{"id":168680,"date":"2020-09-14T12:01:31","date_gmt":"2020-09-14T11:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=168680"},"modified":"2025-01-10T15:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T15:09:07","slug":"as-pandemic-death-toll-approaches-200000-american-oligarchs-celebrate-their-wealth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/09\/as-pandemic-death-toll-approaches-200000-american-oligarchs-celebrate-their-wealth\/","title":{"rendered":"As Pandemic Death Toll Approaches 200,000, American Oligarchs Celebrate Their Wealth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Illustration by Ben Jennings<\/p><\/div>\n

12 Sep 2020 – <\/em>The United States is passing through a historic social, economic and political crisis. The death toll from the coronavirus pandemic is nearing 200,000 and could double by the end of the year. Democratic forms of rule are breaking down, with the Trump administration intensifying its open incitement of fascistic violence. Tens of millions are unemployed and face impoverishment and homelessness. Wildfires are burning out of control on the US West Coast.<\/p>\n

It is impossible to understand any of these processes outside of the massive levels of social inequality. The United States is an oligarchy, with a concentration of wealth that is historically unprecedented.<\/p>\n

The release of the Forbes 400 billionaire report gives a sense of this reality. The richest 400 individuals (0.00012 percent of the population) now possess more than $3 trillion.<\/p>\n

The report declares: \u201cPandemic be damned: America\u2019s 400 richest are worth a record $3.2 trillion, up $240 billion from a year ago, aided by a stock market that has defied the virus.\u201d The surge in the stock market, underwritten by the multi-trillion-dollar CARES Act passed in March, has filled the already overflowing coffers of the super-rich, who now hold claim to the equivalent of 15 percent of the country\u2019s gross domestic product.<\/p>\n

Even the numbers provided by Forbes<\/em>, based on figures from July 24, are a major underestimation of the current reality. Since that time, the wealth of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the world\u2019s richest person, has shot up to more than $200 billion, while the wealth of Tesla CEO Elon Musk has grown to over $100 billion. Bezos\u2019s holdings are three million times greater than the annual income of the typical American household.<\/p>\n

The staggering level of inequality reflected in the Forbes<\/em> list is the central feature of American society, which is defined by the transfer of obscene and ever larger amounts of wealth from the working class into the hands of a tiny financial oligarchy through tax cuts, bailouts, the slashing of wages and the clawing back of pensions and other benefits won by workers in the struggles of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

The latest rise in the billionaires\u2019 wealth is not based on any exertion of labor on their part, but on the inflation of the stock market, with trillions of dollars in debt from the Federal Reserve and Congress, which will be paid off the backs of the working class. Everything has been subordinated to ensuring that the Dow and the S&P 500 rise to new heights.<\/p>\n

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It would take the median American, who earns $33,000 per year, 97 million years to earn as much as is controlled by the wealthiest Americans. Consider what $3.2 trillion could pay for in a year:<\/p>\n