The expansion in the wealth of the extremely wealthy has received much attention in recent public and academic debate. In political theory, the phenomenon has only recently begun to be scrutinized. This article builds on these preliminary steps, exploring the normative reasons we have to worry about extreme wealth. Looking at the issues, first, through a distributive lens, we reveal that the excess wealth of the extremely wealthy compounds the injustice of inequality and insufficiency, making the situation distinctly unjust. Through a relational lens, we see that extreme wealth may create societal segregation, which poses distinct threats to solidarity. Finally, when the two previous perspectives interact, the particular ways in which the wealthy can influence society, change rules and norms and bend existing regulation to their advantage open up the possibility of vicious societal feedback loops.
AndersonE (1990) The Ethical Limitations of the Market. Economics & Philosophy6 (2): 179–205.
2.
AndersonE (2010) The Imperative of Integration. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
3.
AndersonE (2014) Social Movements, Experiments in Living, and Moral Progress: Case Studies from Britain’s Abolition of Slavery. The EH Lindley Memorial Lecture, Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas.
4.
AxelsenDVNielsenL (2015) Sufficiency as Freedom from Duress. Journal of Political Philosophy23 (4): 406–426.
5.
BartelsLM (2018) Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
6.
BenbajiY (2005) The Doctrine of Sufficiency: A Defence. Utilitas17 (3): 310–332.
7.
BengtsonA (2020) Differential Voting Weights and Relational Egalitarianism. Political Studies68 (4): 1054–1070.
8.
Ben-ShaharTH (2018) Positional Goods and the Size of Inequality. Journal of Political Philosophy26: 103–120.
9.
BrighouseHSwiftA (2006) Equality, Priority and Positional Goods. Ethics116 (3): 471–497.
10.
BrockG (2005) Needs and Global Justice. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements57: 51–72.
11.
CagettiMDe NardiM (2006) Entrepreneurship, Frictions, and Wealth. Journal of Political Economy114 (5): 835–870.
12.
ChristensenJParrTAxelsenD (2021) Justice for Millionaires?Economics and Philosophy38: 333–353.
13.
ChristianoT (2012) Money in Politics. In: EstlundD (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.241–257.
14.
ClaassenR (2018) Capabilities in a Just Society: A Theory of Navigational Agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
15.
CohenGA (1989) On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice. Ethics99 (4): 906–944.
16.
CohenGA (2009) Why Not Socialism?Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
17.
CrispR (2003) Equality, Priority, and Compassion. Ethics113 (4): 745–763.
18.
DworkinR (1987) What Is Equality? Part 4: Political Equality. USFL Rev22: 1.
19.
DworkinR (2000) Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
20.
FishkinJ (2014) Bottlenecks: A New Theory of Equal Opportunity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
21.
FourieC (2012) What Is Social Equality? An Analysis of Status Equality as a Strongly Egalitarian Ideal. Res Publica18 (2): 107–126.
22.
FrankR (2008) Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Currency.
23.
FrankR (2020) Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
24.
FrankRH (2001) Luxury Fever: Why Money Fails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess. New York: Simon & Schuster.
25.
GabrielI (2017) Effective Altruism and Its Critics. Journal of Applied Philosophy34 (4): 457–473.
26.
GilensM (2012) Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
27.
HackerJSPiersonP (2010) Winner-Take Politics: Public Policy, Political Organization, and the Precipitous Rise of Top Incomes in the United States. Politics & Society38 (2): 152–204.
28.
HalldeniusL (2022) Why Limitarianism Fails on its Own Premises–an Egalitarian Critique. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice25 (5): 777–791.
29.
HansenKJ (2023) Greed, Envy, and Admiration: The Distinct Nature of Public Opinion About Redistribution From the Rich. American Political Science Review117 (1): 217–234.
30.
HayIBeaverstockJV (eds) (2016) Handbook on Wealth and the Super-Rich. London: Edward Elgar Publishing.
31.
HayIMullerS (2012) ‘That tiny, stratospheric apex that owns most of the world’–Exploring geographies of the super–rich. Geographical Research, 50(1): 75–88.
32.
Hertel-FernandezASkocpolTSclarJ (2018) When Political Mega-Donors Join Forces: How the Koch Network and the Democracy Alliance Influence Organized US Politics on the Right and Left. Studies in American Political Development32 (2): 127–165.
33.
HerzogL (2018) Durkheim on Solidarity: The Argument From ‘Organic Solidarity’. American Political Science Review112 (1): 112–124.
34.
HirschF (2005) Social Limits to Growth. London: Routledge.
