Billionaires Reach for the Stars
While World Suffers
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
August 17, 2018 "Information
Clearing House"
- With all due
respect to Jeff Bezos and other
billionaires who
plan to spend billions of dollars of
their personal wealth on space travel,
hundreds of millions of children who
lack access to basic health care and
schooling more urgently need help right
here on Earth.
The world economy is pumping
trillions of dollars into the
accounts of a few thousand people.
These riches should be directed
first and foremost to end the
millions of needless deaths caused
by extreme poverty, and to educate
the hundreds of millions of children
who lack schooling. The billionaires
would still have enough left over to
indulge their longing for
mega-yachts, personal space ships,
private tropical islands, and other
conspicuous consumption.
The digital age has created
winner-take-all markets in
information -- including our
personal data -- and Bezos, Mark
Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergei Brin,
and others are giddily reaping the
benefits. In the past dozen years,
according to Forbes Magazine, the
number of billionaires and their net
worth have both roughly tripled,
from 793 billionaires with $2.6
trillion in net worth in 2006 to
around 2,200 billionaires with $9.1
trillion as of March this year.
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The flood of wealth to the top
vastly outpaces economic growth.
Much of the wealth reflects the
redistribution of income from
low-skilled workers, whose jobs and
earnings are being lost to robots
and artificial intelligence, to the
super-rich owners of these "smart"
systems. National income is
shifting away from lower-skilled
labor to the owners of high tech,
including key technologies whose
development was originally
taxpayer-funded, like the Internet
itself and
Google's search engine.
The system is rigged for those
at the top. The tech giants
divert their mega-wealth
offshore,
usually with the connivance
of the IRS, which turns a blind
eye on outrageous schemes that
reassign US-based intellectual
property to
overseas tax havens.
The companies harvest our
personal data, for which they
pay nothing, to earn their
fortunes. They are given patents
that
create 20-year artificial
monopolies on technologies that
should be in the public domain.
The billionaires and the
corporations they own use
campaign donations and media
power to cajole our
"representatives" in Congress to
represent them rather than us.
The result is tax cuts and tax
gimmicks for the billionaires,
and massive deficits and debt
left for us and our children to
repay.
Companies like Amazon entice
cities to join the fiscal race
to the bottom, as they compete
to attract Amazon through offers
of local tax breaks and publicly
financed infrastructure.
The wealth at the top is rising
so rapidly that even when Bill
and Melinda Gates, the greatest
philanthropists of our age,
nobly give away several billion
dollars each year to fight
disease and hunger, their wealth
soars anyway, with new capital
gains vastly outpacing their
giving. In 2010, Gates pledged
to give away at least half his
wealth and called on other rich
individuals to do the same.
At that time he was worth
$53 billion. Today,
his net worth is $94.8 billion.
Nearly 200 wealthy
individuals have joined
the Giving Pledge over the
past eight years, fewer than
10% of the billionaires.
Moreover, there is no
reporting or accountability
of their actual giving. All
in all, most of the world's
richest people have not yet
joined the battle to end
poverty. Yet their wealth is
so vast that these few
individuals could
dramatically improve the
lives of hundreds of
millions of people.
Hundreds of millions of
impoverished children live
without access to basic
health care or schooling.
Around 5.6 million children
under the age of five
die each year because there
is no clinic to safeguard
their births, help them, if
necessary, to take their
first breath, provide
life-saving antibiotics to
fend off respiratory
infections, or ensure timely
access to a $1 dose of
life-saving anti-malaria
medicine in the event of an
infective mosquito bite.
Hundreds of millions of
children lack access to
adequate public schools with
trained teachers,
electricity, books, and
hygienic facilities. The
result is that kids leave
school after a few years
without basic skills needed
for the 21st century.
These debilitating
conditions could be overcome
for a tiny fraction of the
vast wealth of the
billionaires. A mere 1% of
the billionaires' net worth
each year would amount to
around $91 billion, a sum
that could ensure access to
health care and education
for the poorest children
across the globe. (UNESCO
estimates a global financing
gap for education of
$39 billion per year;
WHO professionals estimate a
global financing gap for
health of
$20-$54 billion per year).
The billionaires should
give this sum
voluntarily, but when
they don't, governments
should put on a 1% net
worth levy to fund the
basic health and
education needs of the
world's poorest people.
When I led a commission
17 years ago that
pointed out how modest
levels of aid could
make great strides
against killer diseases
like AIDS, TB, and
malaria, I was told that
the aid would be stolen,
the poor would not
adhere to the drug
regimens, and so on.
This is the blather of
rich people.
In fact, when new
institutions were
established, including
the Global Fund to Fight
AIDS, TB, and Malaria
and the US Government's
PEPFAR program to fight
AIDS,
the programs saved
millions of lives.
Even so, despite the
overwhelming evidence of
their success, these
worthy life-saving
organizations remain
bereft of adequate
funding.
The mega-rich expect the
adulation of the masses
and often get it. Yet
the forbearance of
society for the antics
of the mega-rich will
soon wear thin. Too many
people are suffering,
too many lower-skilled
workers are losing their
jobs and earnings, too
much wealth is being
frivolously squandered,
and too much power over
our lives is being
asserted by big tech and
other corporate giants.
Donald Trump channeled
the rising unhappiness
into his electoral
victory, but his trade
wars and tax cuts for
the rich only widen the
divide. Real answers
depend on redirecting
the mega-wealth towards
those in urgent need.
People as dynamic and
capable as Jeff Bezos should
aim their great wealth and
energies toward the world's
urgent challenges: extreme
poverty, needless disease,
illiteracy, and
environmental devastation.
For those who don't do so
voluntarily, governments
should put a levy on
mega-wealth.
Once society's urgent needs
are faced and financed head
on, there will be enough
time and wealth to reach for
the stars.
The views expressed in this article are
solely those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect the opinions of
Information Clearing House.
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