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Modern societies set limits, on everything from how fast motorists can drive to how much waste factory owners can dump in our rivers. But incomes in our deeply unequal world have no limits. Many of our largest corporations pay their executives more in a morning than their workers can earn in a year.
Could capping top incomes tackle our rising inequality more effectively than conventional approaches to narrowing our vast economic divides? In this engaging book, leading analyst Sam Pizzigati details how egalitarians worldwide are demonstrating that a "maximum wage" could be both economically viable and politically practical. One major city in the United States has already enacted a penalty levy on enterprises with wide divides between worker and executive pay. Activists in other global jurisdictions are working to deny these inequality-generating enterprises government contracts, subsidies, and tax breaks.
Governments could go further still and start using their tax systems to enforce fair income ratios between rich and poor across the board. The ultimate goal? That ought to be, Pizzigati argues, a world without a super rich. His clear-sighted analysis vividly explains why we need to create that world - and how we could speed its creation.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Moderation in All Things, Even Income
1/ Defining Excess
2/ The Magic of Maximum Multiples
3/ A Society without a Super Rich
4/ Pipe Dream or Politically Practical Project?
5/ Evolving toward Equity
Notes
Description
Modern societies set limits, on everything from how fast motorists can drive to how much waste factory owners can dump in our rivers. But incomes in our deeply unequal world have no limits. Many of our largest corporations pay their executives more in a morning than their workers can earn in a year.
Could capping top incomes tackle our rising inequality more effectively than conventional approaches to narrowing our vast economic divides? In this engaging book, leading analyst Sam Pizzigati details how egalitarians worldwide are demonstrating that a "maximum wage" could be both economically viable and politically practical. One major city in the United States has already enacted a penalty levy on enterprises with wide divides between worker and executive pay. Activists in other global jurisdictions are working to deny these inequality-generating enterprises government contracts, subsidies, and tax breaks.
Governments could go further still and start using their tax systems to enforce fair income ratios between rich and poor across the board. The ultimate goal? That ought to be, Pizzigati argues, a world without a super rich. His clear-sighted analysis vividly explains why we need to create that world - and how we could speed its creation.
