Resisting the Rule of the Rich

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Authors: Alex Maitland, Anjela Taneja, Anthony Kamande, Carlos Brown Solá, Harry Bignell, Max Lawson, Rune Møller Stahl
Cited by: 6

Abstract

Extreme inequality is reaching new heights. In 2025, billionaire wealth increased three times faster than the average annual rate over the previous five years. Meanwhile, one in four people don’t regularly have enough to eat and nearly half the world’s population live in poverty. The super-rich are becoming a new oligarchy, using their extreme wealth to buy politics, the media and justice to defend their fortunes, dismantle and destroy progressive policies and strip away our basic civil and political rights. Siding with the super-rich, increasingly authoritarian governments are supressing dissent, curtailing rights and fuelling division to protect and preserve this extreme inequality. We must resist by building a worldwide people’s movement to defend our rights, and fight for a clear alternative to inequality and oligarchy.

Publication details

Publisher
Oxfam International
Publication date
19 January 2026