Every so often I collect together some books I no longer need, and take them to the Oxfam second-hand bookshop in Oxford, not far from where the organisation set up its first outlet in 1949.
Deep in my DNA is the thought that Oxfam was founded by decent people for good purposes — the alleviation of famine and poverty among the world’s poorest.
I wonder what those high-minded creators of the organisation would make of its latest report, which is designed through the misleading and often incorrect use of statistics to persuade us that modern capitalism is the great scourge of the poor.
Criticising capitalism in overtly political terms — and serving as a kind of intellectual outrider to the Corbynistas — is surely evidence that Oxfam is not observing the rules
According to Oxfam, 82 per cent of money generated last year went to the richest 1 per cent of the global population, while the poorest half saw no increase at all in their income. I don’t know where this figure comes from, but I bet every book remaining in my possession that it’s wrong.
How can anyone produce such a precise number — 82 per cent — as a percentage of the tens of billions of pounds of wealth generated worldwide as recently as 2017, which ended only 26 days ago? It’s a piece of eye-catching nonsense, intended to shock.
In any case, I very much doubt that the top 1 per cent could have grabbed so large a slice of everything produced last year. It sounds like a piece of Corbynista propaganda such as Jeremy himself might have spouted.
But then Oxfam has a shameful history of being free with its facts. A year ago it produced the extraordinary figure that the world’s eight richest individuals had as much wealth as the poorest half of the world.
This year the charity has changed its mind, and says 42 people have as much wealth as the poorest 50 per cent. Oh, and last year it was 61 people, not eight. Convinced? I’m certainly not.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-5309943/STEPHEN-GLOVER-wont-old-books-Oxfam.html#ixzz55AmcGlcl
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