Forbes' annual rich list reveals that 2,781 people in the world have fortunes in excess of $1 billion. 141 people joined the list in 2023, with a combined wealth of around $14 trillion - a $2 trillion collective increase on the previous year. There are now more billionaires than ever before. It is a grotesque state of affairs, when we reflect on the misery and hardship that have been wrought by the cost of living crisis, soaring inflation, and years of stagnating pay and decaying public services. Clearly, amidst such stark inequality, there is an urgent need to do things differently.
That’s the argument made by Luke Hildyard in his new book, Enough: Why It's Time to Abolish the Super-Rich, which is out now from Pluto Press. Luke argues that far from being the hard-working and productive entrepreneurs that they claim to be, the super-rich are an extractive, parasitic force sucking up a vastly disproportionate share of society's resources – making the rest of us all poorer as a result.
Politicians make absurd promises about economic growth while ignoring the solution that's staring them in the face: a major programme of progressive taxation and economic reform that could be used to get the wealth of the one per cent flowing instead to the workers who actually create it.
Luke Hildyard is also the Director of the High Pay Centre, a UK think tank focused on pay, employment rights and responsible business.
Use the coupon PODCAST on plutobooks.com for 40% off the book.
Announcing the ’Locating Legacies’ Podcast: In Partnership with the Stuart Hall Foundation
RIC in-haus: The Cost of Living Crisis (and how to get out of it)
Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel
Practical Anarchism: A Guide for Daily Life
RIC in-haus: Expressionism and the Myth of the Western with Robin McLean
Workers Can Win: On Strike in 2022
RIC in-haus: Is Socialism Possible in Britain?
Hope in Hopeless Times: Fighting the Hydra of Money
RIC in-haus: Against Borders
Mussolini’s Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy
RIC in-haus: Neither Vertical nor Horizontal
The U.S. Constitution v. Democracy
RIC in-haus: Reclaiming Antiracism
From Carcerality to Abolitionism
RIC in-haus: The Ethical Stripper
Tangled in Terror: Uprooting Islamophobia
Trespass, the Commons and the Right to Roam
Black History Month: Curated Highlights
Public Health After Covid: A New Radical Blueprint
Black Anarchism Across the Generations
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free