Jordan Shilton — The new aristocracy in Britain

Margaret Thatcher's legacy.

Britain’s wealthiest 1,000 individuals now control wealth equivalent to one third of total economic output, or £519 billion (US$877 billion). Over the past decade, the number of billionaires has trebled, giving the UK the dubious distinction of being the country with the most billionaires per head of population in the world. The amount of wealth required to obtain access to the hallowed circles of the UK’s richest 500 individuals has more than doubled over the past decade, and is up nearly 20 percent in just one year.

Separate statistics show that the top 1 percent, or 600,000 people, possess more wealth than the poorest 55 percent of the population, or 33 million people. Of the nation’s £9.5 trillion in property, pensions and financial assets, the 1 percent control a staggering £5.225 trillion. Just the five richest families in the UK are wealthier than the bottom 20 percent, the 12.6 million people now living below the poverty line.

The emergence of the modern-day financial aristocracy at the top of society has been directly connected to the impoverishment of ever broader layers of working people. Over the past 10 years, the wealth of the richest 1,000 people in Britain has doubled. During the same period, state finances were raided to provide a multi-billion bailout to these very same layers, whose ill-gotten gains were achieved through acts of financial speculation and outright criminality.

For the working class, the bank bailout ushered in an era of unprecedented attacks on its living standards and social services on which millions depend. While the rich wallow in wealth, the use of food banks has reached unheard of levels, wages have been slashed and public services eliminated or privatised.

WSWS
The new aristocracy in Britain
Jordan Shilton