Opinion – Sâmia Bomfim: Billionaires shouldn’t exist

Brazilians who go to the supermarket perceive life to be more expensive every day. And there are still many who can’t even go shopping. According to recent data, at least 12 million Brazilians are unemployed. Another 5 million are in dismay; 19 million are hungry and half the country is food insecure.

Faced with so much poverty, misery, hunger and unemployment, one fact calls attention: the number of billionaires in the world and in Brazil. There are 42 new Brazilian billionaires on the Forbes list of the year 2021. These are just a few dozen people who alone accumulate fortunes on an unimaginable scale. This concentration of income takes place, on the one hand, from the exploitation of millions of workers, and, on the other hand, from the corrupt “facilities” forged by governments and powerful people.

Recently, the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk, for US$ 44 billion (more than R$ 200 billion), made news. Musk has a fortune of more than US$ 260 billion (R$ 1.3 trillion, at the current price). His family, from South Africa, became rich during Apartheid, exploiting emerald deposits. In the face of the scandal, I said on my social media and I reaffirm: billionaires shouldn’t exist! There should also be no hunger, misery and human exploitation, phenomena related to the existence of billionaires.

On the 3rd of May, in the Sheetthe president of a neoliberal institute, Helio Beltrão, published an article, in an attempt to counter my position, entitled: “How many Samias make an Elon Musk?”.

The text is based on the typical and false defense of meritocracy, recurrent among Brazilian “liberals”. By the way, in general, liberals are concerned with the freedoms of their own businesses and profits, but not with the freedom of the people. Moreover, these liberals are the first to go to the state and be bailed out by it when their profits are at risk.

For the author, in capitalism, entrepreneurs get rich because they create efficient products. It is soon realized that, for him, there are no workers, the class that actually produces wealth and products in the world, in exchange for very low wages.

Another flawed argument is that, by taxing large fortunes, the economy crashes. Thus, liberals try to convince us that the existence of billionaires favors the majority of the population. But what happens is just the opposite.

As PSOL leader in the Chamber of Deputies, I fight for the approval of PLP 277/08, which provides for the taxation of fortunes in Brazil. The measure, which is simple and provided for in our Constitution, would reverse the current scenario, in which only the poor and the middle class pay real tax. Consequently, we would have more resources for education and health, for the fight against inequality and for the realization of rights. We would have more justice, as other countries in the world have done.

Of course, Beltrão, in his article, still attacked the “politicians”, trying to hit me. But, unlike many deputies who declare themselves liberal and defend billionaires, I voted against the extravagant electoral fund articulated by Bolsonaro and Centrão.

Corrupts and billionaires usually go hand in hand. And for me, neither the first nor the second are pet objects.