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Oxfam’s latest report claims that income inequality has reached a new global extreme, exceeding even its predictions from the previous year. The figures behind this claim are striking – just 62 individuals now hold the same wealth as the bottom half of humanity, compared to 80 in 2014 and 388 in 2010. It appears not only has the financial crisis been weathered by the global elite, but that their fortunes have collectively improved.

Our objections to inequality, the report notes, are not driven simply by a desire to improve our own material standard of living. Rising inequality is one of the surest signs of the failure of economic growth to make things better for us all. The accompanying decline in the income shares of the bottom 50% since 2010 suggests that although governments across the world have been quick to tout their role in bringing about a global “recovery”, its rewards have been very selectively spread.

It would be foolish to pretend that wealth inequality is a product of the liberal capitalism […]