Billionaires, ultra-rich millionaires, political leaders, and activists are at the World Economic Forum in Davos, exchanging ideas and “learning.” A group of millionaires has some important advice.
Billionaires: A failed economic system.
The World Economic Forum defines itself as the International Organization for Public-Private cooperation. They bill themselves as an organization that engages the foremost political, business, cultural, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas. The organization was established in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. They claim to be independent, impartial, and not tied to any special interests. They say they strive in all their efforts to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest while upholding the highest standards of governance, claiming that moral and intellectual integrity is at the heart of everything it does.
When one watches their speakers, it is clear that they try to blend mostly the best of many kinds of organizations from both the public and private sectors, including academia. The World Economic Forum says they believe in the stakeholder theory.
Stakeholder Theory is a view of capitalism that stresses the interconnected relationships between businesses, their customers, suppliers, employees, investors, communities, and others who have a stake in the organization. It is clear, based on the declining economic state and powerlessness of the employee and the customer, that the theory does not treat stakeholders evenly. Capitalism, in its name, is probative. The stakeholders who own and control the capital continue to be the lord as the consumers and employees remain the serfs.
All is not lost as a small but growing percentage of the above-mentioned lords realize that the continual robbing of the serfs is unsustainable and a clear and present danger to stability and their existence. In that light, a group of millionaires wrote the following open letter to the leaders currently at the World Economic Forum in Davos. I checked the list of signers and was happy to see both Mark Ruffalo, the actor/activist I spent some time with at Netroots in Detroit as we protested the then-evil Republican Michigan governor and others, and Morris Pearl, the Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires who I interviewed a few weeks ago. The letter reads as follows.
For the Attention of our Political Leaders attending Davos:
We are living in an age of extremes. Rising poverty and widening wealth inequality; the rise of anti-democratic nationalism; extreme weather and ecological decline; deep vulnerabilities in our shared social systems; and the shrinking opportunity for billions of ordinary people to earn a livable wage.
Extremes are unsustainable, often dangerous, and rarely tolerated for long. So why, in this age of multiple crises, do you continue to tolerate extreme wealth?
The history of the last five decades is a story of wealth flowing nowhere but upwards. In the last few years, this trend has greatly accelerated. In the first two years of the pandemic, the richest 10 men in the world doubled their wealth while 99 percent of people saw their incomes fall. Billionaires and millionaires have watched their wealth grow by trillions of dollars, while the cost of simply living is now crippling ordinary families across the world.
The solution is plain for all to see. You, our global representatives, have to tax us, the ultra rich, and you have to start now.
The current lack of action is gravely concerning. A meeting of the ‘global elite’ in Davos to discuss “Cooperation in a Fragmented World” is pointless if you aren’t challenging the root cause of division. Defending democracy and building cooperation requires action to build fairer economies right now – it is not a problem that can be left for our children to fix.
Now is the time to tackle extreme wealth; now is the time to tax the ultra rich.
There’s only so much stress any society can take, only so many times mothers and fathers will watch their children go hungry while the ultra rich contemplate their growing wealth. The cost of action is much cheaper than the cost of inaction – it’s time to get on with the job.
Tax the ultra rich and do it now. It’s simple, common-sense economics. It is an investment in our common good and a better future that we all deserve, and as millionaires we want to make that investment.
What – or who – is stopping you?
The Signers
While it is a good thing to have open letters like these from the stakeholders in our economic system with capital, it is not near enough. The current economic system is immoral by design. Wealthy stakeholders like Morris Pearl are moral. As such, they voluntarily supersede the immorality of the system they are a part of. The only solution is to assure the masses that they have the power to take back what the ultra-wealthy have stolen from them using the laws they paid politicians to enact.
We must first break the myth that the system as it functions today is ordained or divine. It is not. We must also have a valid alternative. We do. But we must get through the indoctrination that many of the leaders of our society have paid to cauterize into the minds of too many.
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