By Hedelberto López Blanch on April 17, 2021
The inhumane system of neoliberal globalization that has been imposed on the majority of the world’s countries has led to the increased division of the planet into two clearly defined segments – the rich and the poor – in these times of pandemic.
Although the news seems mind-boggling, it is completely real. Kerry Dolan, an editor of Forbes Magazine, wrote that “Despite the pandemic, it was a record-setting year for the world’s wealthiest, with a five trillion dollar surge in wealth and an unprecedented number of new billionaires.” The article indicates that the number of people with a fortune of one billion dollars or more has exploded to an unprecedented number: 2,755 in 2021, 660 more than in the previous year. The total of their fortunes is estimated at 13.1 trillion dollars, up from 8 trillion on the 2020 Forbes list. In spite of the disastrous health situation in the world, instead of diminishing, their fortunes have increased, and 2020 was a record year for them.
The numbers are so astronomic that they are hard to assimilate: Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, has $177 billion dollars; Elon Musk, creator of Tesla and SpaceX, $151 billion; Bernard Arnault, owner of various brands of French luxury clothes and cosmetics, has $150 billion; Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, $124 billion; Mark Zuckerberg, founder and executive director of Facebook, $97 billion.
In Latin America where hunger, poverty, and deaths due to the spread of COVID-19 are running rampant in the population, there are 51 Latin American billionaires on the Forbes list. And check out how the top ten billionaires of Latin America have increased their wealth in this nightmare pandemic year: Carlos Slim the Mexican telecommunications magnate rose from $52 billion in 2020 to $62 billion in 2021; Germán Larrea Mota Velasco, executive director of the mining corporation Grupo Mexico increased from $11 billion to $25.9 billion. Iris Fontbona, Chilean owner of the copper corporation Antofagasta Plc, rose from $10.8 billion to $23 billion; Ricardo Salinas Pliego, in charge of TV Azteca and the Electra store chain, increased from $11.7 billion to $12.9 billion. Brazilian Marcel Herrmann Telles, with the Anheuser-Busch InBev company which makes beer, went from $6.5 billion to $11.5 billion and another Brazilian, Jorge Moll Filho, founder of the private hospital network Rede D’Or , went from $7.3 billion to $11.3 billions; Colombian Luís Carlos Sarmiento, owner of the newspaper El Tiempo and president of Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores, brought his fortune up from $2 billion to $11 billion dollars. Following him on the list, we find Mexican Alberto Bailleres, president of Grupo Bal, who went from $6.4 billion to $9.2 billion; then the Safra family, heirs of the deceased banker, with wealth amounting to $7.1 billion, and then another Mexican, Juan Francisco Beckmann Vidal, who makes tequila, and who had $4.3 billion last year and now has $7 billion dollars.
In contrast, or rather, in direct connection with the established neoliberal globalization, in Latin America it is estimated that the rate of extreme poverty is at 12.5% and the general poverty rate is at 33.7%, according to the latest report of the Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL). This organization informs us that the number of poor people climbed to 209 million by the end of 2020, 22 million more poor people than in the previous year. Of this total, 78 million are in conditions of extreme poverty, which is 8 million more than in 2019.
The International Labor Organization (OIT, for the initials of Organización Internacional del Trabajo) indicated that the pandemic has caused the loss of 26 million jobs in the region and that the outlook is even more complex and difficult for 2021 due to the new waves of viral spread and the slow pace of the vaccination process. They explained that, prior to COVID-19, poor working conditions already existed in Latin America, including high levels of informal employment, reduced fiscal spaces, persistent inequality, low levels of social protection coverage, and that these problems have only increased.
This situation has meant that the labor market in Latin America and the Caribbean has regressed about 10 years in just one year of the pandemic.
Another serious problem that exists is the need to achieve an equitable distribution of vaccines, which, as WHO General Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said, is seriously threatened due to the deficient vaccine distribution between rich and poor countries. Concurrently, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres criticized the unfair and unequal vaccine distribution and repeated that only 10 countries have administered 75% of all vaccines given in the world.
Already the number of infections in the region has surpassed 25.5 million people, and the number of deaths is more than 800 thousand; most of these are poor people who had difficulty obtaining adequate healthcare.
The pandemic has made it obvious that social safety network programs have decreased and that millions of inhabitants of Latin America cannot get access to healthcare because neoliberal governments have pushed through privatizations that harm the vast majority of people.
Because of all this, it is imperative and urgent to implement a system of humanitarian globalization and solidarity that can minimize the enormous inequities that the neoliberal capitalist system imposes.
And, faced with these realities, we may ask ourselves, “Is there one pandemic for the rich and another for the poor?”
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – Cuba, translation Resumen – English