The figures published by Oxfam in its new wealth report are breathtaking: Tesla boss Elon Musk's wealth has grown by more than 1,000 percent in the past year and a half to almost $300 billion.
Other super-rich have not earned quite as much, but the trend is in the same direction.
On the other hand, more people are poor.
The number of people living on less than $5.50 a day has doubled the population of Germany during the pandemic.
This trend is alarming. It was and is the good news of capitalism that not only is prosperity growing in the West, but that hundreds of millions of people have been freed from abject poverty over the past few decades. This process has now at least come to a standstill, as the World Bank noted last week.
This negative trend must not continue.
There is an urgent need to debate causes and remedies.
Unfortunately, the annual report by Oxfam activists does so in the well-known woodcut-like manner: companies and their owners are the bad guys who should either be broken up, taxed or discredited.
The fact that innovations that make people like Biontech founders Uğur Şahin and Özlem Türeci billionaires save millions of lives is at best a footnote at Oxfam.
Mentioning that Elon Musk's fortune is going through the roof because he helped achieve a more climate-friendly technology shouldn't seem to spoil the picture.
That men like Bill Gates with their multi-billion dollars are fighting malaria and doing more for the world than some countries?
Free!
With the omissions and pessimism, the non-governmental organization is unfortunately taking the wind out of its own sails to a large extent.
Oxfam's black-and-white view of things fuels reservations and repels those willing to take personal risks to invent and change the problems with their ideas.