Thanks to three billionaires, space will soon have the highest wealth disparity of any place “on Earth”
Where in the world can claim the dubious distinction of having the most extreme disparities between the rich and the poor?
Gotcha; it’s a trick question. Because at least in Summer 2021, the answer may not to be found on Earth at all. It’s in space.
Once Jeff Bezos (net worth according to Forbes: 212.4 billion USD), Richard Branson (5.9 billion USD), and Elon Musk (162.8 billion USD) finally stop talking about it and actually get into space (with Musk sort of cheating by buying a ticket on Branson’s Virgin Galactic machine), their combined riches (381.1 billion USD) will turn space into a place with enough money to bump Norway from its current spot as the 51st wealthiest nation in the IMF ranking of worldwide GDPs.
How concentrated is this wealth?
Estimating this depends on how we define “space” and the “population” of it, how many people that actual is, and how much other space-farers are worth, which are impossible things to pin down without a whole lot of arm-waving. But we can still have fun trying.
To start with, for the sake of this thought-experiment, let’s generously define space to include the lowest edges of space/upper bits of the atmosphere at 50 miles up, since otherwise Virgin Galactic doesn’t even get to join the party. Then, let’s use a very imprecise and mutable period of time called Summer 2021 that encompasses all three billionaires’ trips, and let’s define the population of space as everyone who was there at some point during that time, even if they just came and left. Why such a relaxed census methodology? Well, since there is as yet no permanent human population in space, any minimum length of stay required to qualify as part of the “population” would be arbitrary, so we might as well treat “there, but just for a bit” and “there for longer than a bit, but less than forever” as the same.
Based on this, on July 10, 2021 (i.e., pre-billionaire time-point 0), the population of space was 10, according to the website www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com. The arrivals of Bezos, Branson, and Musk will raise this to 13, but when they blast off, they will also bring along crew and passengers, as well. I am not sure how many, and the numbers in the news are changing all the time. But this is all guess-work anyway, so let’s just say 7 in total, which means their escapades will double the “population” of “space” during “Summer 2021” to a total of 20 people. A veritable population explosion.
Twenty is a nice number to work with, too, and it means 3 billionaires and 17 “other people.” And while some of the “other people,” especially the billionaires’ family members and other (paying) passengers, are no doubt wealthy themselves, let’s make our lives easier by assuming all 17 “other people” are astronauts who earn 82,900.50 USD per year, the average US government salary for civilian astronauts (which, according to NASA range from 65,100 USD to 100,701 USD).
Based on these numbers, the wealth of the richest space-farer (capitalist-extraordinaire Bezos) is 126% more than the combined wealth of everyone else in space (richest-person-runner-up Musk, your-average-billionaire Branson, and pleb astronauts numbers 1 through 17). (Assumption alert: I know I am crudely conflating annual salary and net worth, but for salaries comparatively closer to 0 USD than say, to 1 billion USD, it seems reasonable to guesstimate that the two values converge; as a person’s salary goes towards 0, at some point, that person would have no assets left to sell except their labor, and would be living pay-check to pay-check, meaning net worth and salary become equalish.) The richest 10% of space-people (2 people: Bezos and Musk) control 98.5% of the wealth. And finally, in space, the bottom half of the population (10 astronauts) control only 0.0002% of the wealth.
That’s a whole lot of wealth concentrated in the top 10%, but it’s even crazier when you remember that Branson, with his mere 5.9 billion USD, doesn’t even qualify as one of the richest 10% in space — his money gets bundled in with the 17 astronauts’ annual salaries. The very fact that the wealth dynamics of space mean that Branson and his billions can get lumped into the “other people” category is telling in and of itself, and it conjures up funny, make-believe images of a disheveled Branson slumming in an Occupy Wall Street camp holding a sign that unconvincingly proclaims “I am part of the 90%.” Well, in space, I guess, but . . . space is weird.
If we decide to be nice to Branson, give him a “Participant” ribbon to hang on his wall, and calculate instead the percentage of wealth held by the top 15% (3 people, which includes him), we get a staggering 99.9996% concentration of wealth.
Perhaps most absurd of all, the burgeoning dynamics of hyperbolic wealth disparity in space risk the parody of making the situation on Earth look almost equitable by comparison. Down here, the United Nations estimates that the richest 10% on Earth control 85% of the household wealth, and the bottom 50% control under 1%. Seems bad, but see above, re: space.
Hang on a sec—the Earth’s wealth disparities don’t just seem better in comparison to space, they might actually get better once Bezos, Branson, and Musk leave for space. These UN numbers, after all, assume that Bezos, Branson, and Musk and their money still count as being “on Earth.” But what a quaint mistake. If we count their wealth as “space-wealth,” we can only in fairness subtract it from the Earth’s wealth. Given Bezos’ and Musk’s disproportionate worth compared to other billionaires (wealth distribution among billionaires is exponential, which means that excluding the top 10% of the richest 20 billionaires [i.e., Bezos and Musk] reduces this super-elite club’s combined wealth by c. 20%), the emigration of the world’s two richest men (and Branson, in place #589) might ever-so-slightly level the playing field on Earth.
So there you have it —through a whole lot of arm-waving, we have arrived at a practical way to address the wealth distribution problem on Earth. Just let the billionaires move to space; that’s where they want to go anyway.
PS. If you want to read a bit more about what all this might mean for human society in space, I’ve written about that too, here.