The wealthiest 1 per cent of the population holds more wealth than the remaining 99 per cent of the world. This is the finding of a report published by Oxfam, an NGO specialising in humanitarian aid and development projects. The announcement came just ahead of the 46th World Economic Forum, held in Davos, Switzerland, from 20 to 23 January, which will bring together political and economic leaders to discuss the most pressing challenges facing the world, such as economic inequality. This issue is also the subject of the book 1% privilege in a time of global inequality, edited by Myles Little, photo editor at Time Magazine, which brings together images by some of the most celebrated photographers of our time, taken in more than ten countries, and illustrates the discrepancies of the excessive economic divide between rich and poor.

The 62 wealthiest people (of whom only nine are women) hold resources equivalent to those of the poorest half of the world's population. Drawing on data collected by Credit Suisse in October 2015, the Oxfam report highlights how the concentration of wealth is growing at an alarming rate: last year the 80 wealthiest people owned as much as the poorest 50% of the world, whereas in 2010 that number was 388. Economic inequality had recorded a decline between 2000 and 2009, but has since grown every year. 2015 was the first year in which the wealthiest 1 per cent of the population was richer than the remaining 99 per cent, ahead of Oxfam's forecast that this would happen in 2016. A sad outcome that stands in stark contrast to the fact that the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day was halved between 1990 and 2015, thanks to the Millennium Development Goals, part of the global agenda that has guided the work of the United Nations over the past 15 years.

The poorest half of the population has lost one trillion dollars (imagine twelve zeros) over the past five years. By contrast, the 62 wealthiest individuals have gained more than 500 billion compared to 2010. This growing inequality is attributable to tax evasion and the ever-widening gap between the richest and the poorest. Women are particularly affected, making up the majority of the world's lowest-paid workers. According to Oxfam, tax evasion has cost developing countries 100 billion dollars in taxes per year. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz noted in his contribution to the book 1% privilege in a time of global inequality that "in recent years the economic elite — that is, those with political power — have pushed for a structure that secures more advantages for themselves, at everyone else's expense."

It is possible to eliminate the wealth disparity "in one of three ways: through revolution, higher taxes, or war". The words of billionaire Paul Tudor Jones II express the imperative to combat global economic inequality which, according to Stiglitz, "suppresses economic growth by making the economic system less stable and efficient" and "threatens the vitality of a country's democracy as power becomes concentrated in the hands of a chosen few." Oxfam underlines the need to raise wages, narrow the pay gap — including the gender pay gap —, limit lobbying activities and tackle tax evasion. The ostentatious display of excess and the challenges of poverty shown by Myles Little in his selection of photographs confronts us with the intrinsic injustice of a system based on an ever more skewed distribution of resources. The only way to reverse this trend is genuine opposition to this system.

The book 1% privilege in a time of global inequality is published in English by Hatje Cantz (2016) and can be purchased here.

Cover image: Dilapidated Shanghai (Fuxing Lu demolition), a photograph taken as the Chinese city was being demolished to make way for the new Shanghai © Greg Girard (2002)

Translated by Camilla Soldati