Oligarchy and Democracy in Indonesia 13
O ligarchy and Democracy in Indonesia Jeffrey A. Winters Introduction Of all political power resources in Indonesia, material power is by far the most concentrated, versatile, durable, and least constrained. The gap in material power across the population is among the largest in the world. Data from 2010 show that the average net worth of Indonesia's forty richest oligarchs is over 630,000 times the country's GDP per capita (in Thailand and South Korea the gap is 190,000 and 69,000 times, respectively). Although these oligarchs constitute less than 2/l,000,000ths of the population, their combined assets equal 10 percent of GDP.1 Even if we widen the lens to include the 43,000 Indonesians with liquid financial assets of at least US$1 million, the result is still an extraordinary concentration of material power resources in very few hands.2 Although these individuals represent barely 2/10,000ths of the population, on average they have at their disposal financial assets that are 1,220 times the annual income of the median Indonesian. Their combined assets equal fully 25 percent of GDP. Indonesia is following the classic pattern of capitalist development: as living 1 For further comparisons, see Table 1 later in this article. 2 The global wealth management industry calls these people high net-worth individuals, or HNWIs. In 2004, Indonesia had about 34,000 HNWIs with at least US$1 million in non-home financial assets, 19,000 of whom were Indonesians residing semi-permanently in Singapore. Their ranks grew to 39,000 by 2007.
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