World Capitalism

The Mexican , Carlos Slim is the richest man in the world yet only 18% of Mexicans are untouched by want . The National Council for Evaluation of Social Development Policy, or Coneval, a decentralized government agency found only 19.5 million Mexicans have an adequate level of economic well-being and do not endure some form of privation in terms of housing and furnishings, food, income, health or education.The latest figures indicate that 47.2 million people in Mexico are below the poverty line and 35 million more are at risk of falling into the ranks of the poor.

Estimates by financial analysts in 2008 indicated that just only 39 Mexican families controlled a fortune of $135 billion, equivalent to 13.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.Slim’s fortune is estimated at $53.5 billion, while Forbes’s list also includes nine other Mexicans, including fugitive drug crime-lord Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman. In total, those 10 individuals are worth $90 billion, just under 10 percent of Mexico’s GDP.

“Mexico is a clearly unequal country and has been so historically. There are very few people with a large amount of resources,” Coneval’s executive secretary, Gonzalo Hernandez Licona. He added it is “very probable” that poverty levels will rise when the 2008-2010 period is examined.

And in America , the land of opportunity where many Mexicans seek an escape from their destitution the inequality persists . A report by University of California, Berkeley economics professor Emmanuel Saez concludes that income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression.
Income inequality is worse than it has been since at least 1917. The top 1 percent incomes captured half of the overall economic growth over the period 1993-2007.In the economic expansion of 2002-2007, the top 1 percent captured two thirds of income growth.

The average wage of Americans, adjusting for inflation, is lower than it was in the 1970s. The minimum wage, adjusting for inflation, is lower than it was in the 1950s.

Of the 535 members of Congress, over 44% - 237 to be exact - are millionaires. Fifty have net worths of at least $10 million, and seven are worth more than $100 million. By comparison, around 1% of Americans are millionaires. Therefore, no other minority group is as overrepresented in Congress as the rich.

The current global financial and economic crisis once again confirms the fact that during economic upheavals the rich get richer and the poor become even more destitute.As of late 2009, the number of billionaires soared from 793 to 1,011 and their total fortunes from $2.4 trillion to $3.6 trillion.
Gates and Buffet increased their fortunes by $13 billion and $10 billion, respectively.Despite the crisis, the list of billionaires has grown by 200 people and their aggregate capital has expanded by 50%.Anti-crisis measures essentially implied massive infusion of money into the economy. The United States alone spent over $10 trillion. Against the backdrop of a global recession, the funding could only be put to good use on stock and raw materials markets, leading to the creation of new financial bubbles.Consequently, oil prices which had hit an all-time low of $47 per barrel in December 2008, now stand at about $80. Global financial indices are also climbing steadily.

The Russian stock market grew by over 100% over the course of 2009.The number of Russian billionaires correlates with raw materials prices, primarily oil and metals prices.The numbers almost doubled, from 32 to 62. Igor Nikolayev, head of strategic analysis at FBK, a private auditing firm in Russia, said the country used the same methods to fight the crisis as the others, but that it has achieved better results.The volume of federal allocations injected by the Russian government into the economy was much higher than in Europe and the U.S. Forbes tactfully referred to this as the government's cooperation with big business, primarily raw materials companies.However, even high-ranking Russian officials have repeatedly complained that anti-crisis allocations were either used for stock market operations or deposited in foreign bank accounts.

China is now home to 64 billionaires.

The inequality which exists under world capitalism is simply breathtaking, and it is increasing.The world has never been so unequal as it is today. Governments exist essentially to defend the interests of the rich and powerful. A small number of people are rich beyond the imaginations of ordinary people. A few hundred billionaires own as much wealth as the world's poorest 2.5 billion people. This is the way the world is. But it should not and need not be this way. Instead, the world could be run on socialist lines, without rich or poor, without wages or money, without countries or governments.