Does dos Santos deserve to have so much wealth? Indeed, does anyone merit a billion-dollar net worth? Enthusiasts for free markets might answer the general question with a rousing affirmative. They would say that billion-dollar fortunes are the product of successful investments, often in shares of companies founded and managed by the billionaires themselves, or at least by their parents or ancestors. These capital gains are the market’s reward for cleverness and hard work.
The vast majority of her fortune was built on the foundation of Angolan oil revenues, which the country’s central bank reports are currently running at a $36 billion annual rate, equivalent to about $1,000 a year per resident. Her level of wealth seems out of place in a country where 42% of the population live in poverty.
The contrast between dos Santos’s affluence and her compatriots’ misery is particularly sharp, but she is not alone. Many billionaire fortunes come from nothing more worthy than having the right parents, good friends in high places, or the opportunity to take unfair advantage of weak governance.
There are 2,057 people on Forbes’ list of billionaires, from the $131 billion attributed to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos down to the $1 billion of Du Sha, founder of the Chinese retailer Home World Group.
Early equity investors suck up gains which rightly belong to the larger economy. Their seed money does far less than the basically unrewarded panoply of systems, services and knowledge that allow new things to be made, distributed and paid for. The persistent growth of large fortunes also suggests that free-market economies are less competitive than they claim to be.
Karl Marx complained about capitalists getting too much while labourers get too little. The lowly paid workers at Amazon warehouses might agree with his analysis.
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