They say the poor will always be with us, but so will the wealthy, or will they? should They are?
Not necessarily, as a quick look at the shelves of your local bookstore will show. Three new books about the place of the wealthy in society suggest that the issue has always been hotly debated, but especially so today as the wealth of the ultra-rich soars and inequality grows. That publishers sense a market for books that aim to expose and even abolish extreme wealth means the ultra-rich might take notice.
The two “abolished” books are Marginalism With Ingrid Robbins, philosopher at Utrecht University sufficient Both books are written by Luke Hildyard, director of the British think tank High Pay Centre. Robbins' book has a more left-wing academic bent, while Hildyard's has a more left-wing activist bent, but they cover roughly the same ground and make similar, well-known arguments.
sufficient It has a sharper title and sharper arguments, but Hildyard is less dogmatic than the subtitle suggests. Really His approach in the anti-slavery business is pragmatically focused on how much better and more fair our economy would be if fewer resources were controlled by the super-rich.
Robbins wants to argue more than this. Her book seeks to defend a principle that is both ethical and political. The “Limitarianism” of the title says that it is ethically wrong for anyone to be or become very wealthy, and that society needs to institutionalize this principle as a “regulative ideal.” In contrast to Hildyard's dispassionate but effective focus on policy details, Robbins' book is a critique of the psychological makeup of an accumulation-obsessed society, one in which not enough people “see themselves as activists, organizers, debaters, neighbors or members of political book clubs.”
She cites research showing that there is broad social agreement on the thresholds of amounts that people consider to be “rich” or “enough,” but these should be taken as rough figures, as they naturally vary from country to country. In her own Dutch context, she takes a wealth level of about 1 million euros (twice the price of an average London apartment) as the ethical limit that we should be personally comfortable with, and 10 million euros as the political limit that policies should ensure no one exceeds. (These are high wealth levels: in the UK, a couple with £2 million would be in the top 5% of households in terms of wealth, while £10 million would put them comfortably in the top 1%.)
Paradoxically, this holistic approach makes her unwilling to commit to an actual policy of 100% taxation on income or wealth above a certain level, which I naively thought was what “marginalism” meant. Instead, much of the book advocates the more vague goal of “dismantling neoliberal ideology.”
Overall, both books come down to the same idea: the super-rich are a waste of time, and society would be much better off if everyone only had moderate wealth. Both authors cite a ton of data that shows how weird wealth distribution is, such as the fact that in rich countries, the top 10% of the population owns 50-70% of all wealth. These facts are well known, but they bear repeating, as does the observation that over the past 40 years, tax systems in rich countries have become more favorable to capital income than to labor income, making them overall lighter on the wealthiest people and easier to avoid.
The two books also share many moral arguments. In general, the super-rich do not deserve their wealth. Even talented writers and athletes are lucky to benefit from well-functioning societies and winner-take-all economic structures. Beyond that, many sources of wealth range from dubious (including increased revenue from tax evasion) to criminal. Extreme inequality perpetuates poverty. Conversely, the authors cite research showing that greater equality leads to greater productivity. Finally, the authors point out urgent needs that can be met with resources currently controlled by the super-rich, from flawed public services to decarbonization.
Taken together, the authors make a strong moral and economic case for taxing the wealthy more and restructuring the economy to raise wages for ordinary people and reduce incomes for the wealthy. The strength of both books is that they overcome what Hildyard calls “false submission” and “subservience to the super-rich.” The authors want you to refuse to be impressed by wealth.
In this respect, the third book under review really shines: Guido Alfani's majestic As a god among men Blending data reaching back to the European Middle Ages, biographical overviews, and sociological observations, this book offers a comprehensive and welcome historical perspective on who the super-rich really are and how they became so.
Alfani, professor of economic history at Bocconi University, writes that over the centuries there were different paths to wealth. There was hereditary aristocracy. They were not only born rich, but also gained their wealth through land grabbing, as in the case of Alan Rufus, a soldier and relative of William the Conqueror, who was rewarded with land worth 7.3% of England's total national income. Then there were innovators and financiers, in the Middle Ages in trade, and then, from the Age of Discovery, in exploitation. Financial innovation was always a source of profit: Italian bankers developed bills of exchange to overcome the ban on usury.
