The Wealthiest 1% Can Be Good for Everybody
Inequality between the very richest and the rest correlates with greater innovation. But we mustn't let the top level become a closed shop.
Better to bust the trusts than soak the rich.
Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
The share of income and wealth going to the so-called “1%” has incensed protesters and agitated economists around the world. From the Occupy Wall Street movement to the work of academics such as Thomas Piketty and Gabriel Zucman, attention has zeroed in on what the super-rich earn and own, and on how governments should use taxes for redistribution.
Such policy ideas have taken center stage in the primaries of the U.S. Democratic Party, which decide who will challenge President Donald Trump in 2020. One of the runners, Senator Elizabeth Warren, advocates a 2% wealth tax on fortunes above $50 million. She has found unlikely billionaire allies, including the investor George Soros and Facebook Inc.’s co-founder Chris Hughes, who say they’d accept a levy on their riches to “help address the climate crisis, improve the economy, improve health outcomes.”