Desigualdade extrema – e o que fazer a respeito Por Michael Roberts em 10 de dezembro de 2025 O mais recente Relatório Mundial sobre a Desigualdade de 2026 revela a gritante disparidade entre ricos e pobres no mundo – uma divisão que está se acentuando a níveis extremos. Com base em dados compilados por 200 investigadores organizados pelo Laboratório Mundial da Desigualdade, o relatório constata que menos de 60.000 pessoas – 0,001% da população mundial – controlam três vezes mais riqueza do que toda a metade mais pobre da humanidade. Em 2025, os 10% mais ricos da população mundial ganharão mais do que os 90% restantes, enquanto a metade mais pobre da população mundial deterá menos de 10% da renda global total. A riqueza – o valor dos ativos das pessoas – estava ainda mais concentrada do que a renda, ou seja, os ganhos do trabalho e dos investimentos, segundo o relatório, com os 10% mais ricos da população mundial detendo 75% da riqueza e a metade mais pobre apenas 2%. Em quase todas as regiões, o 1% mais rico era mais rico do que os 90% mais pobres juntos, constatou o relatório, com a desigualdade de riqueza aumentando rapidamente em todo o mundo. "O resultado é um mundo em que uma pequena minoria detém um poder financeiro sem precedentes, enquanto bilhões permanecem excluídos até mesmo da estabilidade econômica básica", afirmaram os autores do relatório. Essa concentração não só é persistente, como também está se acelerando. Desde a década de 1990, a riqueza dos bilionários e dos centimilionários cresceu a uma taxa de aproximadamente 8% ao ano, quase o dobro da taxa de crescimento observada na metade mais pobre da população. Os mais pobres obtiveram ganhos modestos, mas estes são ofuscados pela extraordinária acumulação no topo da pirâmide. A parcela da riqueza global detida pelos 0,001% mais ricos cresceu de quase 4% em 1995 para mais de 6%, segundo o relatório, enquanto a riqueza dos multimilionários aumentou cerca de 8% ao ano desde a década de 1990 – quase o dobro da taxa dos 50% mais pobres. Para além da desigualdade económica estrita, o relatório concluiu que esta desigualdade alimenta a desigualdade de resultados, com a despesa em educação por criança na Europa e na América do Norte, por exemplo, a ser mais de 40 vezes superior à da África Subsariana – uma diferença cerca de três vezes superior ao PIB per capita. E a desigualdade está gerando mais emissões de gases de efeito estufa. O relatório mostra que a metade mais pobre da população mundial é responsável por apenas 3% das emissões de carbono associadas à propriedade de capital privado, enquanto os 10% mais ricos são responsáveis ​​por cerca de 77% das emissões. Income is distributed unequally everywhere, with the top 10% consistently capturing far more than the bottom 50%. But when it comes to wealth, the concentration is even more extreme. Across all regions, the wealthiest 10% control well over half of total wealth, often leaving the bottom half with only a tiny fraction. These global averages conceal enormous divides between regions. The world is split into clear income tiers: high-income regions such as North America & Oceania and Europe; middle-income groups including Russia & Central Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East & North Africa; and very populous regions where average incomes remain low, such as Latin America, South & Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. An average person in North America & Oceania earns about 13 times more than someone in Sub-Saharan Africa and three times more than the global average. Put differently, average daily income in North America & Oceania is about €125, compared to only €10 in Sub-Saharan Africa. And these are averages: within each region, many people live with far less. About 1% of global GDP flows from poorer to richer countries each year through net income transfers associated with high yields and low interest payments on rich-country liabilities, it said – almost three times the amount of global development aid. Inequality is also deeply embedded in the global financial system. Current international financial architecture is structured in ways that systematically generate inequality. Countries that issue reserve currencies can persistently borrow at lower costs, lend at higher rates, and attract global savings. By contrast, developing countries face the mirror image: expensive debts, low-yield assets, and a continuous outflow of income The power of capital exerts itself internationally between nations. Excluding countries with a population of less than 10 million, the ten richest countries all receive positive net foreign income on their capital. In contrast, the world’s ten poorest countries are former colonies, most located in Sub-Saharan Africa. They display the opposite trends compared to the richest. Most of these countries pay significant net foreign income to the rest of the world. In other words, these countries are sending out more money than they are receiving from foreign investments. This drain limits their capacity to invest in areas such as infrastructure, healthcare, and education – key to lifting them out of poverty. No wonder they can never ‘catch up’ and close the gap with the Global North. Can we do anything about reducing inequality?  First, in a preface to the report, the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz repeated a call for an international panel comparable to the UN’s IPCC on climate change, to “track inequality worldwide and provide objective, evidence-based recommendations”. The authors of the report then go on to argue that inequalities can be reduced through public investment in education and health and by ‘effective’ taxation and redistribution programmes. It notes that in many countries, the ultra-rich escape taxation.  Tax havens abound around the world.   