By Sardar Khan Niazi

Each January, as the world political and business elites assemble in glossy alpine conclaves, another sort of summit takes shape in the public conscience, one defined not by mountain peaks, but by the sharp and rising edges of inequality. Oxfam’s latest claim, that the annual earnings of G20 billionaires alone could end global poverty, lands like an indictment on the state of our collective priorities. It is a reminder that the resources necessary to reshape humanity’s most enduring tragedy are not hidden, scarce, or elusive. They simply reside in too few pockets, circulating within too small a sphere of influence. The G20, representing the world’s most powerful economies, is home to hundreds of billionaires whose combined annual profits stretch beyond comprehension. According to Oxfam, a single year’s earnings of this class of ultra-wealthy individuals would be sufficient to lift every human being above the poverty threshold. The starkness of this contrast, unimaginable wealth coexisting with preventable destitution, forces us to confront a moral question before an economic one: how much inequality can a world tolerate before it begins to fracture at its core? For Pakistan, this conversation feels both global and local. We sit in a country where millions are pushed below the poverty line by inflation, climate disasters, and fiscal contraction, while a thin slice of elites continues to consolidate wealth through tax exemptions, speculative capital, and politically mediated privileges. Although Pakistan’s billionaires may not individually influence global metrics, our domestic reality mirrors the broader imbalance Oxfam highlights. The problem, then, is not merely that wealth exists, but that mechanisms of redistribution, accountability, and structural equity remain chronically underdeveloped. Critics often argue that taxing the ultra-rich would stifle growth, discourage investment, or trigger capital flight. Yet global evidence repeatedly shows that societies with stronger redistributive policies, those that tax wealth, inheritance, capital gains, and windfall profits, fare better in education, health, and social stability. Economic vitality is not the product of unchecked wealth concentration; it is strengthened when majorities of citizens have the means to participate fully in the marketplace and the polity. Poverty suppresses demand, reduces productivity, and erodes national cohesion. Inequality is not merely unjust, it is inefficient. Oxfam’s framing is provocative by design. It is not suggesting that we confiscate private wealth in a sweeping act of global expropriation. It underscores the scale at which wealth accumulated and the pace at which governments responded. Reasonable taxation, anti-monopoly regulation, transparency in financial flows, and the elimination of tax havens are all well within the domain of democratic policymaking. The obstacle is not feasibility, it is political will, captured by the very forces such measures would constrain. At the same time, it is important to acknowledge that philanthropy alone cannot solve structural poverty. While charitable giving plays a role, it cannot substitute for equitable economic policy. Nor should we rely on the benevolence of billionaires to fix problems their wealth accumulation often exacerbates. A society governed by charity rather than justice is one that abdicates its duty to fairness. The point Oxfam makes and which the world must heed is that poverty persists not because humanity lacks resources, but because we lack systems designed to distribute those resources with equity. The G20, including countries like Pakistan, faces a test of moral leadership. Will it continue to offer rhetorical concern while maintaining policies that privilege wealth concentration, or will it pursue a new economic social contract centered on dignity and fairness? If the earnings of a few hundred individuals can theoretically end poverty, then the continued existence of mass deprivation is not an inevitability, it is a choice. And choices, unlike fate, can be changed.