It is well known that Brazil has extreme wealth inequality, with excessive wealth concentrated in 1% of the population, in particular 0.1% of the population. In 2024, those that ranked in the top 1% of income made 21,767 reals per month on average. The top 10% (inclusive of the top 1%) earned 8034 reals on average per month. Those with earnings in the bottom 50% earned 713 reals per month on average. That is, the top ranked 1% earned on average over 30 times what the bottom ranked 50% earned. Within this very low paid group around half live in poverty. It is well established that both a low absolute income and relative income inequality are strong drivers of ill-health and premature mortality.

The wealthy elite live in their own universe. In Sao Paolo, a massive city where many of the wealthiest live, they conduct their daily commute on helicopter highways. They move from home to the office and then to lunch, landing on the rooftops, completely avoiding the world in the streets below. Helicopter travel is a perk of being rich in Sao Paolo, with the city having the most helicopters in the world to service the demand.  As a direct result of the extreme wealth inequality, the wealthy are required to fund their own security to keep them and their possessions safe. They live in high security buildings or in condominiums behind high walls with electrified fences.

If they want to holiday, they take their private jets. Helpfully, expensive resorts boast the details of their private airports with a runway and parking spaces for the jets. They have private beaches with associated security. In one example, in the trendy beach town of Trancoso, the wealthy can purchase a holiday condominium that includes replicas of the main square of Trancoso. While most of us travel to see the sites, in Brazil the wealthy need go no further than their compound to see the sites.

While most certainly these examples increase the comfort of life for the super wealthy, they also serve to ensure separation from the rest of Brazil. There is no need to consider their extreme wealth relative to others, because they don’t see how anyone else lives. This separation serves to dull empathy, a core part of a socially cohesive society. Empathy is the means with which we bridge the differences between communities based on race, gender or culture, for example. It allows us to consider not just our own needs, but those of others.

The effect of this separation of worlds is especially problematic given with the extreme wealth comes extreme power. The very people who would have the power to make Brazil a fairer society are the same ones who are separate from it. What chances are there for the resources and power that comes with it to be shared?

This story is true worldwide, of course, including in Australia. The separation between the wealthiest in Australia and those with the least is also vast, even if less obvious than in Brazil. The ABS reported in 2020 that Australia had the 17th highest level of income inequality among the 34 OECD countries for which data was available.

The last thing we want and need as a society is more helicopter highways.