● Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth
Ingrid Robeyns
Review via The Times
Why should we tax the rich? Because that’s where the money is.
A new book putting the ‘limitarian’ case for imposing a ceiling on personal wealth begs an interesting debate about society’s future.
Nobody deserves to be a multimillionaire and no one, ideally, should be allowed to amass a personal fortune of more than £1 million. So says the Dutch philosopher and economist Ingrid Robeyns in a provocative new book, Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth, out this month.
Limitarians believe that there should be a ceiling on personal wealth. Just as governments nowadays routinely set minimum legal wage levels, so they also should set maximum nest-egg sizes.
Much wealth is undeserved, amassed through criminality or market abuse of some kind and undermines democracy. Worse, the very process by which it is piled up has the effect of keeping the poor poor. That’s the limitarian view, anyway.