At Davos, Oxfam will recommend that countries set targets for the ‘radical and rapid reduction’ of inequality

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The entity also suggests permanent taxation on the richest and ‘control’ of corporate power. World Economic Forum in Switzerland starts this Monday and runs until Friday. Poverty and inequality can unbalance a society in the long term Getty Images Oxfam, an independent non-profit organization, will recommend at the World Economic Forum — a meeting that annually brings together the world’s economic and political elite — that governments establish goals and plans to ” radical and rapid reduction” of inequality. The World Economic Forum takes place this year between January 15th and 19th, in Davos (Switzerland). Through a report, the entity stated that it supports the proposal of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz that each country should aim for inequality to be reduced to a level where the poorest 40% of the population have approximately the same income as the richest 10%. “The G20, led by Brazil, and the UN Future Summit reform process have a fundamental role in uniting countries from the global North and South to make the world a more equal place, reducing inequality between countries and within every one of them,” Oxfam added. Oxfam’s agenda is aligned with the Brazilian government. In September last year, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defended this guideline in a speech at the G20 leaders’ summit. In December 2023, the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, spoke of taxing wealth and increasing spending to combat inequality. According to the entity’s report: The wealth of the five richest men in the world has increased by 114% since 2020. The world could have its first trillionaire in the next 10 years, while the end of poverty could take more than two centuries. The 148 largest companies in the world earned US$1.8 trillion, 52% more than the average over the last three years, and distributed large dividends to wealthy shareholders while millions of people took pay cuts. Four of the five richest Brazilian billionaires have seen their wealth increase by 51% since 2020; at the same time, 129 million Brazilians became poorer. In Brazil, on average, the income of white people is more than 70% higher than the income of black people. The richest 0.01% in Brazil has 27% of the country’s financial assets; the richest 0.1% has 43%; and the richest 1% have 63%. The poorest 50% have just 2%. At the UN, Lula demands action from the rich against hunger and inequality and says that the Security Council has lost credibility Redistribution of income Oxfam calculates that if the amount that companies spent on dividends and share buybacks for the richest 10% in 2022 was Redistributed to the poorest 40% in terms of income, global inequality could decrease by 21.5% – equivalent to the real decline observed in this index over 41 years. Furthermore, the entity also estimates that half of the amount paid to the richest 10% in 2022 could already end global poverty (defined as US$6.85 per day), and that 1.6% of payments could already eliminate poverty. extreme poverty (income up to US$2.15 per day), as defined by the World Bank. According to the report, an “immense concentration of power” by large corporations and monopolies globally is exacerbating inequality across the economy. The entity added that seven in 10 of the largest companies in the world have billionaires as directors or main shareholders. “By pressuring workers, avoiding paying taxes, privatizing the State and contributing to climate collapse, these companies are driving inequality and acting in the service of handing over more and more wealth to their already wealthy owners. To end inequality extreme inequality, governments will have to radically redistribute the power of billionaires and big companies to ordinary people.”, assessed Oxfam. According to Katia Maia, executive director of Oxfam Brasil, income and wealth inequality in the country coexists with racial and gender inequality. “Our super-rich are practically all men and white. To build a fairer and less unequal country, we need to face this pact of ‘whiteness’ among the richest”, he assessed. Recommendations To combat inequalities, the Oxfam report, released on the occasion of the World Economic Forum in Davos, brings a series of recommendations. See below: Revitalize the State: guarantee public services that reduce inequality, including health, education, assistance and food security. Invest in transport, energy, housing and other infrastructure of a public nature. Improve supervision of public institutions (including state-owned companies), and strengthen regulatory capacity to enforce laws and ensure that the “private sector serves the common good.” Control corporate power: break up private monopolies and restrict the power of large companies; and “empower” workers and communities. Break the monopoly of knowledge and democratize trade rules and patents, in addition to supporting dynamic public solutions and asserting greater public control. Strengthen laws for racial and gender justice, and also support and encourage unions. Create new taxes for the super-rich and corporations: implement comprehensive and permanent taxation of the richest in all countries, increase taxes on dividends and capital gains, tax windfall profits, and move towards more effective taxation of large corporations, mainly its cross-border subsidiaries, among others. Oxfam estimates that a progressive wealth tax on the world’s millionaires and billionaires could generate $1.8 trillion a year. Reinvent business: create and promote a new generation of shareholder-first businesses – including local and worker cooperatives, social enterprises and fair trade companies. Provide financial support to egalitarian companies through taxes and other economic instruments, such as public procurement.

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