Against Inequality: The Practical and Ethical Case for Abolishing the Superrich

"Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and the richest person in the world, currently possesses $270 billion dollars. An average American worker would have to work for seven-and-a-half million years to earn this much. To put the matter the other way round, the total amount of money that a typical American will earn in their whole life - after, say, forty years of work - is the same as would be earned by Musk in just fourteen minutes. During the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, 250,000 Americans died and 20 million lost their jobs in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, yet the country's 614 billionaires saw their wealth actually increase by a third, from $2.95 trillion to almost $4 trillion (Manjoo, 2020). Across the world, the richest eight individuals possess the same amount of wealth as half the entire planet - three and a half billion people (Oxfam, 2017). Never across the entire expanse of human history has such a level of inequality been seen before".
In an era of remarkable wealth idolatry, Tom Malleson investigates the ethical justifications of wealth inequality, taking the radical position that we should abolish the billionaires.Stark inequality is a problem the world over, but it has been worsening over the past thirty years, particularly in rich, economically developed countries. To acquire the same amount of wealth as Elon Musk, the average American worker would have to work for more than four and a half million years. Is this inequality morally acceptable and is it feasible to actually reduce inequality in the real world? In Against Inequality, Tom Malleson makes the case for rejecting meritocracy, presenting a strong defense against the claim that individuals "deserve" their wealth. Malleson argues that people, especially rich people, do not morally deserve the bulk of their income because it does not, by and large, come from anything the specific individual does, but is largely due to the vast understructure of other people's labor, in addition to their lucky possession of bodily talents and efforts. Furthermore, the book brings to light extensive historical and comparative evidence to show that raising taxes on both income and wealth is practically feasible and that the costs of doing so are far outweighed by the truly enormous benefits that such taxes could bring in terms of environmental sustainability, democratic equality, equal opportunity, and reduced racism and xenophobia. Unlike previous books on inequality, Against Inequality focuses on the superrich, arguing that they have far too much: a world with billionaires alonside severe deprivation is a world without justice. Malleson's argument is not that billionaires are individually evil, but that a society that allows the existence of the superrich is structurally immoral. In an era of remarkable wealth idolatry, Against Inequality takes the radical position that we should abolish the billionaires.