Why is Oxfam demonising the market economy?

Oxfam has released its annual analysis of world wealth inequality, this year framed within the context of Covid-19 and titled ‘The Inequality Virus’. The charity claims that wealth inequality has grown over the past year with the rich getting richer and the poorer getting poorer. The report advocates for a series of mad-hat policies to address the economic inequality the charity found, among them raising taxes on ‘excess’ profits made by global corporations and implementing a ‘maximum wage’. The IEA's Director General Mark Littlewood suggested that the report's recommendations demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of economics and poverty relief – and that there is nothing to be gained from fixating on the wealth of a handful of billionaires. And our Editorial and Research Fellow, Professor Len Shackleton, wrote a blistering attack on the report for CapX, in which he urged Oxfam to spare us the tired "student union posturing". In this episode, IEA Director of Communications Annabel Denham quizzes Len on some of the report's more egregious claims, and asks why the charity has engaged in demonisation of the market economy.