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Time’s up?

The prodigality of the super-rich
by
July 2024, no. 466

Limitarianism: The case against extreme wealth by Ingrid Robeyns

Allen Lane, $55 hb, 328 pp

Time’s up?

The prodigality of the super-rich
by
July 2024, no. 466

Can people have too much wealth? Does extreme wealth have negative consequences? Over the past thirty years, there has been a remarkable rise in the number of billionaires whose annual earnings are so large that they are often difficult to comprehend. To take but one example, it was estimated in 2022 by Forbes magazine that Elon Musk’s personal assets were worth $219 billion and that, if he worked for forty-five years, his lifetime hourly rate from these assets was in the order of US$1,871,794.

Further, many of those in the ranks of the super-rich regularly engage in spectacular forms of conspicuous consumption that appear frivolous and wasteful – think of Jeff Bezos’s 2021 flight into space – especially when one considers the extreme forms of poverty and unmet need that exist across the globe. It is unsurprising, when confronted by these forms of extravagance, that many find such extreme forms of wealth to be morally repugnant.

Limitarianism: The case against extreme wealth

Limitarianism: The case against extreme wealth

by Ingrid Robeyns

Allen Lane, $55 hb, 328 pp

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Comments (2)

  • It would be an effort of immense proportions to go down this path, but yet witness the silence of Australia's intellectuals on such questions. The profound and disturbing fact is that to be educated is to be middle-class is to be indifferent to questions of equality in this age. Lulled into passivity by all the comforts of the age.
    Posted by Patrick Hockey
    11 July 2024
  • This is the sort of review that makes me want to read the book. So, I am.
    Posted by Robert Kennedy
    30 June 2024

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