35.
HusebyR (2010) Sufficiency: Restated and Defended. Journal of Political Philosophy18 (2): 178–197.
36.
HusebyR (2022) The Limits of Limitarianism. Journal of Political Philosophy30 (2): 230–248.
37.
JoYN (2013) Psycho-Social Dimensions of Poverty: When Poverty Becomes Shameful. Critical Social Policy33 (3): 514–531.
38.
KahnSR (2011) Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
39.
KohSYWissinkBForrestR (2016) Reconsidering the super-rich: Variations, structural conditions and urban consequences. In Handbook on wealth and the super-rich. Edward Elgar Publishing.
40.
KolodnyN (2014) Rule Over None II: Social Equality and the Justification of Democracy. Philosophy & Public Affairs42 (4): 287–336.
41.
KrammMRobeynsI (2020) Limits to Wealth in the History of Western Philosophy. European Journal of Philosophy28 (4): 954–969.
42.
KymlickaW (2001) Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
43.
LamontMBeljeanSClairM (2014) What Is Missing? Cultural Processes and Causal Paths to Inequality. Socio-Economic Review12 (3): 573–608.
44.
LawsonMChanMKRhodesF, et al. (2019) Public Good or Private Wealth (Oxfam Briefing Paper). Oxford: Oxfam.
Lippert-RasmussenK (2018) Relational Egalitarianism: Living as Equals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
47.
LovelessMWhitefieldS (2010) Being Unequal and Seeing Inequality: Explaining the Significance of Social Inequality in New Market Democracies. European Journal of Political Research50 (2): 239–266.
48.
MachinDJ (2013) Political Inequality and the ‘Super-Rich’: Their Money or (Some of) Their Political Rights. Res Publica19: 121–139.
49.
MasseyD (2007) Categorically Unequal: The American Stratification System. New York: The Russell Sage Foundation.
50.
MearsA (2020) Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
51.
MolesAParrT (2019) Distributions and Relations: A Hybrid Account. Political Studies67 (1): 132–148.
52.
NielsenLAxelsenDV (2017) Capabilitarian Sufficiency: Capabilities and Social Justice. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities18 (1): 46–59.
53.
NielsenLAxelsenDV (2023) Envy, Levelling-Down, and Harrison Bergeron: Defending Limitarianism Against Three Common Objections. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice25 (5): 737–753.
54.
NussbaumMC (2000) Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach, vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
55.
NussbaumMC (2007) Frontiers of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
56.
PageBISeawrightJLacombeMJ (2018) Billionaires and Stealth Politics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
57.
PikettyT (2014) Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
58.
PistonS (2018) Class Attitudes in America: Sympathy for the Poor, Resentment of the Rich, and Political Implications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
59.
RawlsJ (1971) A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
60.
ReaderS (2006) Does a Basic Needs Approach Need Capabilities?Journal of Political Philosophy, 14 (3), 337–350.
61.
ReichR (2019) Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
62.
RobeynsI (2017) Having Too Much. In: KnightJSchwartzbergM (eds) NOMOS LVI: Wealth. Yearbook of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy. New York: New York University Press, pp.1–44.
63.
RobeynsI (2019) What, If Anything, Is Wrong With Extreme Wealth?Journal of Human Development and Capabilities20 (3): 251–266.
64.
RobeynsI (2022) Why Limitarianism?Journal of Political Philosophy30 (2): 249–270.
65.
ScanlonT (2018) Why Does Inequality Matter?Oxford: Oxford University Press.
66.
SchefflerS (2015) The Practice of Equality. In: FourieCSchuppertFWallimann-HelmerI (eds) Social Equality: On What It Means to Be Equals. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 20–44.
67.
SenA (1979) Equality of What?The Tanner Lecture on Human Values1: 194–220.
68.
SenA (1999) Commodities and Capabilities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
69.
ShieldsL (2016) Just Enough: Sufficiency as a Demand of Justice. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
70.
SingerP (1972) Famine, Affluence, and Morality. Philosophy & Public Affairs1: 229–243.
71.
SuhayEKlašnjaMRiveroG (2021) Ideology of Affluence: Explanations for Inequality and Economic Policy Preferences Among Rich Americans. The Journal of Politics83 (1): 367–380.
72.
TimmerD (2019) Defending the Democratic Argument for Limitarianism: A Reply to Volacu and Dumitru. Philosophia47 (4): 1331–1339.
73.
TimmerD (2021) Limitarianism: Pattern, Principle, or Presumption?Journal of Applied Philosophy38 (5): 760–773.
