Aotearoa's Billionaire Class Thrives As Everyone Else Struggles

Scoop

11 hours ago

In a moment of deepening crisis for most working people in Aotearoa, the capitalist class has something to celebrate. According to the National Business Review's latest Rich List, New Zealand's wealthiest individuals now command a combined fortune of over $102 billion. Let that sink in. While people queue outside foodbanks, live in motels, or work three jobs to make rent, the ruling elite quietly consolidate their grip on the nation's resources. In a country founded on colonisation and class exploitation, this is not an aberration—it is the inevitable outcome of a system designed to enrich the few at the expense of the many.
This article isn't just about the numbers, obscene as they are. It's about what they reveal: the brutal logic of capitalist accumulation, the complicity of the state, and the need for radical alternatives. It's about a system that must be dismantled—not reformed. Aotearoa needs more than tinkering tax reforms or charitable crumbs. It needs a revolution in who controls the wealth, the land, and the means of life itself.
Billionaire Boom in the Age of Misery
The Rich List paints a picture of staggering inequality. From the Mowbray siblings, whose empire in toys and consumer products has inflated their wealth to over $20 billion each, to the increasing ranks of tech entrepreneurs and investment magnates, the ultra-rich in Aotearoa are thriving. In fact, the number of billionaires on the list has jumped, with a total of 18 now sitting atop a mountain of wealth that dwarfs our public health and education budgets combined.
What's striking is not just the scale of their riches but the context in which it is growing. These gains have been made not despite 'tough times,' but because of them. As inflation, housing costs, and food prices surged, the wealthy were positioned to profit. They owned the assets—property, shares, companies—that inflated in value. While the average family scraped to cover the rising cost of groceries or power, the elite cashed in. Capitalism doesn't just weather crises—it feeds on them.
What we are witnessing is not some neutral or unfortunate side effect of market dynamics. It is systemic. The rich get richer because the economic system is built to transfer wealth upward, from workers to owners, from renters to landlords, from the public to the private. If you're shocked that the rich are thriving while the rest suffer, you're finally seeing the system as it really is.
Meritocracy Is a Myth
We are often told that such wealth is the reward of hard work, innovation, or risk-taking. But let's be clear: billionaires are not the by-product of personal genius—they are the outcome of systemic theft. Their fortunes are built on labour they did not perform, land they did not rightfully inherit, and political conditions they did not create alone but which favour capital at every turn.
Take the Mowbrays. Their wealth has grown exponentially on the back of global manufacturing networks, cheap overseas labour, and intellectual property laws that allow the few to monopolise ideas. Or consider tech millionaires who capitalise on data extraction and financialisation rather than producing tangible value for communities. This is not innovation—it is extraction. The accumulation of billions requires not just success but a system rigged in your favour: a state that subsidises capital, tax loopholes that reward speculation, and a legal order that protects private property at all costs.
The billionaire class does not represent the best of us; they represent the worst: hoarding, opportunism, and a parasitic relationship with the rest of society. There is no moral justification for anyone to own that much in a world where others go without.
The Role of the State: Partner in Crime
You might think the government would look at this growing inequality with alarm. After all, wealth hoarding undermines social cohesion, corrodes democracy, and fuels resentment. But the opposite has occurred. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, a former Air New Zealand CEO and multi-millionaire himself, openly praised the increase in billionaires, calling it something to 'celebrate.'
This is the same government that talks of 'tightening belts' when it comes to funding mental health services or schools. It is the same state that introduces punitive welfare rules, cuts public services, and lectures beneficiaries about personal responsibility. Yet when the rich hoard billions, they are met with applause. When they evade taxes through loopholes, trusts, and clever accounting, they are called 'astute.' When they dominate the housing market, they are described as 'investors.'
The state is not a neutral body. It is the executive committee of the ruling class, managing the affairs of capital while selling us stories of democracy and fairness. The legal system protects private property over human need. The police are deployed to evict the homeless, not the landlords. The state's primary allegiance is not to the people but to profit.
Tokenism and the Women's Rich List
One of the more perverse developments this year is the fanfare around the new 'Women's Rich List.' Heralded as a sign of progress, this list celebrates the rising fortunes of a handful of ultra-wealthy women. Anna Mowbray and Lucy Liu have joined the boys' club of billionaires, and media outlets are hailing this as a feminist achievement.
This is not feminism—it is neoliberal tokenism. The presence of women among the elite changes nothing about the structure of class exploitation. Whether it is men or women accumulating billions, the system remains violent, hierarchical, and unjust. True liberation does not come from seeing more women at the top of a pyramid built on the suffering of others. It comes from flattening the pyramid entirely.
The 'diverse billionaire' trope is a clever PR move. It suggests that capitalism can be made kinder, more inclusive, more ethical. But this is a fantasy. A woman exploiting labour is still an exploiter. A person of colour accumulating wealth through gentrification or property speculation is still contributing to the dispossession of others. Representation without redistribution is a trap.
Who Pays the Price?
While the rich celebrate, ordinary people are being crushed. The cost of living crisis continues unabated. Housing remains unaffordable in most parts of the country. Wages stagnate while landlords and banks raise rents and mortgages. The mental health system is in tatters. Food insecurity is rising, especially among children. And Māori, Pacific peoples, migrants, and working-class Pākehā bear the brunt.
This is not a shared crisis. It is a class war. And one side is winning decisively.
We are told there is no money for free dental care, no budget for proper public transport, no funds to end homelessness. Yet there are billions in private wealth sitting idle in trusts, investments, and offshore accounts. The issue is not scarcity—it is control. The problem is not mismanagement—it is ownership. Until we confront who owns what and why, we will continue to treat symptoms instead of causes.
A System Beyond Reform
Some will argue that we just need better taxes. And yes, taxing the rich is essential. But tax reforms alone will not end class society. They may slow the bleeding, but they won't heal the wound. We must go further.
The very idea of a billionaire is incompatible with a just society. No one should control that much wealth when others lack the basics. Redistribution cannot be voluntary. It must be structural. It must involve the collective reclaiming of land, housing, and resources from private hands and their return to common stewardship.
This is not a utopian dream. It is a necessity. Climate breakdown, economic instability, and social fragmentation are symptoms of a system that has reached its limits. Capitalism cannot be made sustainable or fair—it is built on exploitation. The choice is not between capitalism and socialism. It is between capitalism and collapse.
Toward Anarcho-Communism: Reclaiming the Commons
What would a different Aotearoa look like?
It would begin with decolonisation, returning land to tangata whenua, not as symbolic redress but as real power. It would mean abolishing private landlords and replacing them with community-controlled housing. It would mean transforming workplaces into cooperatives, where workers control the means of production and profits are shared or reinvested, not hoarded.
It would mean the end of the wage system as we know it. Instead of selling our lives to survive, we would organise around need and mutual aid. Health, education, transport, and food would be guaranteed—not because they are profitable but because they are essential.
And it would mean dismantling the state as a tool of elite domination. We do not need new politicians. We need new ways of making decisions: directly, collectively, and without hierarchy.
Anarcho-communism is not chaos. It is the self-organisation of communities based on equality, autonomy, and cooperation. It is the abolition of all forms of domination—class, colonial, gendered—and the building of a society in which everyone has what they need and no one has too much.
No More Billionaires
The Rich List is not a celebration. It is an indictment. It is evidence of a system in which the few feast while the many suffer. It is a monument to theft, protected by law and myth.
But it need not continue. We can dismantle the structures that make billionaires possible. We can reclaim our commons, redistribute wealth, and rebuild society on principles of cooperation, not competition.
We owe the rich nothing. They owe us everything.
Let's collect.