The Religious Idiocy of ‘Limitarianism’

“In one sense, at any rate, it is more valuable to read bad literature than good literature. Good literature may tell us the mind of one man; but bad literature may tell us the mind of many men….The more dishonest a book is as a book the more honest it is as a public document.” ~G.K. Chesterton, Heretics 

Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth by Ingrid Robeyns is a very bad book. Writing a review of it thus presents a challenge. Who wants to read a review that is the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel of dead fish? Yet, while reading Robeyns’ tendentious screed, I was faced with the absolute certainty that quite a few of my colleagues and students would love this book. Chesterton’s observation thus puts the right question forward. The interesting thing about Limitarianism is not why it is so very flawed, but rather why Robeyns and others would think it was good. 

The thesis of the book is simple. Robeyns thinks it is wrong for anyone to have more than a million dollars in wealth, but she will agree to a compromise of a maximum wealth of ten million dollars. Robeyns doesn’t care what currency unit you use (dollars, pounds, or euros) as long as there is an enforced maximum. To the immediate reply that a 100% tax on wealth over that amount might be problematic, Robeyns repeatedly insists that she isn’t necessarily advocating that tax rate. Not that she thinks there is anything wrong with a 100% wealth tax, there are just other ways to get there. For example, you could convince everyone in the world it is bad to have lots of wealth. 

The bulk of the book is Robeyns shouting at the reader about why anyone having high wealth is so incredibly bad. First: “It’s Dirty Money.” Some wealthy people acquired their wealth by stealing it. Obviously, that is an argument against theft, not high wealth, but in a perfect example of how this book works, having established that we all agree stealing is bad, Robeyns then notes that people get wealthy in lots of other similar ways — like only paying whatever they are required to pay in taxes or owning companies that pay wages less than what Robeyns thinks workers should be paid. You see? Stealing wealth and not paying more than you owe in taxes are both “dirty money.” So, high wealth is evil. 

The roll call of reasons why high wealth is evil goes on like that for a couple hundred pages. High wealth is bad because it “undermines democracy” when wealthy people convince legislators to vote for things Robeyns doesn’t like. High wealth is “setting the world on fire” because rich people use airplanes and some corporations produce and use fossil fuels. Nobody deserves high wealth because wealthy people need a society in order to protect their wealth from theft, and the social contract should be fair and inclusive, not allowing people to get high wealth because of inheritance, luck, or having talent and the ability to work hard. Allowing some people to have high wealth is bad because “there is so much we could do with that money,” the “we” meaning (of course) people like Robeyns. High wealth is bad because it leads to philanthropy, which is terrible because the wealthy person gets to decide who should benefit from the philanthropic enterprise. 

Most of all, it would be good for the wealthy people themselves to give up their wealth because being wealthy is not only psychologically bad for the wealthy, but also the children of the wealthy really suffer from growing up with wealth. So, if you care about the kids, don’t let them grow up wealthy. I know that last sentence sounds like I am exaggerating and that there is no way Robeyns is as extreme as the last three paragraphs make her sound. But here is Robeyns: “People are free to make themselves as unhappy as they like. But that doesn’t take away our societal responsibility toward their children.” Similarly, the rich “are just as vulnerable, psychologically, as the rest of us, and if we care about the vulnerability of other people in general, then we should also care about how excessive wealth can destroy the lives of the super-rich.” 

There is an aura of unreality hovering over nearly every page of this book. The most jarring portion comes early when Robeyns sets out to refute anyone who thinks that all the wealth in the world today has been a big benefit to the poor. Lots of people are under the impression that there is less extreme poverty in the world now than there was in the past. Robeyns is here to assure us that this may not be true. Again, it may seem hard to believe Robeyns really says this. But, “the dominant narrative—that in the past everyone was very poor, and we have greatly reduced extreme poverty on a global scale—is misleading at best.” How is it possible that Robeyns could raise doubt about the fact that there is less extreme poverty today than there was in the past? First, the data before 1981 are not perfect, so maybe people really were better off in the past. Second, if instead of using $2 a day in income as the measuring line for extreme poverty, we use a higher number, then there are more poor people today than we estimate using the lower number. (Not surprisingly, she does not note that no matter what threshold you pick for extreme poverty, the global rate has declined.) 