Alfani shows that there is nothing new about the “ultra-rich,” including most of what appears in his other two books: the term itself has a long history. excess Nicolas Oresme, advisor to the 14th century King Charles V of France, believed that they “so far surpassed all other men in political power that it was proper to consider them among men, as gods are among men.” [a just] “Law stipulating that a person cannot possess more than a certain amount of property through inheritance or otherwise” – this is the 1370 version of “Marginalism.”
Alfani's rich historical lines can inform contemporary activist debates. For example, he writes that America's Founding Fathers “prayed for low taxes, small bureaucracy, and economic Laissez-faire “The political system is starved of the resources necessary to achieve this unequal redistribution” – in other words, the extreme oligarchic inequality observed in undemocratic Europe. more Reducing extreme inequality may require reducing capitalism and free-market competition, because that would close off the ability of many of the super-rich to benefit from the market forces that create their wealth.
Alfani’s work shows that history supports Hildyard and Robbins’ argument that it takes more force than we realize to curb the excesses of wealth. Not because it’s easy—indeed, Alfani documents an 800-year trend of increasing inequality, interrupted only by disasters like the Black Death and two world wars, whose destruction also ultimately led to a greater equalization of wealth—but because, historically, discussions of the wealthy have always included harsh assessments of their potentially useful social functions.
In the Middle Ages, the moral pressure to justify one's wealth was clearly strong. Some very wealthy merchants, such as Francis of Assisi and Godric of Finchale, found that they could not do so and chose to give away their wealth. Viable justifications included “grandeur”, i.e. accepting a social obligation to fund public goods on a large scale, and savings that allowed the accumulation of productive resources. However, all three authors place little value on modern charity, seeing it as more of an exhibitionism than a “grandeur”. Robbins, however, has much sympathy for the rare “patriotic oligarch” who enforces taxation and for those who are keen to donate their wealth, in line with his “restrictionist” ethic.
The reader is struck by how the social role of the rich has (just) become permanently unstable within our memories: Keynesian macroeconomics showed that savings do not automatically generate investment, much less productive investment, while the post-1945 welfare state entrenched the idea that in democratic societies the state has primary responsibility for public goods.
Does this weaken the status of the wealthy in secular terms? Alfani argues persuasively that society's tolerance of the wealthy depends on the recognition that they must fund common needs. He warns that “in trying to resist taxation, the wealthy actually weaken their own social status.” Western cultures have historically given status to the wealthy, he writes, not just because of their philanthropy or philanthropy, but because they accepted being taxed when necessary.
Alfani points out that this did not happen with the global financial crisis or the eurozone crisis, nor with the pandemic or the energy crisis. He could have added that the super-rich are instead trying to distance themselves even further from the fate of ordinary people, using everything from cryogenic preservation to stateless “ocean settlements”. “Are they finally acting like gods among men, destroying democratic institutions and creating a scenario that some people imagined already in the Middle Ages,” he asks of the super-rich.
This warning from history sounds more ominous than anything policy experts or philosophical or sociological treatises could produce. Well-heeled readers might do well to heed Alfani's warning: “We would do well to revisit classical mythology…even gods can fall.” [and] If that happens, the impact will be devastating.”
Marginalism: A Counterargument to Extreme Wealth Ingrid Robbins Allen Lane, 25 pounds, 336 pages
Gods among Men: A History of the Western Wealthy Guido Alfani Princeton $35/£30, 440 pages
Enough is Enough: Why we should abolish the super-rich Luke Hildyard Pluto Press £14.99, 160 pages
Martin Sandbu of the FT He is a European economic commentator and author of the Free Lunch newsletter.
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Responses to this article:
Fair distribution increases productivity / From Jennifer Milner, London SE5, UK
Cutting the economic cake is not easy / From Evan Hoff, London NW11, UK
