#Oxfam regularly publishes #inequality reports highlighting how global wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small group of billionaires and how oligarchy is re-emerging. These are important and useful reports. What I find hard to reconcile, however, are the hefty salaries and perks Oxfam pays its own staff and executive directors worldwide. Some of them are based in the Global South, yet their incomes place them squarely within the global south's 1%.
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And this often touches a raw nerve. The usual refrain is that their CEOs and Executive Directors earn far less than corporate CEOs. Of course they do. But why compare yourselves with the top 1 per cent? Why should the Executive Director of a non-profit earn several hundred times more than a daily-wage worker in that same country? What moral standing do you have to speak about #inequality at all?