The latest Indus Valley report in fact shows that India’s consuming class is today just a thin layer of 10% and this section is only deepening, not widening. While people from the bottom 90% are unable to join the top segment, the wealthiest class is growing even wealthier. We already know that the ones who have seen astronomical improvements in their wealth are those at the top one percent. The fallout of policies that favour the handful of super rich at the top has been disastrous for those at the bottom.
This is not peculiar to India. A recent survey-based study this year has shown that Inequality has emerged as a major concern globally. More than eight-in-ten adults across the surveyed countries see the gap between rich and poor as a big problem in their country. And more than eight-in-ten adults globally say that rich people having too much influence over politics contributes to economic inequality. We donât have to guess for too long the relevant names that have such influence in the context of India.
In an age of climate crisis, we must highlight that it is the hyper-consumption and carbon footprints of the rich of the world who contribute disproportionately to the crisis, and yet it is the poor who bear the brunt. An important study published in Nature, âcorrelates climate action with the implications of wealth inequalityâ. It shows that if the richest 1% of the world made all required climate investments and owned the resulting assets, their wealth share could increase from 38.5% nowadays to a whopping 46% by the middle of this century. We, however, can easily take a different path. If all these investments, the study shows, are financed by a wealth tax on the top 1%, and then owned by the public sector, the global top 1% wealth share could fall dramatically to 26% by 2050. We have to choose our future.
-Team CFA