionaires. The CEO of Pfizer Albert Bourla described the call to share Covid-19 vaccine technologies as “dangerous nonsense.” The failure to equitably share vaccines contributed to as many as 1.3 million excess deaths worldwide. A new pandemic treaty with strong provisions to suspend patents and allow for easier transfers of technology offers promise.
• Private creditors exacerbating the global debt crisis. Low-income countries spend nearly 40 per cent of their annual budgets on debt service, over 60 per cent more than they spend on education, health, and social protection combined. Over half of low- and middle-income countries’ external debt is owed to private lenders like banks and hedge funds. Some of these creditors are “vulture funds,” which purchase distressed debt on the cheap and exploit legal mechanisms to be repaid in full, reaping outsized profits.

ENDS

Notes to editor

Read Oxfam’s briefing paper Multilateralism in an Era of Global Oligarchy

Oxfam is co-organizing an event where this briefing paper will be discussed, during UNGA High-Level Week. The event, co-organized with the Ford Foundation, will take place on Thursday, 26 September, at the Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice in New York City. Please contact Maaza Seyoum (maaza.seyoum@oxfam.org) for more information or to register.

The pandemic has created at least 40 new pharmaceutical billionaires.

Oxfam’s recent analysis of more than 180 of the largest US public corporations shows that they collectively spent $746 million on lobbying in 2022, an average of $4.1 million each.