A fascinating new report from Oxfam draws a compelling link between oligarchy, poverty, and the world’s inability to fight climate change.
The Oxfam report argues that the “global oligarchy” of the super-rich, make international cooperation on solving issues like climate change and poverty all but impossible. “The immense concentration of wealth, driven significantly by increased monopolistic corporate power, has allowed large corporations and the ultrarich who exercise control over them to use their vast resources to shape global rules in their favor, often at the expense of everyone else,” the report says.
Bill Gates is a case in point. Compared to the corrupt, nepotistic, Russian-style oligarchs that we tend to imagine when we think of “oligarchs,” Gates is a good kind of rich guy. The billionaire software engineer has given away more money than anyone else. He runs one of the world’s largest charities and, for years, he has passionately pursued the noble cause of fixing Africa’s severe food security crisis.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation established itself as the most influential player in fixing Africa’s food inequality. It is also the largest media funder of journalism on the African continent. But there are concerns that the foundation’s support for both journalism in Africa and for “development journalism” in general have essentially given Bill Gates full monopoly over the narratives on development in Africa.
“One of the most difficult subjects for African journalists to write about is the work of Bill Gates and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Africa,” writes Simon Allison, International Editor and co-founder of The Continent, an independent digital publication. “This is not to suggest that the foundation is deliberately seeking to influence coverage but given the lack of alternative sources of funding, it doesn’t have to,” Allison says.
The Continent’s recent investigation into the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s work in Africa is a rare example of accountability journalism on the Foundation’s work in Africa. Gates–the biggest owner of farmland in the US–centers his work in Africa on the belief that modern industrial agricultural practices can solve world hunger. If you describe it like this, the problem seems easy to fix: “to feed the people, you have to fix the farms.”
But as The Continent investigation points out, the farms in this case refer to 33-million smallholder farms in Africa that currently grow 70% of the continent’s food with some of the lowest yields in the world. It’s not a small problem to fix, and multiple studies on the region have suggested that the American model of industrialized farming and genetically modified seeds is not working in Africa. There is a real consequential tension between philanthropic approaches and the urgent need for systemic policy reforms to establish equitable food systems and fight poverty
Reactions to The Continent’s investigation highlight the modern day axis of power: oligarchy, disinformation and digital technology. According to Allison, initially the investigation into the Gates Foundation was “widely popular online” among The Continent’s usual audience of policymakers, diplomats and businesspeople. But then “it got picked up and amplified by conspiracy theorists. These are not the people we want to be amplifying our work, and it has the effect of muddying the waters again between what is credible journalism and what is absolute nonsense.”
One solution is taxation. A report by the French economist Gabriel Zucman, commissioned by Brazil, suggests that billionaires currently pay the equivalent of 0.3% of their wealth in taxes. This is a “phenomenal lost opportunity,” Nabil Ahmed, the director of economic and racial justice at Oxfam America, said in an interview with the Voice of America. “We know governments, rich and poor, across the world need to claw back these revenues to be able to invest in their people, to be able to meet their rights,” he said.
Brazil–which currently holds the presidency of the G20–is leading a campaign to impose a 2% minimum tax on the world’s richest billionaires. According to their calculation, it would be possible to raise up to 250 billion dollars from about 3,000 billionaires. Enabling resources for healthcare, education and the needed funding to tackle climate change. South Africa, Spain and France all back the plan. The United States doesn’t. In the most recent G20 meeting in July, US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen told reporters: “The tax policy is very difficult to coordinate globally and we don’t see a need or really think it’s desirable to try to negotiate a global agreement on that.”
Correction: The earlier version of this article identified Simon Allison as the Editor in Chief of The Continent. His correct title is International Editor.
