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Dear John,
Next week, some of the richest people in the world will come together at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The event bills itself as “committed to improving the state of the world.”
Just over the last year, the worlds’ wealthiest families became $1.5 trillion richer. This ever-increasing economic inequality is hurting democracy and feeding into political extremes, including the rise of fascist leaders and anti-democratic movements, as billions of people are left behind to sink further into poverty.
Historically, the “trickle-down” policies of cutting the tax obligations of the super-rich shrink the economic pie for most of the world’s population, exacerbating the suffering of the world’s poor and limiting the resources governments have to fight poverty.
The excessive concentration of extreme wealth in a few hands leads to other global problems too, including wage stagnation, degraded infrastructure, a lack of public services, and the destabilization of democracy itself.
We must stop passing the buck to our children and our children’s grandchildren.
It’s time for global leaders to address the underlying policies that drive increasing economic inequities. Demand leaders at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos tax extreme wealth now.
Obviously, fixing economic inequality worldwide is not an easy task. But the reality is the one solution that would have the most immediate positive effect is taxing extreme wealth.
Governments need funding to level the playfield through investments, regulation, and legal enforcement of the law that enforce competition and fair play in markets. They need resources to provide food and housing assistance, build and rebuild infrastructure like schools, roads, and in some places electricity. All of that comes from taxes.
Taxing extreme wealth has another very direct and simple benefit too. It means the super rich will be a little less rich, helping to close the economic inequality gap with each new dollar collected.
Now, the cost to attend the World Economic Forum can be as much as $250,000, ensuring that only some of the world’s most privileged 1% can attend. And I’ll admit there is a certain irony to inviting the world’s most elite billionaires and millionaires to solve problems that are largely a result of the same policies that often made them rich.
After all, in the past, there seems to have been very little introspection about their own role in other world affairs. For example, while the climate crisis is high on the Davos agenda, Greenpeace has found that one in ten attendees arrives by private jet. With over 1,000 private jet flights to and from the 2022 conference, the attendees alone quadrupled Davos’ usual weekly carbon emissions reaching the equivalent of the CO2 emissions of about 350,000 automobiles.
The shortest of these private jet flights was an easily driveable 13 miles.
Still, even billionaires and millionaires are not immune to public pressure. And global leaders understand that everything they do at this conference will be covered in the media and scrutinized worldwide. That’s why it’s not likely that so many attendees will arrive by private jet this year.
It’s also why we must not ignore this opportunity in our fight to rein in income inequality. Let the world leaders at Davos know: the time is now to take the initiative and tax extreme wealth.
Thank you for insisting the world’s elites commit to taking actual corrective actions as they seek to consider how to improve the world.
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
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