Robeyns is willing to concede, however, that maybe there is more wealth in the world than in the past. But, even if so, the higher levels of wealth still aren’t a good thing. Because some people have much higher wealth than others, we cannot say that the increasing wealth is actually a good thing for the poor people who, while they may no longer be starving to death, are not as rich as the super wealthy. Her inability to acknowledge joyfully that there has been a massive decline in extreme poverty over time is tied very closely to the strangest parts of the book. There is no place in this book where Robeyns seems aware of the mechanisms by which wealth is generated. In Robeyns’ view, some very bad people have acquired a large amount of wealth by doing very bad things, and thus the net result of all that increase in wealth is negative no matter what has happened to the poorest people in the world. 

As I said at the outset, writing an entire review just documenting how bad this book is would be an incredibly easy task. Pick a page at random, and you’ll find multiple examples of an argument neither cohesive nor persuasive. The question is: how is it possible that the book is this bad? The answer is found in the Introduction. On the third page, Robeyns notes, “For a long time, I felt that there was something wrong with an individual amassing so much money, but I couldn’t properly articulate why.” So, she “decided to deploy my training in philosophy and economics to answer the question: Can a person be too rich?” The arguments in this book did not lead Robeyns to her conclusion; she started with the conclusion. When you start your investigation already knowing the answer to the question, then you may not notice that the reasons you offer for your conclusion are not persuasive to someone who is skeptical about the conclusion. If it seems like the arguments are non sequiturs attacking straw men, that isn’t important to Robeyns. The conclusion is right even if the arguments fail. The result of this approach is a religious book written for the already converted. 

What makes Robeyns’ book so useful for understanding what many people are thinking is that it becomes obvious that people who want to get rid of high wealth are not reaching the conclusion because they are persuaded by reasons of the sort found in Robeyns’ book. Instead, it is an article of faith. If having high wealth is inherently evil, then the conclusion is obvious. There is no reason to permit inherently evil acts to continue if we can stop them. Trying to explain why high wealth is evil is beside the point; it just is. 

Ten Years After, the 1970s rock band, provides a marvelous way to think about this mindset in “I’d Love To Change the World.” “Tax the rich, feed the poor/ ‘Til there are no rich no more.” I have always thought those lines were pretty funny and highly ironic; taxing the rich to feed the poor doesn’t help end poverty; it just gets rid of the rich. But, in reading Robeyns’ book, my realization was that there are people who do not think those lines are ironic. Taxing the rich to feed the poor is desirable not because it will help the poor, but simply to get rid of the rich.  

Of course, the idea that a society should get rid of the wealthy is not new. Lycurgus, the crafter of ancient Spartan society, implemented a whole series of radical changes (breaking up large land holdings, forbidding the manufacture of luxurious items, inhibiting trade with other cities, forcing everyone to eat at communal meals) in order to rid Sparta of the rich. He seemed total unconcerned that Sparta would be a poorer society; Lycurgus’ ideal Spartan lifestyle was one devoid of any hints of luxury. 

Lycurgus provides an interesting contrast to Robeyns. Both have the ideal of a world in which there “are no rich no more.” There is an intellectual honesty in Lycurgus’ implicit argument that a poor-but-equal world is superior to a rich-but-unequal world. That is not what Robeyns is arguing, however. Limitarianism wants to have it both ways. Robeyns wants to get rid of the wealthy, but does not want to get rid of the wealth. In Robeyns’ Limitarian Paradise, there is no trade-off between the technological marvels and phenomenal wealth in the modern world and limiting everyone to no more than one or ten million dollars of wealth. Somehow, we can redistribute all the wealth in the world and still keep on generating just as much wealth in the future, even though creative and hard-working people have hit their personal limit on wealth. Robeyns argues this will happen if we develop a culture “where material gain is not the leading incentive — where people may also choose to work hard because of personal commitment, challenges they have set for themselves, or for intrinsic pleasure, esteem, and honor.” 

To pretend that you can have all the riches of the modern world and eliminate the ability for anyone to become wealthy is a sure sign of someone who has no understanding of how all this wealth was generated in the first place. Robeyns’ book, however, provides insight into why people advocating income limitation plans often seem so unaware of how economic growth occurs. If getting rid of rich people is akin to a religious mandate to rid the world of evil, then of course it is safe to impute bad motives to anyone arguing that there are possibly benefits to the world from allowing people to do things that will make them wealthy. Despite appearances, Robeyns book is not really an attempt to persuade anyone of her beliefs; instead, it is an insight into the minds of zealots.