Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Society is producing too many elite people, and their decisions are causing extreme inequality, which is one of the key components of today’s sustainability crisis.
But you might be surprised to find this 1% doesn’t just comprise the super-rich. It may include you, or people you know. And this fact has big implications for social justice and planetary survival.
Municipalities should move quickly to enact high-end real estate transfer taxes, requirements for the disclosure of beneficial ownership, and regulations aimed at the disruptive impact absentee owner-investors are having on our cities.
In 1986, at the age of 26, Chuck Collins, the great-grandson of meatpacking giant Oscar Mayer, gave away his trust fund.
All humanity is now wound together, our fate linked to our ability to respond to a planetary challenge bigger than anything we’ve ever faced before.
“Wealthy friends and neighbours”, he writes, “it is time to come home”, and “to come out of your gated communities and gated hearts”.
Chuck Collins believes that extreme wealth inequality and our global ecological crisis are bad for everyone, including those with great wealth.
We have become so used to the idea that the middle classes are the winners that it is difficult to get our heads around the fact that something important is changing. It isn’t just the poor who are under pressure: the middle classes are no longer winning either.
