the delicious

After a few decades of discretion, of a certain concealment, in those years the very rich reappeared.

With the abrupt lowering of taxes on large fortunes and the deregulation of global economic activities —including the circulation of capital—, money became more concentrated and the new economic model produced levels of inequality that had not been seen in centuries.

In a world where all the leaders, all the intellectuals, all the platitudes advocated equality—race equality, gender equality, equality before the law, and various other equalities—very few claimed equality before money.

Or, better: it was accepted that the economy should be the space of inequality.

At that time, very impressive figures circulated in the world that did not impress anyone: in 2020, for example, there were 26 people who owned as much as the 3,950,000,000 that made up the poorest half of humanity.

More generally, the bottom 10 percent of people held 76 percent of global wealth while the bottom 50 percent owned only 2 percent.

But these averages were—like all of them—false: within the richest 10 percent there were some who had vastly more than others, and among the poorest half there were many hundreds of millions who had nothing.

Often that evidence only produced the boredom of repetition.

Much of the world seemed resigned to the fact that it was so and so it would be.

And he continued, meanwhile, worshiping his rich.

The system of individual idols that operated in sports, show business, and other such spaces had spilled over into the economic world, with its competitions and its champions and losers—all, of course, measured in billions.

A new category had been formed: “billionaires” were people who had more than a billion dollars, a sum that a few decades earlier was almost unthinkable.

Those super-rich were, then, a global spectacle, a permanent advertorial: a way of showing that the system worked — when it could have been read as exactly the opposite.

In any case, in those days, millions followed his adventures, his adventures, his loves and heartbreaks, the sway of his fortunes.

An American magazine called

offered a "real time" ranking of the richest of all.

The list did not include professionals in trades as profitable as the sale of arms and prohibited drugs or the government of countries—because these people did not usually declare their income—but it did include everyone else.

And his guess about the millions of each one was followed like a World Capital Championship.

The less accustomed countries were proud, even when they had a representative among the first on the list: it was a national success.

Which was, of course, not up to the task of winning a global football cup, but it was still very celebrated.

* * *

The

list had appeared for the first time in 1987: then it was headed by a Japanese named Yoshiaki Tsutsumi who, at 53, had set up a corporation made of large stores and buildings valued at 20,000 million dollars.

Thirty-five years later, in 2022, his distant successor at the top of the list collected, according to that magazine, 205,000 million: ten times more.

He was a Frenchman, Bernard Arnaut, a manufacturer of luxurious cotillion products: perfumes, jewelry, handbags, champagne, collectible clothing.

He had managed to close the circle: the richest man in the world was for producing merchandise that only the richest consumed.

It seemed that they would soon discover that they no longer needed the poor—and there were plenty of indications that they did not know what to do with them.

The Frenchman, a 73-year-old man, had surpassed in those months an investor/inventor named Elon Musk, 51, an American born in South Africa, who had made a fortune with an application to transfer money on the internet and later dedicated himself to the production of luxurious electric cars and small space monsters but managed to lose, that year, more than 100,000 million dollars —the GDP of, say, Ecuador or Slovakia— in lousy deals that included the purchase of a well-known social network (see chap. .18).

The surprise of the year was the rise to third place of an Indian tycoon, Gautam Adani, 60, owner of ports and airports, cement companies, oil companies, electricity networks, buildings and almost everything else.

It was the first time in decades that an Asian had climbed so high in the ranking.

And the fact that the first three made material objects was also novel.

The top ten places were completed with five other Americans, a Mexican and another Indian - Adani's brother.

Among them was a man who sold everything salable on the internet, a man who had known how to simplify and impose the digital interfaces that others had invented, an older man who had speculated with great precision or luck, a man who had set up a large company of computers that handled large computers, a man who had launched the "search engine" that everyone used to find their way in that disorderly jungle that was then "the network" and another man who had taken advantage of the privatizations of a corruptible country to set up a great communications company—among other things.

In short: among the ten, only four produced tangible objects: the French, the Indian brothers, the American automobile.

The others had enriched themselves with digital services and, the oldest, financial.

