Inequality debates often drift into morality. Some people “deserve” more, others “need” more, and the discussion turns into personal virtue. Oxfam’s language is harder. Its briefing paper treats extreme wealth as governance.
In that framing, plutocracy is not a metaphor. It is a system taking shape in public.
From Wealth Gap to Power Gap
Oxfam reported billionaire wealth rose by over 16 per cent in 2025, three times faster than the average annual increase over the previous five years.
Total billionaire wealth reached a record $18.3 trillion, an 81 per cent increase since 2020. The number of billionaires surpassed 3,000 for the first time in history.
That is a scale of money that stops functioning as a number and starts functioning as leverage. Oxfam Executive Director Amitabh Behar described billionaires as “4,000 times more likely to hold political office” than ordinary people. This is not a complaint about envy. It is a warning about representation.
A society that votes is not automatically a democracy. A society also needs limits on who can buy access. The $2.5 trillion added to billionaire fortunes in 2025 would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over.
Buying the Rules, Not the Products
Oxfam argues the super-rich increasingly shape laws, media, technology, taxation and justice to protect their fortunes. This is where the argument becomes uncomfortable, because it suggests that politics can be captured without tanks in the street.
The rich do not need to “win” elections. They can win the invisible battles around elections: who funds campaigns, who sets narratives and who frames reform as impossible. It is a softer kind of control, which makes it harder to resist. People are more likely to accept a rigged system than to admit it is rigged.
A World Values Survey of 66 countries found that almost half of all people polled say that the rich often buy elections in their country. In 2025 alone, there were 142 major anti-government protests across 68 countries, many triggered by cost-of-living pressures and perceptions of elite capture.
Philanthropy as a Shield
The public is encouraged to treat billionaire charity as proof that the system works. A private foundation funds a hospital wing, and the story becomes gratitude. Meanwhile, the same wealth can undermine the tax base that funds hospitals in the first place.
Oxfam cited the late German billionaire Peter Kramer describing philanthropy as “a bad transfer of power” from politicians. The line is blunt for a reason. It reframes charity as influence, not generosity. Giving money away can create a reputation that buys silence. It also makes governments look weak by comparison.
Europe’s Polite Inequality
Europe often speaks the language of fairness. Its welfare states and labour protections remain stronger than many places, and that matters. Yet wealth concentration still grows through property, inheritance and corporate structures that ordinary workers cannot imitate.
Plutocracy does not always look like oligarchs with private armies. It can look like landlords who set the price of cities, media owners who set the tone of debate and consultants who drift between public roles and private power.
This is why Oxfam’s framing lands. It explains a feeling many people already have, that voting changes governments but not outcomes. Countries with high wealth inequality are seven times more likely to experience democratic backsliding, including weakened rule of law, compromised elections and reduced civil liberties.
The Democratic Cost
Extreme wealth narrows public life. It concentrates attention, shapes policy agendas and rewards leaders who speak for donors rather than voters. It also turns civic trust into cynicism, which authoritarian movements exploit easily.
The answer is not a perfect society. It is a society where power has limits, and where basic services are funded by systems rather than favours. Oxfam urged governments to adopt national inequality reduction plans, impose higher taxes on extreme wealth and strengthen firewalls between money and politics, including curbs on lobbying and campaign financing.
Behar stated that “being economically poor creates hunger. Being politically poor creates anger.” Oxfam’s message is direct: letting billionaire power grow will steadily hollow out democratic life. The damage will not arrive with a single coup. It will arrive through routine decisions that seem technical, until the public realises it no longer sets the terms.
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