A recent report by Wealth-X entitled “World Ultra Wealth Report 2019” highlights the one-way class war that is being waged by the ultra-wealthy on the rest of the global population. Defining the ultra-wealthy as individuals who hold a net worth of $30m or more, the report finds that 265,490 such people control $32,000,000,000,000 ($32tn) worth of wealth collectively. This equates to an average of $121m per individual.
The Twenty-Six Counties is ranked as having the fifth highest per capita concentration of ultra-wealthy individuals in the world. Only Hong Kong, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Singapore are rated higher.
Qatar, Sweden, Canada, Denmark and the United States all come in behind the Twenty-Six Counties to complete the top ten countries with the highest concentrations of ultra-wealthy individuals. Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and other global economic powers don’t even make the per capita top ten.
The report finds that the Twenty-Six Counties has 421 ultra-wealthy individuals per one million adults, or roughly 1,500 persons in total.
Obscene levels of personal wealth like this stand in stark contrast to the general population where almost two-thirds of all households have a total annual gross income of less than €60,000 (CSO 2016) and one in six people live in poverty.
Not surprisingly, banking and finance are shown to be among the most profitable sectors of the global economy; the same banking and finance sector that was bailed out by taxpayers in Ireland and across the world just ten years ago.
Decades of neo-liberal capitalist economic policies have created a global zero-sum, winner takes all system that breeds wealth inequality - a reality that the Wealth-X report confirms.
The extraordinary concentration of ultra-wealthy individuals in the Twenty-Six Counties is testament to the fact that the gombeen political establishment embraced neo-liberalism more fully and earlier than any other country in Europe.
The Irish ultra-wealthy and their political fixers are waging a one-way war on the rest of the population. Until working people get politically organised the tide of this war will continue to flow in the wrong direction.
Only a New Republic based on new political structures and a new democratic economic model can halt and reverse the injustice and inequality of the status quo. If you’re ready to join the fight for a New Republic you can do so here.