Is it possible to have too much wealth? To be too rich? And should we therefore have a cap on wealth?
Dutch political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns believes the answer to those questions are: yes, yes and yes!
ACT Party leader David Seymour, on the other hand, argues: no, no and hell no.
Robeyns has written a book arguing that we’d have a vastly better world if we had a hard limit on the wealth that any one person can accumulate – a cap on the rich. She calls the concept Limitarianism – and she’s willing to put a number on it.
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So how much is too much?
Limitarianism suggests that each country and society works out its own threshold depending on things like welfare provision, health care, a public pension system, etc.
And Robeyns says you have to take into account the large number of people in society who are motivated by financial gain.
“To allow those people, who are motivated by money, to at least keep contributing to the economy, I think you need a number that’s sufficiently high.”
That number?
“I proposed, as a ballpark figure for discussion, 10 million euros,” says Robeyns.
Which would mean a cap on wealth of over NZ$18m.
Stuff
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