Money. We all want and need it. But how much do we need? How much is enough, and what does it mean when some have exorbitant wealth while others have practically nothing?
Let’s look at the richest. They are called billionaires, or persons whose net worth is at least one billion units of a given currency, typically US dollars. As of March 2025, there are 3,028 billionaires worldwide, with a combined wealth of over $16.1 trillion, up by nearly $2 trillion from 2024. I can’t even think or count that far.
The 2025 Oxfam America report, “Unequal: The Rise of a New American Oligarchy and the Agenda We Need”, notes that the number of billionaires has surpassed 3,000 for the first time and that billionaire wealth is now higher than at any point in history. Meanwhile, one in four people globally faces hunger.
Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that focuses on alleviating global poverty. Founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International, it operates in 79 countries and has 21 members in the Oxfam Confederation across Australia, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North and Latin America and the Caribbean.
The report says that over the decades, billionaire fortunes have grown at a rate three times faster than the average annual rate over the previous five years. Since Donald Trump’s election as US President (for the second time) in November 2024, billionaire fortunes have grown at a rate three times faster than the average annual rate over the previous five years.
While US billionaires have seen the sharpest growth in their fortunes, billionaires elsewhere in the world have also seen double-digit increases. The actions of the Trump presidency, including championing deregulation and undermining agreements to raise corporate taxation, have benefited the world’s richest.
What about Indian billionaires? As of 2025, Forbes reported that India had 284 billionaires, making it the third-largest country by billionaire count, after the United States and China. Mukesh Ambani, chairman and the largest shareholder of Reliance Industries, has been the richest Indian for 14 consecutive years and is currently the world;s 10th-richest person.
Why do we need to worry about the growing number of billionaires? As the report says, while acquiring an enormous yacht or luxury homes around the world is a personal choice, excessive consumption can be criticised for the carbon emissions associated with it, especially in a deeply unequal world, where the majority have very little. Many reject this criticism, describing it as the politics of envy.
Beyond envy, and more worrying, billionaires are using their wealth to buy politicians, influence governments, own newspapers or social media platforms, or out-lawyer any opposition to ensure impunity from justice.
“Such power gives billionaires a grasp over all our futures, undermining political freedom and eroding the rights of the many,” says the report. While these phenomena are not new globally, events in the United States in 2025 perhaps made this unreasonably clear: across countries, the super-rich have accumulated more wealth than could ever be spent and have also used it to secure political power to shape the rules that define our economies and govern nations.
At the same time, globally, there is erosion and rollback of the civil and political rights of the majority and minorities, suppression of protests, and silencing of dissent. A century ago, US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said: “We must make our choice. Either we can have extreme wealth in the hands of the few, or we can have democracy. We cannot have both.”
The report points out that it’s about choices. Governments are choosing to defend wealth over freedom. “In sharp contrast, those economically with the least wealth are becoming politically poor, with their voices silenced in the face of growing authoritarianism and the suppression of hard-won rights and freedoms.”
Can reforms curb the growing power of billionaires and countries to radically reduce economic inequality? The report suggests they can, by curbing the political influence of the super-rich, effectively taxing them to reduce their economic power and, through this, their political power; regulating lobbying and revolving doors; banning campaign financing by the rich; legislating to ensure media independence; regulating media companies to increase algorithmic transparency; and protecting freedom of speech while preventing harmful content, especially hate speech targeting immigrants and women, as well as gender-diverse, racial, ethnic and religious minorities.
But since the super-rich are in power, initiating and implementing these reforms might be a challenge. In the meantime, can citizens like you and me ask ourselves what wealth means to us, how we generate it, and how we use it? Can we consider living and consuming a little lower down the consumption chain? How many houses do we need? How many vacations? Is our money used wisely? Can we share our incomes with the less fortunate?
Can we create opportunities to improve their lives?
Before the age of the Internet, people could only dream of what wealth could buy. Now, it’s in our face. Through entertainment streaming on our TV sets, smartphones, and watches, the lives of the rich and famous come right into our homes, our hands, and our eyes. The possibility of endless wealth, homes, and travel to distant places seems exotic but doable.
Lavish spending on social functions, personal goods, and services is within reach.
The question to ask ourselves is: do I need it, can I live without it, and do I have a better use for the money? Am I avoiding paying taxes so my wealth can multiply legally or illegally?
While we wait for reforms, are our personal choices and those of our governments defending wealth while eroding freedom?
The writer is a development and communications consultant
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
