OMNI
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY NEWSLETTER #2
February 7, 2022
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of
Peace, Justice, and Ecology
Omnicenter.org/donate/
CONTENTS
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY NEWSLETTER #2
February 7, 2022
Eric Schutz. Inequality,
Class, and Economics.
Sanjay Roy. “World Inequality
Report 2022.”
Meagan Day. “The Rich Are
Committing Crimes Against Nature.”
Vijay
Prashad. “A Programme for a future society that we will build
in
the present.” (2022)
Nicole Aschoff. “Smooth
Criminals.” Jacobin (Fall 2021).
Martin
Hart-Landsberg. “The dollar costs of inequality: they are greater
than you think.”
Tomgram: Liz
Theoharis. “The Politics of the Poor in
an America on
Edge.”
UN
Wire. 75% of innoculations so far went
to only 10 countries.
Rupa
Marya and Raj Patel. Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of
Injustice.
TEXTS
Eric Schutz. Inequality,
Class, and Economics.
1-21-22 |
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Sanjay
Roy. “World Inequality Report: Class divide explains more
than regional divisions.” Originally
published: Peoples Democracy by Global share of wealth by wealth group, Credit Suisse, 2021
“World
Inequality Report: Class divide explains more than regional divisions.” Originally published: Peoples Democracy by
Sanjay Roy (January 23, 2022 ). Posted Jan 25, 2022. Class, Imperialism, Inequality, StrategyGlobal, IndiaNewswireWorld Inequality
Report 2022.
WORLD Inequality Report 2022 underlines the sharp divide between the rich
and the poor that occurred as a result of neoliberal policies pursued by global
capital using the hegemonic and asymmetric architecture of global institutions.
The report clearly shows how the class divide has become relatively more
important than the regional divide in determining global inequality. This
simply tells that in today’s world where one is born and brought up has
relatively less impact than in which class the person belongs to in explaining
relative earnings and wealth status. It however says further that even if
inequality between countries shows a decline but still the difference continues
to be high.
The difference in income
of the rich 10 per cent and the bottom 50 per cent at the global level is
similar to the level of inequality that existed in 1900-1910. The wealth
inequality which measures the difference in ownership of land, buildings,
assets, financial papers, cash and so on, that is stock of wealth is much
sharper than the inequality in incomes. This rise in wealth and income
inequality that peaked during the period 1980 to 2020 according to the report
also coincides with the sharp rise in private wealth during this period and a
decline in publicly owned wealth in various countries. This can also be linked
with the financialisation of the economy and free movement of capital
considered to be the hallmark of the current phase of globalisation. MORE https://mronline.org/2022/01/25/world-inequality-report-class-divide-explains-more-than-regional-divisions/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=world-inequality-report-class-divide-explains-more-than-regional-divisions&mc_cid=fbea5909a4&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e
“The
Rich Are Committing Crimes Against Nature” BY MEAGAN DAY
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/07/environment-rich-people-tesla-powerwall-super-yacht-
private-jet
Mansions, superyachts,
luxury cars, and private jets produce more carbon emissions than whole
countries. Researchers are calling it “green crime.”
A superyacht, the Indian Empress, owned
by Vijay Mallya, stands in the Grand Harbour on March 29, 2017 in Vittoriosa,
Malta. Sean Gallup / Getty Images
Tesla makes a battery-powered
product called a Powerwall that pairs with solar panels to meet your home
energy needs. This “must-have item for any truly green home” goes
for over five thousand dollars. Most people can’t afford that up
front, so even though solar may save money and help the planet in the long run,
use of the Powerwall is restricted to people with cash to burn.
If your understanding of
sustainable consumption were limited to just this example, you’d come away
thinking that rich people must be a much more eco-friendly bunch than poor
people. But you’d be missing the forest for the trees. While the wealthy have
an ever more dazzling array of green consumer products at their fingertips, the
impact of those gadgets is nothing compared to the overall ecological
destruction wrought by luxury consumption habits.
A new
paper called “Measuring the Ecological Impact of the Wealthy:
Excessive Consumption, Ecological Disorganization, Green Crime, and Justice,” published
by researchers Michael J. Lynch, Michael A. Long, Paul B. Stretesky, and
Kimberly L. Barrett, takes a long hard look at the role of the rich’s
consumption habits in destabilizing the climate.
The researchers contend that when
a person has vastly more money than they need to live, “acquiring property and
consuming excessively become marks of distinction, and to earn those marks, the
leisure class must consume.” This leads the rich to buy, build, and operate
things like superyachts, super homes, luxury cars, and private jets. It would
take an awful lot of Powerwalls to offset the damage done by the proliferation
of these luxury consumables.
The researchers estimate that
there are about three hundred superyachts in operation around the world. A
person has to have individual wealth upward of $30 million in order to afford
even the smallest one; the upper price is close to $1 billion. These things
guzzle oil and spew pollution. Tally it up, and the world’s superyacht fleet
uses over thirty-two million gallons of oil and produces 627 million pounds of
carbon dioxide emissions a year — all of it for the personal enjoyment of the
extremely rich. The world’s superyachts consume and pollute more than
entire nations.
