What’s the point of Davos when even the rich are fed up with the super-rich? | Zoe Williams
Rachel Reeves told the elites gathered in Switzerland she was relaxed about ‘wealth creation’. She’s in the minority on that
Rachel Reeves might give the impression of being someone who’s never late for social engagements, but she is increasingly late to the party. At a breakfast event on the second day of Davos, after she’d spelled out her faith in artificial intelligence and a high-skilled workforce, someone asked Britain’s chancellor how she felt about “wealth creation” – was she relaxed, in a Blairite sense? “Absolutely,” Reeves replied. “Absolutely relaxed.”
Wealth creation isn’t quite the same as just wealth, but “wealth creators” is famously the moniker the super-rich use for themselves. And so Reeves’s exceedingly relaxed tone here puts her in a minority – possibly a minority of one. As Elon Musk salutes his way into political power, not even rich people are relaxed about wealth any more. On the first day of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, the pro-tax campaign group Patriotic Millionaires released survey results from 2,000 high net-worth individuals across the G20: more than half of them thought extreme wealth was a threat to democracy, and over two-thirds agreed that the visible influence of the wealthy was leading to a decline in trust of the media, the justice system and democracy.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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