Today’s world is a two-tier one: One of billionaires and the others who are not. It is a highly unequal world, with the rich getting richer and the poor becoming poorer, according to a new report by Oxfam.
“A Two Tier World. It’s never been a better time to be a billionaire. Their wealth has skyrocketed to unprecedented levels, while people living in poverty all over the world continue to face multiple crises,” Takers not makers: The unjust poverty and unearned wealth of colonialism noted.
The profound inequality between the richest and the rest of society, both between rich nations and the Global South and within countries in the Global South, is the legacy of historical colonialism, the report added.
In 1820, the income of the global richest 10 per cent was 18 times higher than the poorest 50 per cent. Cut to 2020 and it was 38 times higher.
This inequity can be seen in various measures of progress and wellbeing. For instance, the average life expectancy of Africans is still more than 15 years shorter than that of Europeans.
Meanwhile, all countries that the World Bank defines as having high inequality except one are in the Global South. The richest one per cent in Africa, Asia and the Middle East receive 20 per cent of all income, almost twice the share of the richest 1 per cent in Europe.
Today’s education system also reflects this inequality. “In 2017, 39 per cent of heads of state globally were educated in universities in the UK, USA or France. Independence did not equate to equality in many newly independent countries. Often colonial rulers were simply exchanged for national elites who tended to maintain existing unequal economic and political systems that enriched them. For many countries, the colonial legacy, particularly of arbitrary borders and weak states, has in turn fuelled conflict, war and persistent fragility,” the report noted.
Perhaps the biggest symbol of our unequal world is the huge number of billionaires.
In 2024, total billionaire wealth increased by US$2 trillion, with 204 new billionaires created. This, says the report, is an average of almost four new billionaires per week.
There is more. Total billionaire wealth grew three times faster in 2024 than in 2023. Each billionaire saw their fortunes grow by US$2million a day on average. The richest 10 billionaires’ fortunes grew by US$100 million a day on average.
Oxfam noted that it had forecast a trillionaire within a decade last year. “If current trends continue, there will now be five trillionaires within a decade,” the anlaysis said.
And most of this wealth comes from inheritance rather than entrepreneurship. “In 2023, more billionaires were created through inheritance than entrepreneurialism for the first time,” said the report.
Even more shockingly, 60 per cent of billionaire wealth comes from either inheritance, cronyism and corruption or monopoly power.
The long shadow of colonialism continues to loom over our unequal world. “Of the US$64.82 trillion extracted from India by the UK over a century of colonialism, US$33.8 trillion went to the richest 10%; this would be enough to carpet London in £50 notes almost four times over,” noted the document.
“In 2023, the richest 1% in the Global North were paid US$263 billion by the Global South through the financial system–over over US$30 million an hour,” it added.
Meanwhile, according to the World Bank, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990.
2025 marks 70 years since the Bandung Conference, where Global South countries sought to create a New International Economic Order.
To contribute to meaningful systemic change, governments must radically reduce inequality — setting global and national goals to do so, it recommended.
Governments must also end systems of modern-day colonialism. They must tax the richest to end extreme wealth. South-South cooperation and solidarity must be promoted.
Ongoing formal colonialism in all forms must be ended.