KLAXON READS: THE BIG CON: Crackpot Economics and the Fleecing of America, & LIMITARIANISM: The Case Against Extreme Wealth

LIMITARIANISM: The Case Against Extreme Wealth
INGRID ROBEYNS
Astra House
$28.00 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: "A powerful case for limitarianism – the idea that we should set a maximum on how much resources one individual can appropriate. A must-read!" —Thomas Piketty, bestselling author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century

An original, bold, and convincing argument for a cap on wealth by the philosopher who coined the term "limitarianism."

How much money is too much? Is it ethical, and democratic, for an individual to amass a limitless amount of wealth, and then spend it however they choose? Many of us feel that the answer to that is no—but what can we do about it?

Ingrid Robeyns has long written and argued for the principle she calls "limitarianism"—or the need to limit extreme wealth. This idea is gaining momentum in the mainstream – with calls to "tax the rich" and slogans like "every billionaire is a policy failure"—but what does it mean in practice?

Robeyns explains the key reasons to support the case against extreme wealth:

It keeps the poor poor and inequalities growing

It’s often dirty money

It undermines democracy

It’s one of the leading causes of climate change

Nobody actually deserves to be a millionaire

There are better things to do with excess money

The rich will benefit, too

This will be the first authoritative trade book to unpack the concept of a cap on wealth, where to draw the line, how to collect the excess and what to do with the money. In the process, Robeyns will ignite an urgent debate about wealth, one that calls into question the very forces we live by (capitalism and neoliberalism) and invites us to a radical reimagining of our world.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Using moral arguments against massive wealth accumulation is like using moral arguments against porn: You could be right, probably aren't, and the target audience for your suasions could not possibly care less about them.

All the bullet list items above? The very wealthy know those to be true and could not possibly care less about them. "Every billionaire a policy failure" is way more effective because it simply states the people's case against the perpetrators of the crimes (moral and/or legal) that must be committed to become a billionaire.

What to do with the proceeds of the confiscation of excessive wealth is always going to be the weak point of any scheme to disempower the richest. The current Congress, like all its predecessors, is made up of people beholden to the moneymen. They will not confiscate and redistribute more than those who pay them...the people offer a token salary, the real money is in the campaign warchests they pay no tax on and use as they please...will allow.

Author Robeyns is firing an opening salvo in the next campaign against greed. It will persuade a few groundlings to talk it up and try to get it onto the agenda of more meetings.

Absolutely no billionaire will acquiesce to her suggestions. Therefore nothing will change as radically as she proposes.

That is not, in my view, the purpose of this read, any more than Marx or Mao delivered revolutions in human social or economic organization with their books. In fact both delivered fig leaves for the vilest and most destructive totalitarians to operate on their ostensible behalf while in fact defrauding their true believers and, often as not, killing the ones who said "stop" because the inconveniently moral could be labeled "counterrevolutionary" therefore beyond the social pale to the supporting masses.

What Author Robeyns offers here is a chance for you to examine your beliefs and your conscience. She doesn't have a prayer of impacting the lowlife, amoral Nerd-Reichers and the humanoid wallets enabling them. She *does* have a chance to elucidate some ugly facts about the accumulation of great wealth. A philosopher who has read, studied, and thought very deeply about human nature, she comes to conclusions you and I would do well to evaluate for ourselves. The only way I know of to do that is to read her words, and decide how much you resonate with them. The work this book represents is impressive. No one gets to these stages of argument absent a long, intense program of study.

Do you feel in your water that someone possessing a billion currency units is also possessed of a character flaw? You'll find some comfort in knowing that you're not first to reach, or alone in reaching, this conviction. Is the spectacle of inconceivably rich foreigners using their hoards to manipulate the US electorate and thus the outcome of our elections very angering to your patriot's soul? You'll resonate to the ways and means of removing that power from them.

Thomas Piketty praises this book as a "must-read" on its central argument of limitarianism. As he has done more than anyone else to yank the horribly uncomfortable, thick wool of "neoliberalism" from the world's eyes, I'd say heed him and get this book into your head before casting your 2024 votes up and down the ticket.

Why have I given it a surprisingly limitarian four stars, if I set out to warble my fool lungs out about its virtues? Because, by the tendentious nature of books setting forth cases for action, it's a bit repetitive. It's not academic in purpose so it's not footnoted to a fare-thee-well. It is, in short, a beast with two faces: one faces the congregation and lectures for change; one faces the choir and seeks approval for its message.

Speaking from the choir, I approve.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


THE BIG CON: Crackpot Economics and the Fleecing of America
JONATHAN CHAIT
Mariner Books (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$1.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The scam of supply-side economics is clearly and convincingly explained in “a classic of political journalism” (Michael Lewis).

Jonathan Chait has written for a range of publications, from the Wall Street Journal to the Washington Post, and considers himself a moderate. But he’s convinced that American politics has been hijacked.

Over the past three decades, a fringe group of economic hucksters has corrupted and perverted our nation’s policies, Chait argues, revealing in The Big Con how these canny zealots first took over the Republican Party, and then gamed the political system and the media so that once-unthinkable policies—without a shred of academic, expert, or even popular support—now drive the political agenda, regardless of which party is in power. The principle is supposedly “small government”—but as he demonstrates, the government is no smaller than it was in the days of Ronald Reagan; it’s simply more debt-ridden and beholden to wealthy elites.

Why have these ideas succeeded in Washington even as the majority of the country recognizes them for the nonsense they are? How did a clique of extremists gain control of American economic policy and sell short the country’s future? And why do their outlandish ideas still determine policy despite repeated electoral setbacks? Explaining just how things work in Washington, DC, and distinguishing between short-term volatility in the “political weather” and the long-term, radical shift in the “political climate,” Chait presents a riveting drama of greed and deceit that should be read by every concerned citizen.

“Chait is both very serious and seriously funny as he traces the rise of conservatism over the past thirty years.” —Michael Kinsley

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK AS A GIFT. THANKS!

My Review: We knew the 1980 election was stolen. We knew why, too. Milton Friedman told us why it had to be in Free to Choose, book and TV show. He operated in the libertarian/laissez-faire world of F.A. Hayek. The men behind Reagan were supply-side radicals who wanted more than anything to cripple the Federal government's ability to act against the businesses polluting out planet, and "taking their money." Instead the Federal government would need to borrow money...at interest...from the banks; enriching the bankers and hobbling the politicians who could enforce change on the reactionary elite.

What tendentious Author Chait does in this seventeen-year-old book is detail the ways this brazen theft (my words, not his) has resonated down the decades to the present moment of radicalized fascist terrorism meeting economic royalism in an ongoing enshittification of the world's social fabric. And it's being done to us all under the name "supply-side economics."

Call it whatever you like. We're forty-four years into the world's first experiment in this snake-oil system of not taxing the rich and not acting to protect the poor and the needy, after seeing the huge economic and societal gains of the Keynesian interventionist years. The promises of economic growth and technological innovation, of booming investment by those untaxed billionaires, etc etc ad nauseam, have not materialized. There's never been a glimmer of benefit to anyone except the untaxed wealthy.

Yet the entire conversation about the economy is still framed in terms that comport with this failed-in-practice theory.

The essence of insanity is doing the same thing repetitively and expecting different results to come of it.

Author Chait isn't kidding around with this takedown of the naked emperors of the economic establishment. It is refreshing to see a commonsensical moderate-to-conservative poloitical thinker confront orthodoxy, hold it to the test of results-versus-promises, and report honestly on his findings. Reading this book before the 2024 election would be wise. Reading it, and considering deeply its message and its implications, is something I'd call a civic duty.