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In 2019, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made headlines at the MLK Now conference. When Ta-Nehisi Coates asked whether the world is moral when it allows billionaires to exist, she answered, 鈥淣o. It鈥檚 not.鈥� 

Ocasio-Cortez explained that, while she doesn鈥檛 necessarily think individual billionaires are immoral, 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 wrong that a vast majority of the country does not make a living wage; I think it鈥檚 wrong that you can work 100 hours and not feed your kids; I think it鈥檚 wrong that corporations like Walmart and Amazon can get paid鈥攖hey can get paid by the government essentially, experience a wealth transfer from the public鈥攆or paying people less than a minimum wage. It not only doesn鈥檛 make economic sense, it doesn鈥檛 make moral sense, and it doesn鈥檛 make societal sense.鈥�

Many , , and have voiced similar sentiments: No one should have a billion dollars. Yet there are now , according to Visual Capitalist, with a combined net worth of more than $4 trillion. When the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a global recession, the . At the same time, as Ocasio-Cortez and others have pointed out, . Some researchers estimate that at least , or about $14.42 per hour for full-time work, the mean minimum amount a single adult with no dependents needs to afford food and rent in an average-sized city. The federal minimum wage hasn鈥檛 been raised since 2009, and even then only to a paltry $7.25 per hour. One of in both revenue and employees, Walmart pays thousands of workers so little that to buy groceries鈥攐ften at .

Billionaires are a byproduct of an upside-down economic system. Wealth inequality is often seen as a problem that can be solved by spreading wealth more equally. But that solution bypasses the central problem of what wealth鈥攁s opposed to income, or just 鈥渓ots of money in the bank鈥濃�攔eally means in a consumer capitalist society. In such a society, wealth is not only the accumulation of economic power, but it is also a marker of importance, status, and privilege. It identifies the alpha dog in the pack and gives that dog freedom to do things鈥攅ven abusive, illegal, or violent things鈥攖hat would not be tolerated from anyone less wealthy.

Our modern conception of wealth insists that wealth corresponds to moral worth, a concept at odds with any society that believes all people are created equal. Inequality isn鈥檛 the root of the problem, in this case. It鈥檚 just a symptom of the real problem: wealth, and all the privileges and power attached to it. So let鈥檚 put an end to it.

Housing Is the Foundation

There are several ways of eradicating the system that allows wealth to concentrate in the hands of fewer people. Attempts to stimulate economic growth鈥攐ften through the tax code, but also direct investment by the government鈥攗sually benefit just the top 10% of household incomes, says Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, the chief of membership, policy, and equity at the , an association of more than 600 community organizations working to increase the flow of private capital into traditionally underserved communities. 

Housing is where most middle-class Americans begin to build their financial security, even if it doesn鈥檛 lead directly to wealth. But the escalating cost of housing also prevents low-income people from rising out of poverty. Mechanisms that built the post-war middle class, like the massive construction of affordable and public housing in urban areas, were . The large-scale movement of Black Americans into that housing also corresponded to a disinvestment in its maintenance and upkeep, which further .

鈥淸Public housing] was a positive step, and a mixture of racism and economic marginalization made those [places] ghettos,鈥� says Asante-Muhammad. 鈥淏ut they don鈥檛 have to be ghettos.鈥� Upgrading affordable housing and closing the gap between the need for housing and the available supply would require a massive government investment in urban and suburban areas. Rent subsidies in the form of vouchers, currently the most effective tool we have to help low-income Americans pay for housing, are , according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 

The would fund just , according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. That鈥檚 a fraction of what鈥檚 needed to bridge the affordable housing gap: 5.3 million U.S. households receive federal support, including through vouchers, Section 8 project-based assistance, or public housing, but an estimated because funding isn鈥檛 available. And that doesn鈥檛 even begin to address the lack of physical housing. The Urban Institute has estimated there are just that need one.

Tax It Back

Almost no economic reform program comes without incorporating a more progressive income tax. Ocasio-Cortez has on families earning more than $10 million per year (the current ). For nearly two decades following World War II, a period corresponding to the U.S.鈥檚 greatest economic expansion, the . The top rate didn鈥檛 dip below 70% until 1981, when the Reagan administration suggested using tax cuts for the wealthy to spur economic growth. Today, after 40 years of these policies, .