The French and the Indians came from wealthy families;

Americans don't.

From left to right: millionaires Bernard Arnaut, Elon Musk and Gautam Adani. Design team EL PAÍS

The winners of the year were a testament to the new legitimacy of wealth: for centuries in the wealthy West, “new money” was scorned by those who had old money.

The powerful were the owners of the land: those who really had a lot were called dukes or marquises and one of them was called king.

The "bourgeois" enriched by their trade or manufactures were called "nouveau riche" and the old despised them openly: there was the idea that "legitimate" wealth was that which someone had received from their father and grandfather, the one that was rooted in centuries of plunder.

That is also why the nouveau riche par excellence, the American “robber barons” of the early 20th century, married their sons and daughters to English noblemen —of the opposite sex— who gave them solera.

But by the time that concerns us, the trend had been reversed: wealth was legitimized by its novelty.

The respected rich were the self-made-men who had had an idea and the cunning and luck to turn it into billions.

Extreme wealth could be justified, then, as a reward for individual effort.

So much so that a critical current of some relevance based its complaint on the fact —reprehensible for the values ​​of the time— that the easiest way to be rich was to have parents who had been.

The ten richest men in the world were men: there were no then—or in previous years—women among the winners.

The richest woman appeared at number 11 —a French woman who had inherited cosmetics factories—, followed by three North American technologists and financiers, the three heirs —two brothers and a sister— of the largest supermarket in the United States and the only Chinese in the lista, an entrepreneur who started out selling bottled water.

Many other period documents proclaim a major advance in equality between men and women;

he denies it.

Also out of place is China, which seemed strangely underrepresented.

It was, one would say, an effect of the dispersion and quantity of their fortunes: there were many, none as concentrated as the American ones.

The United States was still the country with the most billionaires, with 724 —who had more money than their poorest 200 million compatriots—, but China had already reached 607. Third on the list was India —which had, then, only 166 billionaires.

In total, there were about 2,700 around the world.

Aerial view of waterfront buildings on the Miami (Florida) coast.Jeff Greenberg (Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Imag)

Those scrumptious made a show of themselves.

A veiled show: part of their show was not showing themselves much, just enough to show that they were hiding a splendid life.

Extreme luxury, in those years, consisted of escaping from public space: living in guarded gated communities, traveling in their own aircraft, vacationing on their own boats and islands;

that world where people—including the fairly wealthy—mingled together was, if anything, a vulgarity left to those who had no choice.

As one of them said sarcastically: "The other day I had lunch with a man who did not have a plane: a true eccentric."

The scrumptious seemed out of any control.

A very celebrated American establishment mainstay in those days, Paul Krugman, published in a very celebrated American establishment newspaper in those days an article entitled "Beware, a group of capricious oligarchs has taken over our world", which described some "societies dominated by thin-skinned egotistical plutocrats who display their insecurities in the public square” and posited that “the most interesting question is why we are now governed by this class of people.

Clearly, we are living in the era of the fussy oligarch.”

Owners of fortunes far greater than many generations of heirs could spend, one of their most arduous tasks was to find ways to do so.

“After all,” said another, “the number of mansions and helicopters and chefs you want to have is limited.”

Still, they did everything possible and more not to pay taxes.

In a very complete report, an American investigative medium showed how, between 2014 and 2018, those very rich had paid between 1 and 3 percent of taxes on their earnings.

The champion was the banker Buffet: he had managed to pay 0.1 percent;

the shopkeeper Bezos envied him: he had paid 0.98;

and the vociferous Musk had to be jealous of them with bitterness: he paid 3.27.

You have to remember that in those days and in those countries a middle-class family used to pay 20 to 40 percent tax on earnings millions of times smaller.

Although there were signs that could suggest a change of direction: in the United Kingdom, for example, a prime minister announced that she would eliminate certain taxes for the richest and, under pressure from many quarters, she had to back off — and resign after 45 days in office. post.

But in those days the very rich still paid so much less than any citizen.

They did this, of course, with armies of accountants and lawyers looking for every — more or less — legal loophole, and lobbyists dedicated to influencing legislators when a law didn't have enough loopholes.

