Pushing Back on Extreme Wealth in a Time of Hyper-Capitalism
Problems of poverty cannot be solved through humanitarian aid and kindness, essential as those are. Solutions happen when the economic system is changed. Instead of creating systems that favor wealth, we must continually be about creating systems that favor the wellbeing of all creatures.
Chuck Collins, an ally in the economics of jubilee
I came to better understand the power of economic systems to create poverty and wealth when I read Economic Apartheid in America, (2000, revised 2006), co-authored by Chuck Collins. I grasped that systems, not just individual choices, decided who is poor and who is rich. A few years later Chuck and I met at the Solidarity Economy Network Forum, Amherst, Massachusetts, a forum that grew out of the World Social Forum of 2007. When I asked Chuck to write the “Foreword” to my book, Blinded by Progress, he agreed. The book is better for it.
At age 16, Chuck’s father told him that he would be inheriting part of the family fortune. His great-grandfather founded Oscar Mayer Company. After high school, influenced by a deep sense of right and wrong and influenced by his parents’ Christian faith, Chuck volunteered in a soup kitchen and organized tenants in public housing. As he worked in disadvantaged neighborhoods, he was struck by the sharing he often witnessed—unlike anything he’d experienced in his own life of privilege. When he decided he wanted to go to college, he drew from the trust fund he’d inherited. But at 26 he decided that his inheritance was not helping him, but it could be helping others. So he gave it away to social organizations—half a million dollars.
Today Chuck continues his work on countering inequality through systemic change at the Institute for Policy Studies where he is a senior scholar directing the program on Inequality and the Common Good. He’s the author of multiple books, the latest being, Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good (2016).
Following a brief quote on "the gap between" are examples from Chuck of efforts underway to address inequality. The quotations are taken from an excellent interview in the February 2018 edition of Sun Magazine, Separate and Unequal: Chuck Collins on How Wealth Divides Us.
The gap between
Extreme inequality of wealth, income, and opportunity is warping everything we care about. ... Inequality rips communities apart. The U.S. Census data show that, over the last four decades, high- and low-income families have become increasingly unlikely to live near one another. Mixed-income neighborhoods are becoming rarer. As we divide into affluent and poor enclaves, people’s sense that they share a common destiny withers, replaced by fear, misunderstanding, and class and racial antagonisms. (p.7)
Surtax on Companies Paying CEOs More than 100x Their Workers
In 2016, Portland, Oregon, became the first municipality to impose a 10 percent tax increase on companies that pay their CEOs more than a hundred times the median salary their workers get. This surtax is on top of the normal business taxes the city levies. Portland expects the surtax to raise $2.5 million to $3.5 million a year, and the city will dedicate proceeds to services for the homeless and other needs. This tax will be paid almost entirely by large transnational companies that do business in the city, including Wells Fargo, General Electric, and Goldman Sachs. Bills inspired by the Portland ordinance have been introduced in Illinois, Massachusetts, Rode Island, Minnesota, and Connecticut. San Francisco voters may soon decide whether to adopt a similar ordinance. (p. 12)
The Rhode Island state senate is considering a bill that would give preferential treatment to corporate contractors that pay their CEOs no more than thirty-two times what they pay their lowest-paid worker. (p. 13)
City Income Tax on Incomes over $250,000
The City of Seattle voted on July 10, 2017 to create a city-level income tax on its wealthiest earners. The 2.25 percent tax will apply only to annual incomes over $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for married couples. (p. 13)
Transfer of Real Estate Tax on Properties Selling for $5 Million Plus
In 2016, San Francisco voters levied a real-estate-transfer tax on all properties selling for $5 million or more. The measure is expected to raise $44 million a year, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Part of the revenue will help pay to provide free tuition to any San Francisco resident who enrolls at San Francisco City College. Anyone who has lived in the city for at least a year qualifies. (p. 13)
Universal Basic Income
[Universal basic income] would help reduce inequality. Wealthy people have income they don’t work for—capital income from their assets and investments. I think everybody should have capital income, because as a society we own a lot of wealth together. If you live in Alaska, you get an annual check from the Alaska Permanent Fund. The money is your share of revenue from Alaskan oil fields, because those fields are your assets too. As we become a more automated society with less toil, it’s important to share the benefits of rising productivity and technological advances. In the early 1970s President Richard Nixon considered the idea of a guaranteed minimum income. So it’s not only a left-wing proposal. ... But I don’t think universal basic income gets at the systemic drivers of inequality, which are power imbalances and the lack of constraints on corporate power. (p. 14)
Citizen-Owned Energy Utility
In Boulder, Colorado, citizens are organizing to form their own energy utility. The wealthy, rather than using their wealth to seal themselves off from a pending ecological and social collapse, should reinvest their capital in this transition to healthy, resilient local economies. It’s in their own self-interest. (p. 14)
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Though hyper-capitalism continues an aggressive destruction of life on our planet, all of these efforts show creative alternatives that are also underway. Jubilee is ever eager to raise up these beautiful, life-generating structures. In this work, Chuck Collins is a great ally.
