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EXTREME INEQUALITY
Elite capture is also capture by men
The capture of political processes by elites can also be seen as the capture
of these processes by men. It contributes to policies and practices that are
harmful to women or that fail to help level the playing field between men
and women. As a result, women are also largely excluded from economic
policy making.
Despite significant progress since 2000, as of January 2014, only nine women
were serving as a head of state and only 15 as the head of a government; only
17 percent of government ministers worldwide were women, with the majority
of those overseeing social sectors, such as education and the family (rather
than finance or economics). 293 Women held only 22 percent of parliamentary
seats globally. 294
Women’s leadership is critical to ensuring that economic and social policies
promote gender equality. The concentration of income and wealth in the hands
of wealthy elites, the majority of whom are men, gives men more decisionmaking
power at national level, and contributes to national laws failing to
help level the playing field for women. Around the world there is a legacy of
discriminatory laws and practices that compound gender discrimination; for
instance on inheritance rights, lending practices, access to credit and asset
ownership for women.
CORRUPTION HITS THE POOREST HARDEST
When elites capture state resources to enrich themselves it is at the
expense of the poorest. Large-scale corruption defrauds governments
of billions in revenue and billions more through the inefficiencies of
‘crony contracting’.
At the same time, poor people are hit hardest by petty corruption, which
acts as a de facto privatization of public services that should be free.
One study found that in rural Pakistan the extremely poor had to pay
bribes to officials 20 percent of the time, whereas for the non-poor this
figure was just 4.3 percent. 295
Elites shape dominant ideas and public debate
Around the world elites have long used their money, power and influence
to shape the beliefs and perceptions that hold sway in societies, and have
wielded this power to oppose measures that would reduce inequality.
Elites use this influence to promote ideas and norms that support the economic
and political interests of the privileged; such as through the promotion of ideas
like ‘the majority of rich people have secured their wealth through hard work’, or
‘strong labour rights and taxation of bankers’ bonuses will irreparably harm the
economy’. Language is cleverly deployed in Orwellian ways, with inheritance
tax rebranded as the ‘death tax’, and the rich becoming ‘wealth creators’. 296 As
a result, across much of the world there is a considerable misperception of the
scope and scale of inequality and its causes. In the majority of countries, the
media is also controlled by a very small, male, economic elite.
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