Oxfam’s latest idea is wondrously idiotic

The nub of it, the essential evidence, is:

The charity called on the UK to work with other governments to oppose “extreme inequality”, with private wealth growing eight times faster than the net wealth of governments between 1995 and 2023.

Apparently the answer is to take all that money off the private people and give it to the public people.

Which, we insist, is wondrously idiotic.

GDP (or if you prefer, GNI, NNI, any of the variants) can usefully be thought of as the income we gain from the accumulated economic assets of humanity. Yes, the labour, but also the capital, the human capital, the knowledge and all that. An increase in those assets that we derive current income from is probably a good idea.

We can also approach the point from another direction. Investment - the creation of such assets - is what makes the future richer. So, we’re cool with the idea that someone, somewhere, is increasing that pile of assets that will make the future richer - the same statement as being happy that the pile of wealth from which we derive our income grows off into the future.

Oxfam’s statement there is that the private sector is better at this wealth creation, investment, thing, that wealth creation and investment being what makes the future richer. Governments, that public sector, are not just bad at this they’re negative. They destroy capital, wealth, investment, not grow it.

So, for Oxfam, the solution is to take all the wealth off those who tend to it so well and hand it over to the public sector which - provably, by their own measure - micturates it up the wall in pursuit of electoral success. We should all become richer by depleting societal capital in the pursuit of votes.

Oxfam morphed from feeding the poor to arguing for the abolition of poverty. Now they’re arguing that we must all be more poor. Which is, we suggest, wondrously idiotic for a self-declared anti-poverty charity. Actually, we don’t just suggest that we insist upon it.

Yes, yes, we can all think of things that could be better in the current global economy. But think of what the Oxfam statement here is. We should take the wealth off those good at creating and maintaining it to give to those who are demonstrably bad at it and that would be good. The proof is that those who currently have it are demonstrably good at it and those who don’t are demonstrably bad. That’s actually their proof - governments are bad with money so give them more.

How do these people remember how to breathe?

Tim Worstall