Away with the immense wealth. A million euros, that’s how much a person should own. Not anymore

Differences between people should not be too great. That only produces rubbish. Robeyns cannot emphasize this often enough. She has been talking about it for years and is supported by influential thinkers and mentions many of them in her book. Ancient thinkers, such as Plato. And today, such as the activist Disney heiress and film producer Abigail Disney who talks about being addicted to money, and opinion maker Sander Schimmelpenninck. Owning wealth is good. Money allows you to take risks, to try to make your dreams come true. But too much? You shouldn’t have that.

What kind of mess comes from it?

Schimmelpenninck, himself rich, warned about the appeal of populist parties. The populists will channel all feelings of resentment into various forms of violence: xenophobia, anti-Semitism and hatred towards sexual minorities, especially transgender people.

Other empires see the danger too. They themselves are already raising the warning finger. They have been doing that for many years. In January 2020, 121 millionaires and billionaires sent an open letter to the participants of the World Economic Forum in Davos for the first time. They warned of the negative consequences of increasing economic inequality: more tensions between different groups in society, less trust, a stronger sense of injustice, crumbling social cohesion. Moreover, it undermines the ability of the world as a whole to tackle the climate crisis. The group of rich people, called Patriotic Millionaires, did not stop after that. He kept sending letters. Again this year: ‘Extreme differences are unsustainable, often dangerous and rarely tolerated for long’.

Robeyns mentions the American venture capitalist Nick Hanauer (estimated net worth: half a billion dollars). In 2014, he did not appeal to morality but emphasized the self-interest of the immensely wealthy: “In all of human history, there is no example where such great wealth was amassed and the pitchforks did not eventually come out. Call me a deeply unequal society and I’ll show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. So the question is not if, but when.” Hanauer believes that reduced economic inequality not only leaves the pitchfork in the stable, but will also lead to growth of the entire economic pie, making everyone better off.

According to Robeyns, the rich can also buy political power, which undermines democracy. In addition, the rich emit a disproportionate amount of CO₂. “We are destroying the planet, our livelihoods are being destroyed.”

The rich worked hard for it, right?

The entire society is working hard, Robeyns believes. And then there is such a thing as coincidence. That role is big. We underestimated him, she says. What is important is: where was your crib? What talent did you receive? What’s already there? “Entrepreneurs start in an environment in which the preliminary work has already been done by others. Think tech millionaires. These build on what the government has already introduced, namely the internet. If we recognized that, perhaps we would be more modest, more merciful, more understanding towards people who are down on their luck. Then there would be more solidarity.”

Robeyns further believes that the rich have no moral right to a lot of money. “Some of the assets are contaminated money,” she argues. “It was acquired through crime, abuse of power, fraud. Another part is inherited. Inheritances are also not a matter of one’s own merit.”

But even if the fortune has been earned fairly, according to Robeyns, it is not the merit of one person. “You can only become rich by working together with others.” She points to a recent study by French economist Gabriel Zucman, an expert on tax avoidance and evasion. Also director of the think tank EU Tax Observatory, founded in 2020, which must advise the European Union on combating tax avoidance by multinationals. “In the Netherlands, the very richest 5 percent pay less tax than the rest of the population. The rich know how to avoid taxes. That’s what I call ‘legal evasion’.

How can you counteract immense wealth?

There has been a lot of talk and writing about this. The Patriotic Millionaires argue for higher taxes. Robeyns wants a fair inheritance tax. “Of course we can’t do it alone. We must close tax havens and control international financial flows. There should also be a limit on inheritances and donations and top incomes of CEOs.”

Hanauer wants to strengthen the position of the middle class. Wages have to go up. Workers can then simply buy a bouquet of flowers and go out for dinner. If the middle class gets a decent wage, companies benefit and – yes – the rich get richer as well.

The famous French economist Thomas Piketty recently proposed taxing assets above 10 million euros at 1.5 percent and increasing that rate. Robeyns is also in favor of a progressive tax system.

In 2012, British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg wanted to levy a one-off tax on the wealth of super-rich Britons to combat the economic recession and avoid social unrest.

“We no longer see ourselves as active citizens, but as consumers, family members, someone with a job,” says Robeyns. She believes that ‘we’ should work for the unions and stand up for movements that advocate for justice. “I have a lot of admiration for the food bank volunteers, but they do not change the system. They pick up the pieces. I am in favor of collective action, as we recently had PO and VO in action [docenten van de basisscholen en de middelbare scholen, red.]. They have achieved something.”

Citizens are also no longer well informed, the professor argues. “Give free newspapers to the least fortunate. To be a good citizen, you have to know what’s going on.”

And then there are the rich who give away their entire fortune. Robeyns mentions MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. “She realized that her prosperity comes from society and gives it back to society.”

Shouldn’t we dust off communism?

“No. That does not work. People need incentives to go the extra mile, to color outside the lines, to think outside the box. We do need a new ideology. A ‘new social contract’. I used that term long before Pieter Omtzigt used it for his party.”

What prevents us from setting an upper limit?

According to Robeyns, Dutch conservative and right-wing politicians have coined a new word: ‘jealousy tax’. They use that word when someone proposes a tax that will hit rich people hard. “In all kinds of countries we see variations on the same theme: if you focus on the rich, you will be jealous.” Robeyns – not rich – is also regularly accused.

“The vast majority of the rich avoid difficult questions about capital formation,” Robeyns argues. She cites the example of immigrant son Vivek Ramaswamy, an American entrepreneur and investor, who would later become a presidential candidate for the Republicans. He talks about the importance of equal opportunities. “Who isn’t in favor of that?”

According to Robeyn’s assessment, we should not link money one-to-one. “That is typically neoliberal. Neoliberal thinking has slowly spread since the 1930s. In neoliberalism you assume that people are only driven by material incentives. The sky’s the limit . According to neoliberalism, every choice is the responsibility of the individual. This means that the outcome, inequality, is fair. In the 1960s through the 1980s, especially during the rise of the late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (UK) and the late President Ronald Reagan (US), neoliberals were given ample opportunity to spread the idea that government is incapable. He is not incapable, we have made him incapable. We have eroded the government’s effectiveness.”

Some measures are also unpopular among the middle class, Robeyns is well aware of that. Think of the fair inheritance tax she would like to see. “But that problem can be tackled by not allowing that tax to flow into the government’s coffers, but by providing young people with starting capital, as advocated by British inequality economist Tony Atkinson and Piketty.”

Why the upper limit of one million euros?

“I make a distinction between the political wealth line and the personal-ethical one. The political one, in my opinion, is higher, at 10 million euros. This is the limit we want to reach through the organization of society. I try to find the middle ground between: when does wealth affect political equality and disrupt the climate and what is the level at which people who are mainly driven by money still want to work and innovate? Then I arrive at 10 million euros.”

“As far as I am concerned, the personal-ethical wealth limit is 1 million euros. This is about a moral appeal that we make to people not to keep more than what they need. Why should a person have more money? You can no longer eat bread because of it. With 1 million euros per person you can also live very generously, at least for a Dutch person. In London or New York you might need a little more.” Robeyns believes that this is still very reasonable. Because this also applies: someone cannot pat themselves on the back and say that they did it all themselves.

According to Robeyns, we need the surplus money of the super-rich to do something about the climate and hunger in the world. “The strongest shoulders must bear the heaviest burdens. You cannot combat inequality alone by combating poverty. If there is a limit to poverty, then to limit inequality, there must also be a limit to wealth. Logical, right?”