Ready for American readers!

by Ingrid Robeyns on January 16, 2024

I should have posted this much earlier, but it just dawned on me that I should have invited all our NYC-based readers to the book launch of the US-edition of my book on Limitarianism. I guess my best and most truthful excuse is that I’ve been too busy with media requests since the Dutch version of my book came out at the end of November. Especially in Belgium, where I was on the main talkshow on TV, the idea that we should limit how much personal wealth each of us can have, has led to a lot of debate (in fact, the same talkshow scheduled limitarianism again as a topic for debate among some politicians the next day, as apparently they had seldomly received so many reactions but also questions from their viewers). There are a few interviews lined up with American and international media – I’ll post links to some of it in due course for anyone interested.

I am in NYC right now in the first place because the program committee of the American Philosophical Association was so kind to invite me to give a scholarly paper on limitarianism. But since I was going to be here, and since we all have to minimize flying if we can (or at least: not fly without thinking twice or three times), my American publisher decided to also organise the book launch this week. That will take place tomorrow/today/yesterday (delete depending on when you read this post) – Tuesday January 16th, 6 pm, at Rizzoli Bookstore, 1133 Broadway. I will be interviewed by Daniel Wortel-London, a policy advisor at the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy. If you attend, please say hi – I’ve always been wondering who our readers are.

I would also like to use the occasion to thank the amazing thinkers and activist millionaires – including Thomas Piketty, Abigail Disney, Marlene Engelhorn, Kate Raworth, our own John Quiggin and several others – who wrote nice things for the cover and the website of the book (click on ‘praise’ on the book’s webpage). I am really humbled by their support.

For anyone based on London, there will be a book launch event for the UK-edition (which has a very different cover) on January 31st at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences.

{ 14 comments }

1

oldster 01.16.24 at 12:51 pm

“…the book launch of the US-edition of my book….”
Very cool! But I’m waiting for the limited edition.

2

Suzanne 01.16.24 at 4:54 pm

Best wishes! Looking foward to reading the book.

Ms. Disney almost justifies the concept of inherited wealth.

3

Mike Huben 01.16.24 at 5:20 pm

Normally, I shun Amazon, but this book seems so important that I just bought the Kindle version.
I really look forward to reading it this week (I have a daytime flight back to Ecuador Thursday which should get me through most of it.)
The one gap I perceive so far is that it provides very little guidance on the other first class citizens besides the very rich: large corporations, generally controlled by the same very rich and causing the same problems. I look forward to future work on whether and how to reign them in.

4

Mark 01.16.24 at 6:19 pm

Thank you for posting! I’ve been wanting to incorporate your work on this into an undergraduate political economy course I teach for a while. Look forward to reading.

5

Ingrid Robeyns 01.16.24 at 10:27 pm

@Mike – yes, there are more gaps in this book – and I agree corporations are a very big part of the problem, but not all of it. I just teamed up yesterday with a colleague who is specialised in the political philosophy of corporations to write on this together. There is a large literature that focusses specifically on corporations that I am insufficiently familiar with but want to catch up with.

In the meantime, and on topic – there is this piece that John Q. published today over at The Conversation that looked at what all those years of the economic and political elites at Davos trying to solve (what they see as) the world’s biggest challanges has brought us… https://theconversation.com/as-the-billionaires-gather-at-davos-its-worth-examining-whats-become-of-their-dreams-220876

And someone send me a link today to a piece written (2 months ago) by Geoff Mulgan in The Prospect Magazine on ‘The Billionaire Problem’ – there is much in common between his analysis and mine. https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/economics/63856/the-billionaire-problem

6

Sumana Harihareswara 01.17.24 at 12:30 pm

Sorry I missed you and hope the event went great!

7

Ingrid Robeyns 01.17.24 at 1:18 pm

Today in The Nation, I use some of the lines of argument in my book to say that Oxfam and the Patriotic/Activist Millionaires are right in their demands to increase taxation on the rich, but that our demands should go further.

https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/wealth-cap-limitarianism-davos/

8

Alex 01.17.24 at 2:30 pm

Thank you for posting! Looking forward to reading the book!

9

steven t johnson 01.17.24 at 4:22 pm

In addition to the issue of corporations (which would legally include family held firms I should think) there are the issues of charitable foundations and religious endowments and things like private funds held by institutions like universities. The creative legal possibilities for non-profits also provoke the imagination. And of course there is the difficulty of capital flight.

10

Jan Wiklund 01.20.24 at 8:46 pm

It seems that several countries had very high taxes on high incomes and very high inheritance taxes in the 40s and 50s, and that seems to have promoted a lot of growth. I can’t find which country Wolters Kluwer has investigated but the figures of income taxes are found at https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/whole-ball-of-tax-historical-income-tax-rates, and the figures of inheritance tax at https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/whole-ball-of-tax-historical-estate-and-gift-tax-rates

11

engels 01.23.24 at 9:29 am

I wonder if this is relevant:
‘I’m creating the tax I would want to pay’: Austrian heiress Marlene Engelhorn on why she is giving away 90% of her wealth
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/jan/23/austrian-heiress-marlene-engelhorn-who-is-giving-away-90-per-cent-of-her-wealth-im-creating-the-tax-i-would-want-to-pay

12

engels 01.24.24 at 11:39 am

13

Seekonk 01.26.24 at 8:25 pm

You made the case succinctly and cogently in your Nation piece. Thank you!

14

engels 01.27.24 at 12:05 am

From the Nation: “Capping wealth would make it pointless to try to endlessly increase profits at the expense of the lives of the most vulnerable people, as is currently the case.”

This is a fascinating issue and ofc I have to read the book but my prejudice is that while it wouldn’t be “endless” there would still be a lot of it going on because would still be a lot of petty capitalists and professionals with fortunes well below that level who were motivated to increase them by mistreating workers and welfare recipients.

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