MIM NOTES No. 190  July 15, 1999

Forbes ranks wealthiest people

Forbes magazine--the self-described "capitalist tool"--has come up 
with a list of the world's wealthiest people. Bill Gates grew from 
$51 billion in 1998 to $90 billion in wealth in 1999 while 
retaining first place in the world. In addition, "The combined 
wealth of the top 200 working rich has surpassed $1 trillion, more 
than doubling from $463 billion a decade ago." 

It is important to realize the wealth and power of the 
capitalists--both not to overestimate and not to underestimate it. 
Most people have a sense of where they stand relative to $90 
billion. Yet more important than the money is the distorting 
influence on the environment and world peace that the super-rich 
have. 

Moreover, even USA Today admitted that the idle rich are "coupon 
clippers." That is also what Lenin and others called them in his 
day. Under capitalism, rewards do not go to people who work but to 
people who own things, whether they worked a day in their lives or 
not. Of the top 20 richest people four are Waltons who inherited 
Wal-Mart money and five are royalty(1)--people who cannot claim to 
have built their fortune on executive skill.

To put the wealth of the world's richest 200 people in 
perspective, $1 trillion is not quite enough to run the Pentagon 
for four years at its current budget of $280 billion a year, not 
including interest from government debts because of expenses in 
previous wars. One trillion dollars is also less than two months 
of the "Gross National Product" of the United $tates. In other 
words, working less than two months under the system as it exists 
now, the people of the United $tates would pay for the wealth of 
the world's 200 richest. Finally, $1 trillion is also less than 
the $1.74 trillion dollar U.S. Government budget proposed by 
Republicans for next year.(2)

Often times the spokespeople for the so-called workers of the 
United $tates point to the wealth of the very wealthy to claim 
that they must be being exploited. They exaggerate that wealth to 
justify yoking the middle-classes to the system of pursuing higher 
and higher salaries as a reform of some sort. On a smaller scale, 
the U.$. middle-classes (including so-called workers) already 
benefit from parasitism that the hereditary billionaires benefit 
from. The Amerikan workers are not the world's top 1% in wealth, 
but they are in the top 15% and MIM has proved beyond a doubt in 
its magazines that this group benefits from the exploitation of 
the world's bottom 85%.(3) 

--MC5

Notes: 

1. USA Today 21June99, p. 2a. 

2. http://cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/ 1999/03/25/budget/ 

3. For the facts and figures behind these assertions send $4 to 
MIM for a copy of MIM Theory 1 and $6 for a copy of MIM Theory 10, 
both issues focused on the labor aristocracy within the U.$.