The Ugly Rich: How Extreme Wealth Is Built on Public Loss
Elon Musk with Donald Trump in happier times (Image X.com)
Privatised Health, Education and Media Have Created a Global Oligarchy at Our Expense
By NIRENDRA DEV
New Delhi, January 17, 2026 — The super-rich did not become rich in isolation. They became rich at our expense.
The World Inequality Report 2026 delivers a statistic so grotesque it should end all debates: just 56,000 people — 0.001% of the global population — now control three times more wealth than the poorest half of humanity. This is not success. This is extraction.
In Britain, 50 families own more wealth than half the population combined. Globally, Oxfam reports that in 2024 alone, billionaire wealth rose by $2 trillion — more than ten times total global spending on international aid. Governments claim they “can’t afford” public healthcare, education, or climate action. The numbers expose that lie.
This obscene concentration of wealth translates directly into political power. The super-rich lobby for tax cuts, deregulation, and privatisation, creating a self-reinforcing loop where money reshapes the rules to make even more money. Healthcare and education — once public goods — are increasingly commodified, segregated, and priced beyond reach.
Donald Trump’s politics fit neatly into this pattern. His fixation on oil, territory, and “big, beautiful” tax bills has nothing to do with uplifting the poor. As The Guardian noted, when Elon Musk helped dismantle USAID, he did so not as a rogue individual, but as a representative of his class.
Decades of research by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson confirm what people instinctively feel: inequality poisons societies. Higher crime, worse health outcomes, addiction, anxiety, pollution, and political instability are not side effects — they are features of unequal systems.
Education spending tells the same story. The average child in Sub-Saharan Africa sees about €200 spent on their education, compared to €9,000 in North America. This is not a gap; it is a locked gate, ensuring poverty reproduces itself across generations.
As George Monbiot warns, extreme inequality creates an “Epstein class” — predators insulated by wealth, power, and silence. And silence is bought easily when most media is owned by billionaires who manufacture culture wars to distract from economic plunder.
You cannot have a free market in ideas when ownership itself is monopolised. The ugliness of extreme wealth lies not just in numbers, but in what it does to democracy, dignity, and our shared humanity.
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