Abstract
This paper proposes a view, called limitarianism, which suggests that there should be upper limits to the amount of income and wealth a person can hold. One argument for limitarianism is that superriches can undermine political equality. The other reason is that it would be better if the surplus money that superrich households have were to be used to meet unmet urgent needs and local and global collective action problems. A particular urgent case of the latter is climate change. The paper discusses one objection to limitarianism, and draws some conclusions for society, as well as for the human development paradigm and the capability approach.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 251-266 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Journal of Human Development and Capabilities |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 3 Jul 2019 |
Funding
This paper is the revised version of my presidential address to the Human Development and Capability Association, Buenos Aires, 30 August 2019. I am grateful to the conference participants for discussion, as well as for comments from Enrica Chiappero Martinetti, Colin Hickey, Matthias Kramm and Dick Timmer. The research presented in this paper is financially supported by an ERC-COG, grant agreement #726153.
Keywords
- Climate change
- Economic inequalities
- Limitarianism
- Needs
- Poverty
- Wealth
