No-one deserves to be a millionaire. Not even you.

Watching the behaviour, ideas and proposals of rich people, particularly some of them, one would easily align with a simple idea: the need of limiting personal wealth.

For a long time, I felt that there was something wrong with an individual amassing so much money, but I couldn’t properly articulate why (…) So in 2012 I decided to deploy my training in philosophy and economics to answer the question: can a person be too rich?

Some of my colleagues—professors in philosophy, economics, and related disciplines—were initially amused that I wanted to delve into all this.

In Limitarianism (2024), Professor Ingrid Robeyns argues that limiting wealth accumulation would make societies better overall. Problems created by extreme wealth are not just practical and political. Extreme wealth “is often tied to immoral and criminal practices”.

Scholars have increasingly documented how democracy can be undermined by the disproportionate political power of media tycoons, rich founders of philanthropic organizations and large political-party donors.

Her proposals build on the work of Anthony Atkinson’s book Inequality (2015), Thomas Piketty’s A Brief History of Equality (2021) and Isabelle Ferreras and colleagues’ Democratize Work (2022).

The original argument only applies to individuals with excess wealth. However, there is no reason why it should be restricted only to people. Given that corporations have rights similar to people, should they be held to the same consideration of surplus economic value?

In fact, Robeyns proposal is far from new. The first known use of the term “limitarianism” dates perhaps back to Christianity. And socialism and communism can be thought of as extreme forms of economic limitarianism. As a concept, it is simple, but the devil is in the details… What does it mean in practice?

In her recent book, Robeyns argues that governments should set a wealth limit on the order of 10 million euros per person. This level would be broadly accepted by the population.

Limitarianism means restricting inequality, while also accepting a certain degree of inequality.

She is aware of numerous objections: Doesn’t limitarianism mean equal outcomes for everyone? Doesn’t limiting how much wealth a person can accrue imply to give up private property or the market mechanism? Isn’t the desire to limit wealth driven by envy?

A paper published in 2021 argues that wellbeing cannot be objectively measured, and as such the limitarian concept of surplus money is invalid. Furthermore (my emphasis):

… instituting an upper wealth limit does not eradicate political inequality from society and that only by modifying the political process itself may we eliminate the ability for the rich to purchase political power.

Robeyns’ book endeavors to answer all these questions. Mine is simple:

Who/what is supposed to be the “entity” which is supposed to fix the limit, set the taxes, and make good use of the proceeds. The nation state? Isn’t it the same problem that Marx and Engels were unable to answer?

I also want to give it a name: Wehavenoideanism.

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Featured Image. Three well known billionaries (FOX Business Network)