Should We all Move to Where the Billionaires Live?

By Tom Kando

On March 10, the Sacramento Bee came out with the latest list of billionaires: According to the article, there are now 1,210 billionaires in the world, up by 199 from last year. Their combined wealth is $4.5 trillion, up from $3.6 trillion, i.e. 25% from last year.

The US still has by far the largest number of billionaires , but their number is growing the fastest in Brazil, Russia, India and China. For more details, see: List of countries by the number of US dollar billionaires  

According to the Bee article, the richest man in the world is a Mexican (owns Telecom). He is worth $74 billion. Number Two is Bill Gates (Microsoft), with $56 billion. Number Three is Warren Buffett (assorted businesses), with $50 billion. Christy Walton, owner of Wal-Mart, is only Number Ten, and Mark Zuckerberg (Face book) is Number 52, with $13.5 billion.

So here is what a moron could think: Since Mexico has the richest man in the world, and since Brazil, Russia, India and China have the fastest growing number of billionaires, those are therefore the countries we should all emulate - or move to. They must be the greatest countries.

In contrast, Europe has a declining proportion of the world’s billionaires. Therefore Europe must really suck. It must be awful over there, and surely nobody should want to move there or to live there.

Don’t you love my reasoning?

In fact, the most impressionistic knowledge of the countries mentioned as “blessed” with a rapid increase in billionaires, or with the world’s richest billionaire - Mexico, Brazil, Russia, India and China - reveals that those are precisely the countries where hundreds of millions of people live under conditions most similar to those in hell: Mexico is approaching the status of a failed state. Brazil’s Favelas are poorer and more homicidal than Bagdad was at the height of the Iraq war. India has more poor people than any other country on earth. Russia is a murderous and corrupt plutocracy.

Social scientists since W.W. Rostow and Peter Berger have shown that societies often experience the worst inequalities during stages of capitalist take-off. So I suppose that what you see in these still poor but fast-growing mega-countries are the temporary inequalities which accompany rapid capitalist growth. Like the Dickensian conditions in the US and in the UK during the Industrial Revolution.

As to the US today, it also has enormous inequalities, even though it is far beyond capitalist take-off. So I am not sure what its excuse is.

All I am saying, for now, is that unless you are a billionaire, you better stay out of most parts of Moscow, Rio, Sao Paulo, Acapulco, Mumbai or Calcutta, unless you want to find out what hell is like. leave comment here