A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

the contrary. At the one hand the amount to achieve such development
goals is very small, almost peanuts, and at the other hand some unnecessary
expenses are incredible and in fact scandalous. So one just has
to change some priorities in this world. A very interesting report of the
UNDP of 1998 lists all the points in a rather cynical way. The dates and
even the title stems from this UN institution. 66
Reflecting on this theme, James Wolfensohn a former president of the
World Bank noted the following: ‘We live in a world that is of six billion
people, in which one billion in the rich world control 80 percent of the
income, and five billion, more than 80 percent of the world, in the developing
world have 20 percent of the income. If a Martian came to the
Earth to do a report on us and started with the Millennial Goals and then
read what we’re doing, he would have come back with the following
conclusions. He would have said, you know, these people are interesting.
… They’re spending $900-plus billion a year on military expenditures.
They’re spending $350 billion a year on agricultural subsidies and
66 Dates go back to 1998. The proportions staying equal, for current figures one
should multiply the figures of 1998 roughly with two. Human Development Report
1998, New York 1998, p. 37 and 63; cfr. Vandepitte M., De kloof en de uitweg,
Berchem 2004, p. 35. For the figure of daily speculation, see Bank for International
Settlements, Annual Report 1998-1999, p. 117.
124
35 billion
105 billion
400 billion
780 billion
1.000 billion
1.800 billion