Limitarianism

‘The best case I've read for putting an upper limit on the accumulation of wealth’ Richard Wilkinson

'One of the most talked-about books to the moment … Limitarianism floats the heretical idea that fixing society isn’t just about saving the poorest from destitution, but about putting a cap on how much the richest are able to own' Spectator

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

We all notice when the poor get poorer: when there are more rough sleepers and food bank queues start to grow. But if the rich become richer, there is nothing much to see in public and, for most of us, daily life doesn't change. Or at least, not immediately.

In this astonishing, eye-opening intervention, world-leading philosopher and economist Ingrid Robeyns exposes the true extent of our wealth problem, which has spent the past fifty years silently spiralling out of control. In moral, political, economic, social, environmental and psychological terms, she shows, extreme wealth is not only unjustifiable but harmful to us all - the rich included.

In place of our current system, Robeyns offers a breathtakingly clear alternative: limitarianism. The answer to so many of the problems posed by neoliberal capitalism - and the opportunity for a vastly better world - lies in placing a hard limit on the wealth that any one person can accumulate. Because nobody deserves to be a millionaire. Not even you.

*Shortlisted for the Socrates Philosophy Prize*

Reviews

The current Buddha of the cap-the-rich movement is Ingrid Robeyns, a professor of ethics at Utrecht University and the author, in January, of Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth. It’s a bracing, scolding read