Some tried, despite everything, to legitimize themselves through charity and dedicate a significant part of their fortunes to the "common good."

Which completed to the caricature the autarky of the very rich and allowed them to replace, also in that, the states.

Instead of paying their taxes so that these states would invest in what—supposedly their citizens—decided, they themselves could decide what they would spend a part of what they managed to take from them.

So they, not the states,

they defined the paths and priorities of global assistance.

They, not the international organizations, defined which problems should be faced with more means, with greater urgency: if the important thing was to combat AIDS or malaria or the stuttering of aporous caterpillars.

uranium, needed to power nuclear reactors.

The uranium sold very expensive, but in Niger it was mined by two corporations: a Chinese and a French one, for which the country received almost no benefits.

With them, he could have improved his infrastructures—roads, irrigation, warehouses, houses, schools, hospitals—to get out of misery, but he didn't have them.

On the other hand, the countries whose companies took them away "helped" him: they gave him some alms in the form of "cooperation" while they kept the income from the uranium.

It was one case among hundreds.)

deposits, houses, schools, hospitals—to get out of misery, but he did not have them.

On the other hand, the countries whose companies took them away "helped" him: they gave him some alms in the form of "cooperation" while they kept the income from the uranium.

It was one case among hundreds.)

deposits, houses, schools, hospitals—to get out of misery, but he did not have them.

On the other hand, the countries whose companies took them away "helped" him: they gave him some alms in the form of "cooperation" while they kept the income from the uranium.

It was one case among hundreds.)

* * *

Immediately below the very rich appeared another class sector: the very visible rich because they had achieved their wealth in some public activity, sports, acting, songs.

These were shown, they appeared in magazines and on the networks, they were exhibited.

This is how they fulfilled their role as a role model, a supposed proof that anyone could leave behind his class and his limitations.

Although their fortunes were, compared to the others, minuscule.

The most famous practitioner of the most famous sport of those times, human football (see chapter 20), a Spanish-Argentine named Lionel Messi, was able to amass a great fortune of 500 million euros in his prime: he was not even a billionaire .

Soccer player Lionel Messi with his Audi during the brand presentation where he handed over some of his cars to FC Barcelona players in November 2017 in Barcelona.Alex Caparros (Getty Images For AUDI)

The list of the very rich was an indication;

that of the most powerful companies in the world offered another, which complemented it.

Measured simply by the market value of their shares, the list was almost homogeneous: four American technology companies—sellers of devices or services on the network—and a Saudi oil company topped it.

And it was followed by another five also from the USA: one financial, two technological and two health services and materials.

But it is not easy to measure the power of a company: one of those business schools that abounded at the time, so useful for learning business tricks and meeting the right people, tried to compute it and put together a ranking of the most powerful.

For that, he used a series of parameters: his capital, his income, his profits, his market value, his number of employees.

But also its political influence and its reputation among the public, the "value of the brand", the countries where it worked.

There the eastern power was evident: of the top ten, five were Chinese —including the first, second and fourth, three large banks with extraordinary reserves.

The others were divided among three North Americans —a bank, a computer manufacturer, a supermarket—,

a Japanese —car manufacturer— and a Korean —manufacturer of various electronics.

The list made it possible to appreciate the geographical change and the economic change: there were no European and no extractive companies among those top companies.

You had to go to the next ten to find them among the first oil companies —which, twenty years before, topped the lists—: an American, a Russian, a Dutch and a British.

The rich were the totem of those times and they were a more or less homogeneous block: they were few, they produced and consumed the same services and products.

The poor, on the other hand, were too many and, therefore, so diverse.

Half the world's population, we said, owned 2 percent of its wealth: that great battalion of wretches included the unemployed in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro or Jakarta, evicted peasants in Mexico or India, landless families in the the most arid regions of Sudan or the most humid of Bangladesh, and many others.

It has been said: together with those 2,700 billionaires, almost a billion people did not eat enough every day (see chapter 8) —and that defined, better than almost nothing, that system that was still called “global capitalism”.

