“Bill Gates is one of the richest people in world history. His net worth, at $100 billion, is greater than that of the annual GDP of the 138 poorest countries when considered individually. In early April 2017, he and his wife Melinda issued their annual public letter, which told of great news: the fight against global poverty is being won, as those living on less than $1.25 a day (the UN’s definition of extreme poverty) have been halved since 1990. But there is an extensive scholarly consensus that the threshold for poverty should be $5 a day, in fact the US Department of Agriculture concluded a decade ago it is the bare minimum needed for people to simply maintain homeostasis. In adjusted terms that means today the poverty line should be $7.40 a day. Using this well-founded revised number, 4.2 billion people are living in poverty, more than 60% of humanity. But Marx’s immiseration thesis is such that it requires the variable of time in order to be proven correct. Has the number of people living on less than $7.40 a day decreased over time? Unfortunately not. Over 1 billion more people fall below this line than they did 35 years, meaning that global poverty is actually increasing. This fact stands in direct contradiction to the self-congratulatory proclamations of the supranational organizations and billionaire “philanthropists” like Bill Gates (who lives in a 125 million dollar mansion).”
— Gabriel Palcic, The Actuality of Marx’s Immiseration Thesis in the 21st Century
