Wealth is no disgrace

International charity Oxfam has issued a warning on wealth inequality: In 2016, 1 percent of the world's population will have amassed as much wealth as the remaining 99 percent combined. So the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, which suggests the rich are getting richer whereas the poor are getting poorer.

However, this is not correct. The truth is: the rich get richer, and so do the poor - simply not as quickly. No period in world history has seen more people moving up the economic ladder - from working class to middle class - than the past two decades. And never, since the 19th century, did fewer people suffer from hunger than today - despite a constantly growing world population.

Only market economies create wealth

The moral finger-wagging of yesteryear's critique of capitalism conceals an uncomfortable truth: it's the free market economy which has made affluence more accessible for ever-wider parts of society.

Over the last couple of decades, economic development was particularly strong where the market was given a chance after the socialist redistribution systems had failed; namely, in Eastern Europe and Asia.

Economic development was even sustainable where freedom and democracy and, very importantly, access to education was established. The fight against poverty, on the other hand, comes to nothing where corrupt and totalitarian regimes line their own pockets and where any spirit of innovation - which is the foundation for progress - is nipped in the bud.

The concept of rich people reveling in luxury at the expense of the general public is certainly completely off the mark. Even when some super-rich individuals randomly spend their money on luxury goods, this is of use to everyone: hundreds of jobs depend on each manufactured extravagant yacht and premium car. Devices which are tested in the high-price sector often get a second life in mass market products at a later stage. Every luxury holiday, every exclusive fashion label keeps entire economic sectors busy.

Abundant wealth of no use for the rich

In addition, the bulk of the rich don't put their wealth on display, one of the reasons being that wealth has never been as useless as it is today. Rapid technological development provides large parts of society with access to goods and services which had been an exclusive domain of the rich until a few decades ago, and which were worth paying for.

Today, even lowly workers and employees from industrialized and developing countries can afford air travel. Like multimillionaires, they communicate via smartphones and computers. Like them, they have access to state-of-the-art medicine and even to their own means of production.

So how do those 1 percent of the world's population spend all their money? It's obvious: they invest it, and they accumulate even more. Which will, eventually, be beneficial to all.