Last week, the director of the United Nations’ World Food Program, David Beasley, pleaded with billionaires to help stop world hunger, stating that $6 billion would help 42 million people who would otherwise die.
Beasley specifically called out Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, the world’s two richest men,saying that billionaires need to “step up.”
This week, negotiators are also now moving into the second week of the international climate summit. The summit has been widely criticized for shelling out blanket statements and goals with no concrete plans to back them up.
Billionaires place the brunt of the responsibilities on individuals, yet they ignore how their companies have done the most damage to the environment.
In the past, even the wealthiest individuals did not compare to national economies. But now, the obscene wealth that billionaires have accumulated is enough to combat many global-scale issues.
The top 400 billionaires had a $1.8 trillion increase in net worth in the past year. Along with this, the 2,775 billionaires in the world have a collective estimated net worth of $13.2 trillion. One percent of that—$130 billion—could possibly eradicate poverty globally, end global hunger, conserve nature or protect biodiversity.
The ability for people to eat, escape poverty or avoid climate hazards should not be in the hands of billionaires, especially when billionaires themselves are largely unethical.
Billionaires are willing to go to any extremes to make money, one example being exploitation of their workers. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is a perfect example of this.
Bezos has described his job as being paid to “make a small number of high quality decisions.” While Bezos has a net worth of over $200 billion, Amazon workers, who face inhumane conditions, are expected to meet ridiculously high productivity standards with limited room for breaks at a rate of $15 an hour.
It is clear that Bezos did not “earn” all of his money himself. While he reaps the benefits of his employees’ hard work, many of these workers struggle to make ends meet.
Billionaires need to be held accountable and be taxed. From 2016 to 2019, Amazon paid zero dollars in federal income tax. The level of power and wealth that billionaires have gained from rigging the system and exploiting workers is incomprehensible.
Many people, including individuals on our campus, are affected by food insecurity and poverty. Our campus is also affected by climate change, with Philadelphia seeing a hotter and wetter climate. These issues, while widespread, do directly impact our campus as a whole.
While these issues affect our community in different ways, we are all impacted by the damage billionaires have done. Billionaires have the financial capacity to solve global issues, yet these global issues still persist. People like this should not hold so much power.
As a community, we should be perceptive to this. We need to elect officials who will hold billionaires accountable and not allow them to exploit the system. No singular individual should have such immense amounts of wealth, especially with so many suffering.
At St. Joe’s we discuss all forms of social injustices, including racial injustices, climate injustices and economic injustices, as part of our mission. We must remember Pope Francis’ encyclical letter on ecology, Laudato Si, or Praised in which he called on us to hold those in power accountable: “The principle of the maximization of profits, frequently isolated from other considerations, reflects a misunderstanding of the very nature of the economy. As long as production is increased, little concern is shown about whether it is at the cost of future resources or the health of the environment.”
Let us be more proactive about the injustices that impact all of us, whether directly or indirectly.
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