What Oxfam won’t tell you about capitalism and poverty | 16 January 2017

Your average milkman has more wealth than the world’s poorest 100 million people. Doesn’t that show how unfair the world is? Or given that the poorest 100 million will have negative assets, doesn’t it just show how easily statistics can be manipulated for Oxfam press releases? They’re at it again today: the same story, every January. “Almost half of the world’s wealth is owned by just 1% of the world’s population” it said in 2014. It has done variants on that theme ever year, each time selling it as a new “big” story. All the time peddling the impression that inequality is getting worse, that the rich are engorging themselves at the expense of the poorest.

This narrative (which is as discredited as it is old) suits Oxfam’s fundraisers. (Rich dudes hoard power! “Even it up” by giving Oxfam money! Oh, and BBC, can you please pretend that this is new and give us Monday morning headlines?) The statistical trick is to look at net wealth, not gross wealth.