Money, money, will it be a rich man’s world?

londonIn my recent blogs on technology I’ve been looking at how it affects me directly.  However to move it up a notch or two, one thing it is doing is propelling us towards a truly global economy.  Now, back to the personal, I can buy anything I want from almost anywhere in the world.  Most of the time unless I check the small print I won’t know where it’s been made.  While this seems to be good for the consumer it also seems to be good for the largest companies with the widest reach and therefore the richest in our society.  I suppose I wonder where this is taking us?

In the news recently I read that 1% of people now own more wealth than the rest of the world put together.  And that 80 people own more wealth than 3.5 billion of the world’s people put together (  I’ve blogged before about the fact that more and more wealth is increasingly in the hands of fewer and fewer people.  It’s not that I’m coming from any particular political angle, I just wonder how this trend can be sustained i.e. to make the commercial world go round people have to have money to spend and if ever more of that is in the hands of fewer and fewer people I can’t see how it works.  I know that those with all that money will buy things that others have to be employed to make.  But some of that wealth will be used in making more wealth, or be invested, or ‘squirreled’ away.

On the other hand Bill and Melinda Gates have also been in the news talking, in the ‘2015 Gates Annual Letter’ ( about the work of their foundation and their predictions for the next 15 years.  They forsee major breakthroughs for millions of people in Africa, where they become wealthier (I knows it’s all relative):


In the last 8 years or so that I worked in the pharmaceutical industry I worked directly and indirectly with the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation in the field of Malaria drug development.  They put tens of billions into the foundation and changed the face of malaria (and other neglected disease) research.  They also invested heavily in capacity building i.e. building up the expertise and facilities in Africa so they are better equipped on all levels to tackle the issues that affect them.  So when they commit to such a fifteen year vision I believe them.

Newport mansionGoing back to my first paragraph though, I’m struggling to see how these two pictures of the future go together.  Can the rich get richer and the poor get richer too?  Or is something going to have to give?  Bill Gates calls on others to follow their example and I’m sure some are, but I don’t see much evidence of it in the same way that he’s committed to it.  It would be great if they did and hundreds of billions were ploughed back into society, in projects such as the BMG foundation, or perhaps in space exploration as I’ve advocated before.  The downside to this model of course is that the way that money is spent will be partially at least down to the views of individuals rather than via any democratic process.  I guess you can’t have it all.

As always views welcome.  Also in this case explanations of how a scenario of the rich continually getting richer can work for the world?

Ian Martyn

Author: Ian Martyn

Science Fiction Writer

4 thoughts on “Money, money, will it be a rich man’s world?”

  1. Don’t take all the Gates Foundation PR at face value. According to what I’ve read, Gates is a major investor in Monsanto, and a lot of money is given to poor farmers on the condition they use it to by seeds and chemicals from Monsanto. But then the end up hooked, because the fields are so poisoned only the Monsanto seeds will grow there anymore. The first hit is always free. Gates gives with one hand and takes with the other.

    An unprecedented number of farmers in India have been killing themselves because every year they get deeper in debt to Monsanto, with no way out.

    1. I don’t know anything about a Monsanto connection and the foundation. Having worked with them and seen them in action first hand it seems unlikely. But will search

      1. if you’ve worked with them, you probably know more about them than I do. It’s certainly possible that what I’ve read is not true, or is exaggerated. There’s certainly no shortage of conspiracy theories 8^). But I do know a lot of the sleazy things Gates was personally responsible for at Microsoft, and you know what they say about leopards and spots.

Leave a Reply to R. E. Hunter (@REHunter_Writer) Cancel reply