The world’s 85 richest people have as much wealth as half the world’s population (3.5 billion people), according to CNBC.
Roger Rabbit Commentary: The rich haven’t made many friends by dodging taxes and buying political favors, including exclusive access to valuable resources controlled by nation-states. But any socioeconomic system is bound to concentrate wealth in fewer and fewer hands; taken to its ultimate logic, this would result in one person owning all of the world’s wealth and property.
Estate taxes were invented partly to prevent this kind of outcome by redistributing large fortunes after every generation. Historically, we’ve seen that the children and grandchildren of those who succeeded in amassing enormous private fortunes often efficiently dissipate those fortunes in just one or two generations. So, to some extent, the problem takes care of itself. But why wait for robber barons to drop dead before getting their rapacious material appetites under control? Why not impose income tax rates that effectively cap how large the rewards for greed can grow? Maybe if CEOs weren’t allowed to collect $50 million salaries, there’d be more money available to pay workers $9 an hour.