The $10 Million Question
Why Ancient Wisdom About Wealth Limits Matters Now
Let's talk about how rich is too rich.
No, seriously. This isn't some theoretical exercise. It's the question that might determine whether our society survives the next few decades.
Ancient civilizations knew something we've conveniently forgotten: extreme wealth concentration is a societal cancer. The Hebrew Bible had a built-in wealth reset button every seven years. Aristotle warned that too much inequality would destroy political stability. They weren't socialist revolutionaries - they were pragmatists who understood basic human nature.
Fast forward to 2024, and Dutch economist Ingrid Robbins is asking us to consider a radical idea that isn't actually radical at all: what if we capped personal wealth at $10 million?
Before you dismiss this as socialist fantasy, consider that FDR proposed something even more stringent in 1942 - an income cap equivalent to $480,000 in today's money. Your grandparents' America was more "radical" than anything progressives are proposing today.
Here's the kicker: most people already have an intuitive sense of what "too rich" means. In the Netherlands, 90% of people consider a family with €4 million in assets to be "super-rich." We all know there's a line somewhere. We're just afraid to draw it.
But while we hesitate, the ultra-wealthy are redrawing our world in their image. Look at Mexico City, where luxury high-rises literally loom over shanties built in ravines. That's not economic efficiency - it's economic violence written in concrete and steel.
The usual objections are predictable:
- "But what about innovation?"
- "Won't this kill motivation?"
- "How would we even enforce it?"
Let's be real. Nobody needs a billion dollars to innovate. The internet, vaccines, and most world-changing innovations came from people who weren't billionaires. As for motivation - are we really suggesting people won't work hard unless they can accumulate endless wealth? That's not human nature; that's propaganda.
Enforcement? We already have mechanisms - progressive taxation, wealth taxes, inheritance limits. We don't lack tools; we lack political will.
But here's what makes Robbins' argument powerful: limiting extreme wealth isn't just about helping the poor. It's about saving our entire society from collapse. Extreme wealth concentration corrupts everything it touches:
- Democracy becomes plutocracy
- Education becomes segregated
- Healthcare becomes a luxury
- The environment becomes collateral damage
The evidence is clear. Countries with lower inequality have better health outcomes, lower crime rates, better education, and higher social mobility. This isn't ideology; it's data.
Think I'm exaggerating? Look around. We're watching in real-time as wealth concentration tears our society apart. Billionaires are building space rockets while teachers buy their own school supplies. They're hoarding houses while millennials can't afford rent. They're creating artificial scarcity while preaching about market efficiency.
The truth is, a wealth cap isn't radical - what's radical is allowing unlimited wealth accumulation in a world with finite resources. What's radical is watching our society collapse while arguing about whether billionaires should exist.
We're not talking about eliminating wealth or success. We're talking about putting reasonable limits on accumulation - limits that ancient societies understood were necessary for survival.
$10 million is still an enormous amount of money. You could live luxuriously for the rest of your life on that. The question isn't whether that's enough. The question is: why do we allow people to accumulate hundreds or thousands of times more than that while others can't afford basic necessities?
The choice is simple: we can keep pretending this system is sustainable, or we can have an honest conversation about limits. History suggests societies that choose the former don't last very long.
What's it going to be?
Because time is running out, and the billionaires are already building their bunkers in New Zealand.
Maybe it's time we started building something else: a society that doesn't need bunkers in the first place.
Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth - S2 E43
> Enforcement? We already have mechanisms - progressive taxation, wealth taxes, inheritance limits. We don't lack tools; we lack political will.
Alas capital moves to wherever the taxes are lowest. The above is a good example of a well meaning idea that has failed every time it's been attempted and it's been attempted many times. Besides, there are better ways:
> They're creating artificial scarcity while preaching about market efficiency.
Indeed. But notice that the almost universal housing crisis -- universal in the West anyway -- has gotten steadily worse under the rule of the globalist progressive agenda of the Davoisee who sell themselves as friends of The People. They are lying. The people who believe in 'market efficiency' aren't making the rules.