A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

Inequality and the balance of power
The never ending accumulation of capital – based on the exploitation of
labour - has unleashed the creation of wealth at a pace and a scale unparalleled
in human history. But the underlying mechanism is a conflicting
one: the lower the salary the higher the profit. So polarisation is a
built-in mechanism of the system, with the result that wealth is largely
concentrated in the hands of the owners of the means of production. In
Belgium, my country, the ten percent richest possess more than 50%
of the national wealth. In the US the one percent richest even possess
around 30% of the wealth. 24 But wealth also means power. The concentration
of wealth goes hand in hand with concentration of power. [cfr. 74]
The real power in every capitalist country is in the hands of a small elite.
They have power over the levers of economy and finance, they control
the media and determine the room of manoeuvre for the politicians.
They celebrate their annual high mass in Davos.
This mechanism of concentration and polarisation within the borders of
the nations has been repeated on the international level: i.e. the exploitation
of South by the North. In order to guarantee the transfer of wealth
from the South to the North the international division of labour was settled
and organised. Samir Amin rightly states that the North-South (centres-peripheries)
conflict is an essential part of the entire history of
capitalism. 25 The polarisation between rich and poor is incredible. The
income of 950 multimillionaires exceeds the revenue of 40 percent of
the world population. 26 The same is true for the balance of (military)
power. The US with 4,6% of the world population takes 43% of the total
military expenditure worldwide. 27
24 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/whatisrightisright/jan-schakowsky-income-
tax_n_836624_80927908.html.
25 Amin S., From Capitalism to Civilization. Reconstructing the Socialist Perspec-
tive, New Delhi 2010, p. 25.
26 Calculated on The Economist, ‘The world’s richest people’, March 17, 2007, p.
110 and UNDP, Human Development Report 2010, New York 2010.
27 SIPRI, http://milexdata.sipri.org/result.php4; http://www.sipri.org/media/pressre-
leases/2010/100602yearbooklaunch.
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