The Case Against Extreme Wealth (with Ingrid Robeyns)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2024

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Nick and Goldy sit down with ethics professor Ingrid Robeyns to discuss her groundbreaking new book, Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth. Robeyns challenges the idea that it’s acceptable to allow extreme wealth concentration and inequality to persist, advocating instead for a hard cap on wealth accumulation. Nick and Goldy navigate the moral and practical implications of wealth limits on society, democracy, and ecological sustainability. Ingrid Robeyns is a distinguished scholar and Professor of Ethics of Institutions at Utrecht University, and author of the new book, Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth. Professor Robeyns’ research in the field of Ethics and Political Philosophy focuses on issues of justice, inequality, well-being, and the ethical dimensions of societal structures and policies. Twitter: @IngridRobeyns Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0	The rising inequality and growing political instability that we see today are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory.
0:10.0	It's time to build our economy from the bottom up and from the middle out, not the top down.
0:15.3	Middle out economics is the answer.
0:17.7	Because Wall Street didn't build this country.
0:20.0	Great middle class built this country.
0:22.2	The more the middle class thrives,
0:24.4	the better the economy is for everyone,
0:27.5	even rich people like me. This is pitchfork economics with Nick Hanauer, a podcast about how to build the economy from the middle out.
0:42.0	Welcome to the show.
0:44.0	You've been spending a lot of time in London the past few years Nick haven't you I have yeah I I don't know I know how much British history you've studied but I have a little historical fact for you that you may find surprising.
1:07.8	Did you know that nearly 70% of the land in the UK is owned by less than 1% of Britain's and that the vast majority of that land is owned by descendants of the Normans who invaded over a thousand years ago and stole that land. That if you are paying rent in
1:36.7	Britain you are paying rent to a descendant of a Norman invader.
1:43.0	What's the moral of that story?
1:44.7	It pays to invade?
1:46.1	The moral of that story, Nick,
1:51.6	is how long inherited fortunes can last.
1:57.8	Oh, yeah.
1:58.8	Not just a generation or two, but for a millennium, you can have that extreme inequality.
2:06.0	Again, chances are your landlord, now I assume you bought your house as opposed to renting it though I don't know maybe you had to rent the land because me I don't know how it works there no no no no you in fact you're right like you know most of the places in London are land leases right where you're you know you pay
2:28.9	Again some aristocratic landlord
2:32.3	That's right an actual lord.
2:34.0	We call them landlords now, but they are Norman lords.
	...

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