Abolish Capitalism

The debate about inequality inflames many passions.  Access to opportunity depends on wealth. Discrimination based on race, religion, gender, and sexual discrimination may be on the wane, but discrimination based on wealth is still the most powerful force. Money opens doors, especially for people who may not boast the strongest talents.  But it's not people who do the discriminating; it's just the system.

US income inequality among worst for a developed country in the world. (OECD says only Chile, Mexico and Turkey are worse.) According to the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, the share of American wealth held by the top 10 percent of families (ranked by net worth) climbed from 67 percent in 1992 to 75 percent in 2010. In the 2010 survey, the average net worth of the bottom half of families was $11,400. The reality of rising American inequality is stark. Since the late 1970s real wages for the bottom half of the workforce have stagnated or fallen, while the incomes of the top 1 percent have nearly quadrupled (and the incomes of the top 0.1 percent have risen even more). You almost never see apologists for inequality willing to talk about the 1 percent, let alone the really big winners. Instead, they talk about the top 20 percent, or at best the top 5 percent.  These may sound like innocent choices, but they're not, because they involve lumping in married lawyers with the wolves of Wall Street. The Occupy movement popularized the concept of the "1 percent," which is a good shorthand for the rising elite, but if anything includes too many people: most of the gains of the top 1 percent have in fact gone to an even tinier elite, the top 0.1 percent.

The richest 85 people in the world who boast a combined worth of $1.7 trillion are worth more than the poorest 3.5 billion.

Estimates suggest that the lower half of the global population possesses barely 1% of global wealth.  Almost half of the world's wealth is owned by the richest one per cent. The wealthiest one per cent have amassed $110 trillion, which is 65 times the total wealth of the poorest half of the globe's population.  While the richest 10% of adults own 86% of all wealth, the top 1% account for 46% of the total.

After accounting for debts, assets of more than $4,000 put a person in the wealthiest half of world citizens. Assets of more than $75,000 put them in the top 10 percent. Assets of more than $753,000 put them in the top 1 percent.

But the Socialist Party’s case is not for a re-distribution of wealth as so many liberals advise to save the system from itself. Nor do we say bash the rich to make the rich pay more, that the Leftists call for. Unlike the Pope, we do not urge the wealthy to put their wealth at the service of humanity with Christian charity.

We seek the abolition of capitalism, the actual cause of inequality.