The “post-capitalist world” is dominated by the super-rich who are literally devouring the earth and are, in the words of Thomas Piketty, practically on the verge of owning their own country. In the post-socialist era, the most relevant question that can be asked is: what do the very rich owe to the world’s extremely poor? As crucial as this question may seem, it is posed and contested in the liberal discourse of global justice, which nevertheless retains its orientalizing heritage by focusing on the duties of the super-rich in the developed world towards those in the developing world. More generally, the field of global justice is entering a period of disenchantment, largely because of its Western orientation and often parochial and exclusionary theoretical formulations.

As India experiences a “super-rich boom” at a staggering pace, alongside China and Brazil, the need to ask the question of what India’s super-rich owe the poor warrants a framework bell tower; one that addresses Western centrism and reevaluates the theoretical foundations of action, guilt and duties in the global debate on poverty. Such a parochial framework cannot be fruitfully achieved through “reclinic research” that endorses intellectual disengagement from Western and global theorizing.

A good alternative would be to “critically depart” from so-called Western theorizing about global justice and the duties of the super-rich. The latter approach offers more plausible and constructive ways to combat parochialism in supposedly global theories.

Ten years ago, Neera Chandhoke asked a very provocative question in response to the seminal work of cosmopolitan theorist Thomas Pogge on the theme: do those of us who live in India have any duty towards the poor? In essence, Chandhoke analyzes two types of agency issues in the developing world: agency of the poor and the agency of the rich. Traditional global justice theorists focus exclusively on the first interpretation of action and completely ignore the second. The analytical difference between the two types of agencies is arguably crucial in establishing the culpability of the very rich for systemic poverty in the developing world. Plutocrats, as national and transnational actors, are part of the economic structure that shapes the destiny of the vast majority of people, especially the poor. In a parochial framework of global justice, the location of agents in the global distribution of wealth, power, and resources is integral to determining the duties of global justice.

The super-rich hold exemplary wealth, resources and power; How this great fortune comes about and its effects on the equally plausible rights and claims of the multitude could form the basis of great moral and practical discussions about their responsibilities. The impact of this dynamic power and influence can be mapped through the language of human rights, which constitutes the widely accepted grammar of justice. As powerful agents alongside States, their action and role cannot be overlooked simply because they are the new agents of a formerly poor or less developed world.

These questions need not necessarily focus solely on understanding poverty itself, its manifestations, measurements and prevalence in India or elsewhere. It must reconfigure the emphasis on the responsibilities that the wealthy among us must bear towards those who struggle with poverty; not only because they should, but because their behavior has lasting effects on the realization of their rights. Much has been said and written about the super-rich, praising and fetishizing their entrepreneurial prowess, net worth, lifestyle and assets. New studies must look at the other side of the coin and critically examine the impact of emerging plutonomy on India’s poor. This warrants the reassessment of market-oriented nations from the perspective of their own demands, frameworks, assumptions and expectations.

Interestingly, today’s plutocrats are emerging largely in democracies. In the absence of strong safety nets, capitalist democracies lack built-in limiting strategies to counter the growing concentration of wealth and ensure that the benefits of economic growth trickle down to the bottom half. There is certainly something more to be expected of democracies than is currently expected. The concentration of wealth in a few hands has a long-term effect on the distribution and effectiveness of political power. Political influence acquired in the economic sphere easily translates into visible and invisible forms of domination. The pursuit of commercial interests at the expense of the public good leaves an indelible mark on the future distribution of wealth and political power. This is how this loop is completed and reproduced. Bending the rules in favor of the super-rich is itself a systemic violation of rights, after all, the world’s poor continue to be the most vulnerable, wherever they are.

India is a whirlwind of paradoxical transformations. On the one hand, it has taken a big step forward and become one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The rise of Indian billionaires appears to be a representative image of a growing and self-aware country, freeing itself from colonial chains and socialist constraints. On the other hand, fears about rising inequality in the country are more palpable than ever. Poverty rates may have been halved, but the majority of the world’s poor still live in the country. India, emerging and responsible, also began refusing to seek any humanitarian aid from the developed world. Three decades after India’s neoliberal turn, one can find a paradoxical picture of poverty amid abundance in the country.

This paradox is attributable to biased state policies which tend to favor the very rich. In line with global neoliberal policy imperatives, India has eschewed socialist policies and reconfigured its tax and credit regimes to best suit corporate interests. Several taxes widely seen as essential to income redistribution have been eliminated. Implementation of economic reforms imposed in the global economic architecture and business-friendly (rather than market-friendly) state policies have allowed very wealthy Indians to capture a disproportionate share of the economic surplus, leaving as 5.7 percent and 13.3 percent. of total national wealth and income respectively for the bottom half (World Inequality Report 2022). The combined net worth of India’s billionaires reaches a quarter of its GDP, and half of this super-rich wealth comes from high-rent sectors, despite the growing upward trend in entrepreneurial wealth.

These policy decisions that generate enormous private wealth seriously affect the government’s ability to guarantee the basic human rights of the poor, including food, health care and education. India’s super-rich, who are the main beneficiaries of asymmetric economic policies, exert considerable economic influence to influence public policies, often to the detriment of the disadvantaged. The resulting wealth disparities and the prevalence of poverty are closely linked to the organization of national and global economic institutions. Interestingly, these disparities are supposed to be combated through the free play of capital, economic growth and institutionalized philanthropy, without taking into account the resulting plutonomic configurations which are growing considerably in the country.

India, like China and Brazil, can no longer be classified as a developing country in the conventional sense of the term. This exceptionalism is overlooked in the global debate on poverty. Can India’s super-rich be exempted from the global poverty debate – which primarily limits the responsibility for reducing global poverty to agents of the developed world? A preliminary hypothesis involves India’s super-rich as both contributors And beneficiaries institutional arrangements that produce staggering wealth on the one hand and extreme inequality and poverty on the other. Can the actions of the super-rich then be linked to the failure to respect the human rights of the poor, at local and national levels? If so, what is the nature of these harmful actions? These questions are critical because existing studies examine the relationship between the super-rich and the poor exclusively in terms of economic growth and philanthropy. There is a real need to ask whether institutionalized philanthropy is the only possible mode of relationship between the super-rich and the poor in national and global contexts.

This type of debate must not be allowed to degenerate into a radical argument in favor of the abolition of the super-rich, and even less in favor of a return to dirigisme. The super-rich can, and do, do a lot of positive and transformative work, to say the least. That said, there is only one overriding concern: the lack of limiting strategies allows for a Mathew effect, making it very difficult for everyone else to rise from the ashes. Accumulated capital inevitably falls into the political sphere, and when this happens it reproduces wealth for the few and corresponding deprivation for the many.

This new research must then focus on the institutional violations caused by the very process by which many billionaires are produced and allowed to reproduce their wealth without restriction. Fragile and porous institutions make it difficult for the poor to resist policies that harm them. Justice is above all a question of the proper organization of institutions, and ensuring their continued and impartial functioning is the key to peaceful and just societies. There is therefore a complex relationship between reducing poverty, reducing inequality and achieving peace, justice and inclusive institutions within and between societies.

Excerpted with permission from Deparochializing global justice: global poverty, human rights cosmopolitanism and the super-rich in India, Aejaz Ahmad Wani, Palgrave Macmillan.