The “uncontrolled” increase in the wealth of billionaires in Latin America and the Caribbean in recent years, almost equivalent to the combined GDP of Chile and Peru, puts democracy in the region at risk by creating a social “imbalance” through the “purchase of political influence,” Oxfam said this Monday.
“While the wealth of billionaires has grown on average a little more than 491 thousand dollars a day, a minimum wage worker would need 102 years to reach that same fortune,” warned Oxfam’s regional director in Latin America and the Caribbean, Gloria García-Parra.
And he added that “this imbalance perpetuates elites that buy political influence and reproduce inequality for generations, conditioning public policy decisions and limiting the resources that could be allocated for the benefit of the majority.”
The Oxfam report ‘Wealth without control, democracy at risk: why Latin America and the Caribbean need a new fiscal pact?’, made public on the occasion of the Davos Forum that began today in the Swiss city of the same name, indicates that the region registers a record of 109 thousand millionaires (14 more than at the end of 2024), with a combined wealth of almost 622,000 million dollars, almost equivalent to the combined GDP of Chile and Peru.
Don’t miss: Rising wealth accompanied by ‘dramatic’ concentration of political influence: Oxfam
Specifically, since 2000, this wealth has increased by “a surprising 443%” and “in the last year alone, it grew 39%, 16 times faster than the regional economy.”
Furthermore, today “53.8% of the region’s super-rich have inherited their fortunes in whole or in part, well above the world’s 37.3%.”
“It is a direct threat to rights”
Thus, only five countries in the region “apply taxes on net worth and only nine tax inheritances or donations”, a “tax vacuum (that) reinforces the simultaneous concentration of economic and political power, in a kind of dynasties of the ultra-rich, which are perpetuated from generation to generation, weakening the redistributive capacity of the State and perpetuating a model of inherited inequality.”
The report points out that “it is no coincidence” that 65% of the wealth of billionaires in Latin America and the Caribbean is “in strategic sectors such as finance, telecommunications, media and energy, highly deregulated sectors and in which proximity to power is key.”
Furthermore, according to Oxfam, between 2000 and 2025, at least 16 presidents in 11 Latin American countries came to power after running large companies.
“When wealth buys political influence, democracy stops being representative and becomes the privilege of a few. It is not just an economic problem: it is a direct threat to the rights and voice of the majority,” adds García-Parra.
Urges to tax wealth
Given this, Oxfam urges governments to prioritize the implementation of “national plans to reduce inequality, with clear goals and monitoring” and “tax the wealth and inheritances of the richest 1% to limit the power of the super-rich.”
As well as “regulate the political and media influence of the elites, guaranteeing independence and transparency” and “protect democratic freedoms and strengthen citizen participation.”
“That economic power decides our future is not acceptable. The governments of Latin America and the Caribbean have the unavoidable responsibility to act to reduce inequality and stop the threat that the extreme concentration of wealth represents for democracy,” concludes García-Parra.
With information from EFE
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