It is easy for Mr Fuentes-Nieva (The Tablet, Letters Extra, 12 February) to dismiss as “nonsense” serious criticisms of the Oxfam wealth figures. However, such criticisms come from many quarters and should not be dismissed lightly.
Indebted graduates were, of course, just one example of the problems with the Oxfam wealth data that could be raised. But this is a particular example of a general problem. The fact that somebody who has zero net wealth comes in the third quartile of the world’s wealth distribution ought to suggest something amiss. Furthermore, half the world’s population is under the age of 30. In no country – developed or undeveloped – do young people hold significant amounts of assets. People tend to borrow when they are young and save in middle-age in order to pay for old age. Thirdly, the wealth figures exclude entitlement to state pensions. It is such entitlements that lead low- and middle-income Swedes, for example, to have low levels of private saving. In turn, this leads Sweden to have one of the highest levels of wealth inequality in the Western world, despite having very even income equality. Indeed, Oxfam proposes the expansion of such state pension schemes. The very policies they support would widen inequality according to their own measures! Wealth, sensibly measured, is certainly not unimportant but the overwhelming fact of our age is the reduction in world income inequality.
Mr Fuentes-Nieva urges me to look for solutions to inequality. I prefer to look for solutions to poverty. Even a cursory glance at the IEA website would show Mr Fuentas-Nieva that we take a strong interest in the issue. Indeed, perhaps Oxfam - and, for that matter the Catholic Social Action Network – would do well to consider the radical liberalisation of land-use planning as a policy that would reduce poverty (perhaps halving rents), reduce income inequality (because the least well off spend more on rents as a proportion of income) and reduce wealth inequality (because it would reduce inflated house values). This policy would do more than any other to help the position of the poor whilst reducing inequality. Nothing like this is considered in any of Oxfam’s reports. No doubt such a policy would simply be dismissed as “market fundamentalism” by Oxfam and thereby not worthy of consideration.
Professor Philip Booth, City University, London
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