Calls to ‘abolish billionaires’ raise eyebrows, but they’ve been a long time coming

alexandria ocasio cortezAlex Wong/Getty Images

  • A New York Times editorial titled “Abolish Billionaires” introduced many readers to an increasingly strong rallying cry on the American left.
  • Progressive politicians are calling for significantly increased taxes on the rich to counteract exceptionally high levels of wealth inequality in the US.
  • While there may be eyebrow-raising rhetoric around these policies, they aren’t radical.
  • This article is part of Business Insider’s ongoing series on “Better Capitalism.”

For the first time on a large scale, Americans are debating whether to allow the existence of billionaires.

On Thursday, The New York Times published columnist Farhad Manjoo’s “It’s high time we abolish billionaires” above the fold on the front page of its print edition. While Manjoo is far from the first person to articulate the idea — see freshman congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s call for a 70% tax rate for income above $ 10 million or Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s call for a 3% wealth tax for fortunes above $ 1 billion — the unequivocal rallying cry was something different for the paper of record.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Post Author: martin

Martin is an enthusiastic programmer, a webdeveloper and a young entrepreneur. He is intereted into computers for a long time. In the age of 10 he has programmed his first website and since then he has been working on web technologies until now. He is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of BriefNews.eu and PCHealthBoost.info Online Magazines. His colleagues appreciate him as a passionate workhorse, a fan of new technologies, an eternal optimist and a dreamer, but especially the soul of the team for whom he can do anything in the world.

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