A 3% global tax on fewer than 100,000 centimillionaires and billionaires would raise $750bn a year – the education budget of low and middle-income countries. The report proposes some other policy measures. One important avenue is through public investments in education and health. Another path is through redistributive programs: “cash transfers, pensions, unemployment benefits, and targeted support for vulnerable households can directly shift resources from the top to the bottom of the distribution.”  Tax policy is another powerful lever: introduce fairer tax systems, where those at the very top contribute at higher rates through progressive taxes. Inequality can also be reduced by reforming the global financial system. “Current arrangements allow advanced economies to borrow cheaply and secure steady inflows, while developing economies face costly liabilities and persistent outflows.” Reforms here include adopting a global currency, with centralized credit and debit systems. The report shows that redistributive transfers do reduce inequality, particularly when systems are well designed and consistently applied. In Europe and North America & Oceania, tax-and-transfer systems consistently cut income gaps by more than 30%. Even in Latin America, redistributive policies introduced after the 1990s have made progress in narrowing gaps. In other words, inequalities would be even worse without such measures. But the report recognises a key problem. Effective income tax rates have climbed steadily for most of the population, but have fallen sharply for billionaires and centi-millionaires. The elites pay proportionally less than most of the households that earn much lower incomes. This regressive pattern deprives states of resources for essential investments in education, healthcare, and climate action. It also undermines fairness and social cohesion by decreasing trust in the tax system. The answer of the authors is a turn to progressive taxation as it “not only mobilizes revenues to finance public goods and reduce inequality, but also strengthens the legitimacy of fiscal systems by ensuring that those with the greatest means contribute their fair share.” To summarise, the policy answers offered in the report are: 1) monitoring inequality 2) redistributing income through progressive taxation and social transfers; 3) more public investment in education and health 4) a global currency system. What is missing here?  There is no policy to change radically the socio-economic structure of the world economy – in effect, capitalism is to remain. The owners of capital: the banks, the energy companies, the tech media companies, big pharma, and their billonaire owners – all these are not to be taken over.  Instead, we must just tax them more and governments must use the tax money to spend on investing in social needs. So the policy is one of redistribution of existing income and wealth inequality, not pre-distribution i.e changing the social structure that engenders these extreme inequalities, namely the private ownership of the means of production. In previous studies I have found that the high inequality in personal wealth is closely correlated with inequality in incomes. I found that there was a positive correlation of about 0.38 across the data: so the higher the inequality of personal wealth in an economy, the more likely that the inequality of income will be higher. Wealth begets more wealth; more wealth begets more income. A very small elite owns the means of production and finance and that is how they usurp the lion’s share and more of the wealth and income. And wealth concentration is really about the ownership of productive capital, the means of production and finance. It’s big capital (finance and business) that controls the investment, employment and financial decisions of the world. A dominant core of 147 firms through interlocking stakes in others together control 40% of the wealth in the global network according to the Swiss Institute of Technology. A total of 737 companies control 80% of it all. This is the inequality that matters for the functioning of capitalism – the concentrated power of capital. And because inequality of wealth stems from the concentration of the means of production and finance in the hands of a few; and because that ownership structure remains untouched, any redistibutive policy based on increased taxes on wealth and income will always fall short of irreversibly changing the distribution of wealth and income in modern societies. Neste ponto, costuma-se argumentar que a propriedade pública das finanças e de setores-chave das principais economias mundiais é impossível e utópica – jamais acontecerá a menos que ocorra uma revolução popular – que, por sua vez, também jamais acontecerá. Minha resposta seria que a adoção de políticas supostamente menos radicais, como tributação progressiva e/ou uma mudança drástica no investimento público; ou a cooperação global para romper a transferência de valor e renda do Sul Global para a elite rica do Norte Global, são igualmente "utópicas".  Que governo do G7 no mundo está preparado para adotar tais políticas? Nenhum. Quão perto eles chegaram de adotar as políticas do relatório nos últimos dez ou vinte anos? Nem perto – pelo contrário, os governos reduziram os impostos para os ricos e as corporações e aumentaram para o resto da população; enquanto o investimento público em necessidades sociais diminuiu.  E existe alguma cooperação global para acabar com a exploração por parte das multinacionais e dos bancos no Sul Global ou para acabar com a produção de combustíveis fósseis e com os jatos particulares? Os autores do relatório afirmam : “A desigualdade é uma escolha política. É o resultado de nossas políticas, instituições e estruturas de governança.”   Mas a desigualdade não é resultado de “nossas” políticas, instituições e estruturas de governança, e sim da propriedade privada do capital e de governos dedicados a sustentá-la. Se isso não acabar, a desigualdade de renda e riqueza, global e nacionalmente, persistirá e continuará a se agravar.