Because the defining characteristic of that capitalism was, they said, its “globalization”: the fact that everything came from everywhere and reached —almost— everywhere, that —almost— all processes were linked, that —almost— no longer there was no place left in the world that would function autonomously.

Globalization, said historians of those days, had begun with the arrival of the Spanish in America in the fifteenth century, but it had never been so complete: economic circulation included, with very different functions, almost all people.

In order to involve —with their enormous differences— 8,000 million individuals in that enormous machine, it was necessary, on the one hand, to produce extraordinary quantities of necessary goods —food, clothing, houses, roads, energy— for all those people to survive and quantities still to come. more extraordinary forms of unnecessary goods that kept the machinery running: that used the labor of millions, that provided them with the necessary income to consume something, that made them want to consume.

A textile factory on the outskirts of Dhaka (Bangladesh) in 2015 where some six thousand employees work. Frédéric Soltan (Corbis via Getty Images)

What was necessary—what was indispensable—was an ever smaller percentage of what work produced and money consumed.

Even more: the degree of success of a society could be measured by the proportion of unnecessary merchandise that it absorbed.

The more money he spent on what he didn't need — the less on food, health, clothing, housing — meant that that group, that sector, that country had fared better: it meant that it was richer.

Wealth, in those days, was defined by the abundance of the useless.

* * *

For that, the key seemed to be “growth”.

The capitalist economy was based on this variant: it needed to grow without stopping.

Global capitalism, they said, was like an airplane: if it didn't move at full speed, it would crash.

The growth of a country's economy—"the growth of a country"—was supposed to make its citizens live better.

It was not always true, because that growth used to benefit a few much more than the rest and could, instead, harm many.

A country where, for example, a new vein of ore was discovered and extracted by a private company, would "grow" in its GDP, but its space would be contaminated and many of its inhabitants would have to leave their habitual places and would not receive much benefit from that new source: at most, the possibility of working very hard for meager wages.

It could be argued that there were indirect benefits: that that private company would pay taxes to the local state that would benefit all of its citizens;

we have already seen (see chap.12) that often not.

There were also situations, of course, in which this growth contributed to the general improvement, but the indiscriminate belief in its benefits was a religion of the time, beyond the specific results in each case.

If productivity—the ability of a system to produce goods—continued to grow because the machines got better and better, more goods had to be produced to make those machines profitable.

If distribution—the ability of a system to move merchandise to its outlets—continued to grow because the networks were getting better, more merchandise had to be moved to make those networks profitable.

If the demand—the number of possible sales—kept growing because advertising was everywhere and more people were willing and able to consume those products,

you had to sell more to make that demand profitable.

It was blind logic: if you could earn more, you had to earn more, because that's what everything was done for.

The dogma was clear: each company "owed" its owners and/or shareholders the commitment to earn as much as possible;

that's why it existed.

That was growth: constantly expanding the economy so that its beneficiaries earned more and more, without worrying about the medium-term effects it might have.

This is how the society of the very rich worked.

without worrying about the medium-term effects that it could have.

This is how the society of the very rich worked.

without worrying about the medium-term effects that it could have.

This is how the society of the very rich worked.

That is why the greatest fear of those politicians and businessmen were the “recession” cycles —when growth was null or negative— and they took all kinds of measures to combat them.

The businessmen knew that they would earn much less;

the politicians, that their voters, convinced that consuming was the proof of their well-being, would not forgive them for having to reduce their purchases —or, in poorer societies, not reaching what is necessary to subsist.

There were critics, even then, who said that that society would disappear for trying to grow beyond its possibilities, its limits.

There were even intellectuals—Europeans, above all—who insisted on the virtues of “degrowth”, the attempt to live with much less things, with much less spending, with much less waste of natural and human resources.

But their voices were barely audible.

The religion of growth still had few atheists and was going full steam ahead.

We already know, of course, what happened.

14. Making money Making money was the goal;

the means were so varied.

From agriculture to tourism, oil drilling to microchip manufacturing, medicine and transportation and sports, everything had that goal.

the world then

A history of the present

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