World’s wealthy thrive amid global protest

The barely visible ripple of global protest against capitalism has provided no alternative and no analysis. Fortuitously, giant Swiss bank Credit Suisse’s research institute has just published its second annual Global Wealth report.

It provides the figures that the so-called “indignant ones” (indignados) suspect are true but see no need to prove. It finds the world has 30 million US dollar millionaires, who make up less than 1% of the world’s adult population but own 35.8% of global household wealth.

Total wealth is expected to increase 50% to $US345 trillion in the next five years, equivalent to 8.4% annual growth.

Naturally, this growth won’t be in Europe or the US, where three-quarters of the world’s millionaires now live. The report says:

Total wealth in China is currently $US20 trillion, equivalent to that of the US in 1968. In the next five years, it is projected to reach $US39 trillion, a level that the US achieved in 22 years between 1968 and 1990.

I have done a fuller analysis of the comparisons between Australia and New Zealand in NBR's Margin Call column. The full reports, which comprise a commentary and a data set, are available here. 

The economics of morality
Criticism of free enterprise on moral and other grounds is not new. You can go back to the mid-18th century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau for the rejection of ideas that the free exchange of goods and services, and the competitive pursuit of self-interest, would result in general prosperity.

These early notions of capitalism were being advocated at the time by the likes of Adam Smith in Scotland. But in Rousseau’s view, this lead to a society of commercial animals who were "scheming, violent, greedy, ambitious, servile, and knavish,,, and all of it at one extreme or the other of misery and opulence."

I have taken these words from a review of Jeffrey Sachs’ new book The Price of Civilisation, in which he advocates a 21st century version of Rousseauism that scraps the work ethic and revives the kind of Utilitarianism once espoused by Jeremy Bentham, also an 18th century philosopher.

Bentham believed “happiness,” which he equated with “pleasure,” could be mathematically measured. But delivering it would take active management by a government.

I recall the former secretary of the Treasury has raised similar ideas about measuring happiness – and Sachs, of course, sees it being achieved only by Nordic-levels of taxes and greater regulation.

If these ideas were spelled out by the indignados, instead of woolly hatred of greed and corruption, we might get to see their real agenda.

The mathematics of morality
Only God can judge the mathematics of how one abducted Israeli soldier equates to 1027 jailed Arabs, nearly half of whom were convicted terrorists.

The swap made big news around the world but no one wanted to draw conclusions other than the BBC’s that Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu had rewarded the violence-backed demands of Hamas at the expense of the non-violent pleading of Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas.

This looks, as Daniel Pipes put it, like “sentimentalisation of strategy” and certainly was popular in Israel, where every life is valued.

But will it, as Pipes predicts, merely fortify Hamas, which now has many more embittered recruits for its cause?

Years ago, efforts to “normalise” terrorists in Lebanon involved deporting them to other territories, giving them families to bring up and hoping they will start to live productive, peaceful lives.

Indeed, Israel put this condition on 40 of the released prisoners, who will go to Syria, Qatar and Turkey.

Some 5000 Arab prisoners remain in Israeli jails for their roles in terrorist attacks that have killed 1000 Israelis. As for the moral equation, Jonathan Tobin in the Jewish opinion magazine Commentary has a crack at the wider issues involved:

We would have hoped the passage of years and the realization of the cost in Palestinian suffering that this terror war incurred would have sobered them up. It would be one thing if these murderers were taken back in an atmosphere that showed some recognition their crimes were nothing to emulate. But instead, the release is proving to be yet another indication nothing has changed.

The company they keep
China still has a long way to go before it can demonstrate it can effectively wield the “soft power” it needs to rival the US in global domination.

China’s disastrous diplomatic handling of the Libyan civil war has reinforced attitudes, particularly in Africa, that pursuit of economic self-interest comes before any global citizen role.

To recap: China was not a party to the Security Council decision to intervene on the side of the anti-Gaddafi forces and the forging of a non-Nato coalition of African and Arab states to assist the new Libyan government.

China was the last council member to recognise the NTC government and only agreed to the un-freezing of Libyan funds when Chinese interests were protected.

Meanwhile, China continued until near the end to flout the arms embargo against Gaddafi.

China’s latest clangers is to can its version of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to jailed dissident Liu Xiabo amid great Chinese umbrage.

The Confucius Peace Prize was established as an alternative to reward for “peace and human rights” advocates more deserving of Chinese recognition.

Last year’s inaugural prize winner, a former vice president of Taiwan, failed to show at the Beijing ceremony in December.

This year, Wall Street Journal reports, the Confucius Peace Prize is no more. The Ministry of Culture has revoked permission for it to be offered by the Chinese Native Art Association.

New Zealand neatly side-stepped demands by China that it boycott the Nobel peace prize ceremony in Oslo last year because there was no qualified diplomat in the Norwegian capital to receive an invitation.

Some nations did China’s urging, including the democratic Philippines along with 17 autocratic countries. Dictators in two of them, Tunisia and Egypt, have since been overthrown; others included a brace of the world’s outcasts: Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Serbia, Iraq, Venezuela and Cuba.

Meanwhile, despite the official no-no, some are planning to present an award regardless. The “nominees?” Take your pick from Russia’s Vladimir Putin, South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, former UN chief Kofi Annan and Microsoft founder Bill Gates (who like the hapless Taiwanese politician last year probably hasn't been asked if he approves).