[How About This Book] Extreme Wealth Is Illicit Money... A Provocative Idea to Limit Individual Wealth

German Companies with Nazi Legacies... Accumulated Wealth through Slave Trade in the US
Immoral Wealth Deepens Inequality... Proposing "Personal Wealth Cap"
Inheritance as Unearned Income for Decedent... Taxation Where Income Exists Is Natural

"Can anyone truly say that they earned their wealth solely through their own effort and ability?"

This is a provocative question appearing in Chapter 6 of The Limits of Wealth. The implied meaning between the lines seems to be that no wealthy person has earned money solely through effort and ability. At first glance, this might seem like an overly extreme and narrow claim. However, considering the recent increase in senseless violent crimes in our society, it is clear that more people are dissatisfied with the ways wealth is created today.

Ingrid Robeyns, the author of The Limits of Wealth, is a philosopher and economist who serves as the head of the Institutional Ethics division at the Ethics Institute of Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She argues that wealth, which is increasingly deepening inequality today, possesses highly immoral and sometimes illegal characteristics. Because wealth is immoral and illegal, she claims that no one deserves to become a multimillionaire or billionaire. Therefore, she proposes a new concept called "Limitarianism," which sets an upper limit on the amount of wealth a person can hold.

[How About This Book] Extreme Wealth Is Illicit Money... A Provocative Idea to Limit Individual Wealth

Robeyns cites various examples of immoral money, ranging from German companies associated with atrocities during the Nazi era to today's multinational corporations that evade taxes using tax havens. Some billionaires in Germany today hope that society does not focus on the actions of their ancestors during World War II, as the former owners profited during the process of Nazi crimes against humanity. BMW and Porsche are examples.

In the United States, wealth is also immoral due to the low proportion of Black wealth, fundamentally because it was accumulated through the transatlantic slave trade. Robeyns argues that the present value of lost wages that Black slaves in the U.S. were not paid for their labor amounts to $20.3 trillion, and if they had received just compensation, the wealth of Black Americans today would be much greater.

Another example of immorally accumulated wealth includes kleptocrats and corrupt public officials. Kleptocrats are those who seek political power to increase their wealth and then use that wealth to maintain their power once in office. Such cases can be found among dictators in various developing countries, and in Europe, Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi are representative examples.

Many multinational corporations today transfer profits to avoid taxes. The market for the wealth defense industry, which helps minimize tax payments legally within the bounds of the law, is also growing. Although the wealth secured in this way may be legal, it cannot be considered moral.

Robeyns also presents philosophical grounds for advocating Limitarianism. She argues that the market that creates wealth is a social institution. British philosopher Thomas Hobbes claimed that selfish humans in a state of nature engage in a war of all against all, and governments formed through social contracts were created to prevent this. Markets are also social institutions constructed, protected, and operated by governments. Without a government to protect interests in the market, the market could become a state of war of all against all, as Hobbes suggested. Therefore, wealth created in the market as a social institution can be grounds for limiting its use as a tool for extreme personal gain.

One might counter Robeyns' argument by saying that many wealthy people today give back to society through philanthropy. However, Robeyns argues that charity is not the solution. If governments can implement effective poverty alleviation policies, then the philanthropic activities of the wealthy to help the poor would be unnecessary. In other words, Robeyns advocates for collecting taxes and aiming for a larger government.

Regarding the "hot potato" of inheritance tax, she argues that it is a proper tax. Robeyns points out that inheritance will be a major cause of worsening inequality in the future and that large-scale inheritance is a serious problem. Regarding the controversy over double taxation of inheritance tax, she argues that from the heir's perspective, inheritance is income, and since it is unearned income, it is natural to tax income where it exists. Humanity abolished monarchy and established republics. Robeyns asks why humanity cannot abolish the inheritance of economic power just as it abolished the inheritance of political power.

Countless books point out the contradictions of capitalism and the problem of inequality. Among these, The Limits of Wealth appears to present quite radical claims. This can be interpreted as evidence that the contradictions of capitalism are becoming extreme and inequality is worsening. On the other hand, because it is too radical, doubts arise about whether her claims can be realized in today's society where the capitalist system is firmly established.

Robeyns proposes Limitarianism as a regulatory ideal. She acknowledges that realizing Limitarianism in the current capitalist system is a challenging process and recommends adopting it as a goal to strive toward. After studying extreme wealth for ten years, Robeyns concluded that a world without super-rich individuals must be created and emphasizes the ultimate need for ethics. Like the case of American physician Jonas Salk: Salk invented the first polio vaccine in 1955, contributing to the near eradication of polio in the U.S. He did not profit from the polio vaccine patent. When asked who owns the patent, Salk replied, "People do. There is no patent. Can you patent the sun?"