Good For Business

Oxfam Needs Calamities To Survive

Mmmm.  Inequality is apparently decreasing across the globe.  But we are assailed relentlessly by do-gooders telling us that inequality is destroying mankind.  Here is an example from the socialist ideologues at Oxfam:

The richest 1 per cent of Kiwis have bagged 28 per cent — $42 billion — of the wealth created in a single year.  Meanwhile, the poorest 1.4 million people (30 per cent of the population), got barely 1 per cent — $1.5b — of all the wealth created in 2017. . . .

The report will discuss how the global economy enables a wealthy elite to keep accumulating vast wealth by avoiding taxes, driving down workers' wages and prices paid to producers, and investing less in their businesses.  The research also showed a mere 10 per cent of New Zealanders own more than half the nation's wealth and the inequality gap had widened significantly in the past year.  The wealthy elite have continued to accumulate their assets while hundreds of millions of people struggle to survive on poverty pay, Oxfam NZ executive director Rachael Le Mesurier said.  "This gap is extreme. It's not reducing, so that's a real concern. Inequality is really bad for democracy.  [NZ Herald]

The latest UN 2016 Human Development Report has been analyzed by Human Progress.  It turns out that inequality is declining around the globe.

Even though the difference between absolute and relative inequality is increasing, the key thing to take away is that the tremendous growth in developing countries has decreased relative inequality between states and diminished poverty. And, arguably, reducing deprivation and raising living standards are more important than lessening income inequality.   So why the focus on money? In many other vital areas inequality is declining across the globe.

Life expectancy is one of the best measures of the overall standard of living. Even for Africa, the poorest continent, the life expectancy gap with North America has narrowed. North American life expectancies were about 29 years longer than Africans’ in 1960, but only 18 years longer in 2015. This progress occurred despite the catastrophic AIDS epidemic that slowed Africa’s life expectancy significantly. Asia and South America have gone even farther towards closing the life expectancy gap with North America, narrowing it to roughly 6 and 5 years, respectively.

 Life expectancy gains are partly due to falling rates of infant mortality—another area in which poor countries are catching up with rich ones. In 1960, 144 out of 1,000 African children died before their first birthday, compared to 26 out of 1,000 North American children. In other words, 118 more African children than North American children died as infants out of every 1,000. By 2015, that number had shrunk to 43.

Better nourishment is also to thank for longer lives. In 1991, close to 30 per cent of Africa’s population was undernourished, compared with “5 per cent or less” of North America’s population. By 2015, fewer than 20 per cent of Africans were undernourished. The absolute inequality between the poorer areas of the globe and the richer ones shrank considerably, even as undernourishment became rarer worldwide.

The education gap between rich and poor countries has diminished as well. In 1950, Americans spent nearly seven more years learning than Chinese students on average, and nearly eight more years leaning than Indians. By 2015, average years of schooling in the United States exceeded the Chinese average by only five years and the Indian average by about six years.

Internet use tells a similar story. China, in particular, has rapidly narrowed the gap. In 2000, a little under 2 per cent of Chinese used the internet, compared to 43 per cent of Americans. That means a gap of 41 per cent. By 2015, that gap had shrunk to 24 per cent.

. . . . So rather than rush to complain about the increase in absolute inequality, we should stop and consider how globalisation and free exchange, though unpopular among those who think they only benefit the rich, are to thank for shrinking relative inequality and plummeting poverty across the world.  

That truth paints a very different picture from the dystopian doom trumpeting forth from Oxfam.   But we must always bear in mind that organizations like Oxfam require a backdrop of calamities in order to get funding--either from donations or contributions from governments.  (Oxfam is classified as an NGO--and as such is constantly fingering governments for money.) 

Even when the reality of global human progress in socio-economic measures is excellent, Oxfam will conjure up a pseudo-calamity.  It's good for business.