Super homes, which the
researchers define as homes greater than twenty-five thousand square feet, are
similarly devastating for the environment. The average square footage of these
homes is closer to forty thousand, and their average price is just under $28
million. The researchers couldn’t calculate the entire ecological footprint of
these homes, so they just stuck with the impacts of wood sourcing, assuming it
was all of standard wood stock (of course, many luxury homes use hard-to-source
exotic materials, too).
The average home, they concluded,
requires harvesting twenty trees, while a super home requires 380 trees. An
average home results in 74,880 pounds of carbon sequestration loss, while a
super home results in a loss of 1,422,720 pounds. The carbon footprint of super
homes is astronomical — all so the rich can have some extra space to roam
around in. The fact that a few of them now boast Powerwalls hardly puts the
mind at ease.
Tesla doesn’t just make the
Powerwall; it also, of course, makes luxury electric cars. But rich people have
been buying expensive cars since long before Tesla’s rollout, and while a
pricey electric car is becoming something of a status symbol in select circles,
so far the vast majority of the wealthy are sticking with gasoline cars: as
long as it costs a fortune and looks like it, sustainability is of little
importance. These cars come with all sorts of gadgets and features, far beyond
what is necessary for driving, and they tend to be larger than average cars.
Their size and their frequent use of uncommon materials makes them far less
sustainable to build, and their carbon footprints are larger, too.
The researchers focused solely on
the efficiency of luxury cars, comparing them to popular cars that sell for a
fraction of the price. They found that the latter category were over 60 percent
more fuel efficient than luxury vehicles. “Compared to top 10 selling
vehicles,” the researchers concluded, “a luxury vehicle produces, on average,
373.98 more pounds of CO2 emissions per 1,000 miles traveled.”
High-income groups also drive
twice as many miles annually as low-income groups. The rich could certainly get
by with a Hyundai Sonata or a Nissan Altima, but their desire to be seen
driving a Jaguar or a Bentley means more pollution for everyone.
And, finally, there are private
jets. There are only about fifteen thousand of them registered in the United
States. The entire fleet is in operation a total of 17 million hours per year,
burning roughly 345 gallons an hour. Jet fuel produces twenty-one pounds of
carbon emissions per gallon. That means that the carbon footprint of the United
States’ private jet fleet is about fifty-six tons per year. The entire nation
of Burundi produces less than half the carbon emissions than the US elite does
with its private jets alone — to say nothing of their luxury cars, their super
homes, and their superyachts.
These rich people belong to the
capitalist class, which means that together they own the vast majority of the
world’s productive assets. Their luxury consumption habits constitute only a
fraction of their contribution to the destabilization of the planet. They own
mines and factories and fossil fuel companies, and banks that invest in harmful
extractive practices, and shipping operations that guzzle more fuel than they
could ever dream as individuals. Their consumption habits are only the tip of
the iceberg.
Still, it’s astonishing that they
can get away with all this conspicuous consumption without anyone batting an
eyelash. As the seas rise, the temperatures soar, and the weather becomes more
erratic and violent, these same elites will migrate to safe places — or, if
worse comes to worst, retreat to doomsday
bunkers — and be spared the worst effects of the chaos they’ve sown.
At the very least, the
researchers conclude, society should develop policies to curb the conspicuous
consumption of the rich. Perhaps building a home so big it requires the razing
of a small forest should be considered a form of “green crime.”
In the end, however, there will
be no true resolution to the climate crisis without a fundamental alteration in
the economy. As long as we produce for profit — not for public well-being and
the common good — the earth will be a casualty in the pursuit of money, and the
poor will suffer.
“As a result of the inherent
contradiction between capitalism and nature,” observed the researchers in a
prior publication, “the capitalist system must be seen as a crime against
nature.” And for this crime, the only real justice is socialism.
Vijay Prashad. A Programme for a future society that we will build
in the present: The Second Newsletter (2022)
Mronline.org (1-15-22)
In October 2021, the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) released a report that received barely any attention: 'the Global
Multidimensional Poverty Index 2021', notably subtitled Unmasking disparities
by ethnicity, caste, and gender.
Nicole Aschoff. “Smooth
Criminals.” Jacobin (Fall 2021). “From the Wolf
of Wall Street in New York to Jho Low in Malaysia, globalization unleashed a world
of well-connected and superrich con artists.”
Martin Hart-Landsberg. “The dollar costs of inequality: they are greater than
you think.” . Mronline.org (12-3-21)
Pretty much everyone accepts that inequality is a big
problem in the U.S. But it is doubtful that most people truly grasp how
successfully U.S. elites have captured the benefits of economic growth and, as
a result, how much the resulting inequality has cost them.
Tomgram: Liz
Theoharis, The Politics of the Poor in an America on Edge 11-7-21
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4:23
PM (2 hours ago) |
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‘Inflamed’ shows how an unjust world is making us
sick Editor. Mronline.org (8-27-21). A new
book from UT Austin research professor Raj Patel and UC San Francisco
physician Rupa Marya argues that our bodies, our society, and our planet are
inflamed. |
Contents #1, July 13, 2013
Restorative
Justice
Global
Innocence Project
Review of
101 Changemakers For Young Students
Physicians Endorse Donohoe’s Public Health and Social
Justice
Gutierrez, Essays on Social Justice
Bending
Toward Justice? Poems Against War
Books from
Haymarket P
Food Not Bombs
END ECONOMIC
INEQUALITY NEWSLETTER #2
FEBRUARY 7, 2022
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
Omnicenter.org/donate/
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