The last two
days I've explained how the Enron scandal result
-- wealth being transferred to the rich (the executives who sold their
shares at high profits) from everyone else (stockholders and employees of
Enron who saw their investments wiped out) -- is fully in line with the
design of the economic system in this country.
I would be remiss were I not to add,
that such an outcome is also the goal of the global economic system.
Those who own and control the world's
economic structures today are the descendants of those who, starting long
ago, imposed hundreds of years of colonial misery on the world. Just
as the purpose of colonialism, as we all learned in school, was to transfer
wealth to the mother country, such remains the purpose of the global
economic structure today.
Are you really doubtful that after the
end of formal colonialism in the 1960's, the First World nations (former
colonial powers) have continued to become immensely wealthier at the expense
of the Third World countries (former colonized peoples)? Erase your
doubts, because such is the case
according to the United Nations agency charged with measuring such things:
The income gap between the richest
fifth of the world’s people and the poorest fifth, measured by average
national income per head, increased from 30 to one in 1960 to 74 to one in
1997.
How bad is this income gap? Here are
some answers from another UN report:
- "The richest 1% of the world's
people received as much income as the poorest 57% [yes, fifty-seven
percent]
- Around 25% of the world's people
received 75% of the world's income
- The richest 10% of the U.S.
population (around 25 million people) had a combined income greater than
that of the poorest 43% of the world's people (around 2 billion
people)"
Here we invoke the principle: when a
system designed and kept in place by intelligent people produces a
consistent result, that result is the one those intelligent people intend.
What does this terrible income
inequality on the global level translate to?
The top fifth of the world's
population owns 86 per cent
of global wealth.
In other words: 80% of humanity
is allowed to control a mere 14% of the world's wealth.
On both the national and international
levels, therefore, the economic structures do their job efficiently, and
continue to enrich the already wealthy, and impoverish the already
destitute... precisely as the designers of the system intend.