Raising income taxes on the wealthy will only go so far, however. A 70% top marginal rate that kicks in at the 10,000,001st dollar would , according to a The Washington Post analysis. That鈥檚 because wealthy Americans derive , not from salaries. And than income is.

But a radical hike in income tax combined with other measures, such as reforming the estate tax, raising capital gains tax rates, and imposing a European-style wealth tax, could raise up to $3 trillion over a decade, according to the Post鈥檚 analysis. That amount, $300 billion per year, only amounts to about . How that money is allotted would determine how much it affects the nation鈥檚 wealth gap. But given the messy manner in which laws are enacted, it鈥檚 likely that only a fraction of that amount would realistically be available.

Reforming Charity 

Charitable foundations are an enormous repository of wealth in the U.S., in particular the foundations whose initial endowments originated in big family fortunes鈥攖he Rockefellers, Fords, and Gateses, for example. Foundations distributed , according to Giving USA, often to causes that support the poorest of Americans. Big giving is loudly touted on corporate public relations missives, by major foundations, by wealthy individuals, and sometimes by the recipients themselves. But foundations also are sitting on approximately , and federal law only requires they , a rate that hasn鈥檛 increased since it was enacted in 1976. Donor-advised funds, a newer form of philanthropic endeavor, aren鈥檛 required to pay out anything, and they in 2020.

Foundations are sitting on approximately $1.1 trillion in assets, and federal law only requires they pay out 5% of their endowments each year, a rate that hasn鈥檛 increased since it was enacted in 1976.

鈥淭he fact that you could start a foundation or start a donor-advised fund and those dollars get the tax benefits of doing that, and those resources potentially never see the light of day or have any public benefit, to me is ridiculous,鈥� says Edgar Villanueva, founder of the . On top of that, philanthropic endowments are often invested in the same economic structures and corporations that created the social problems that philanthropy is intended to address. Villanueva and others have pointed to the fact that this largely white sector often supports well-known charities with established connections to philanthropy instead of nonprofits led by Black, Indigenous, or other people of color working in those communities.

That鈥檚 created a lopsided system in which nonprofits gear their operations around the needs of wealthy funders rather than the needs of communities. 鈥淲e have created a system that allows for such massive concentration of wealth and resources to individuals, while at the same time underfunding infrastructure, social infrastructure, [and] social safety for working-class, low-income people,鈥� Asante-Muhammad says. 鈥淪o then people are just begging to get a Bill Gates grant when, honestly, in the scheme of things, even Bill Gates or Elon Musk doesn鈥檛 have the money to do what is needed to address these massive social issues.鈥�

The Decolonizing Wealth Project鈥檚 reparative philanthropy framework, which Villanueva outlined in his book Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance, involves using money as a tool for healing, so that philanthropy doesn鈥檛 perpetuate exploitative systems. 鈥淲e have to be honest and transparent around what has transpired, how wealth has been built in this country,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he fact that we have a scarcity mindset is a byproduct of the history of colonization or the history of how wealth has been accumulated, where so many of us have internalized not having enough.鈥�

Philanthropy was set up not as a purely altruistic endeavor, Villanueva says, but one driven by wealthy industrialists giving themselves an image makeover. And U.S. tax policy rewards that behavior. 鈥淣ot only are you becoming wealthier, your reputation is boosted as a person who is charitable, who is doing good in the world,鈥� he adds. Bill Gates famously declared in 2012 that he was going to . A decade later, he鈥檚 nearly . 

That鈥檚 why the example of MacKenzie Scott, who has in no-strings-attached grants, is an outlier. Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has largely stayed out of the spotlight and eschewed the traditional application-based model of grant-making. Her initiative, Yield Giving, plans an open-call type of application process in the future, and Villanueva appreciates . 鈥淚 think she is changing the game and probably making a lot of billionaires uncomfortable,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut even she, as fast as she is giving her money away, it just keeps accumulating.鈥�

Returning the Common Wealth to the Commons

Ending the destructive effect of wealth on society requires interrupting the processes that started its accrual. The first thing white settlers did once they arrived in the Americas was claim ownership of the land, despite many Indigenous societies鈥� beliefs that the land was a common charge. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a fair amount of what we call 鈥榳ealth鈥� [that] is the commons extracted [and] privatized by individuals,鈥� says Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies. 

Europeans had a concept of 鈥渢he commons,鈥� but by the time colonization of the Americas began, it had been shrinking relative to private land ownership. , the commons had largely disappeared. At that point, land ownership and inheritance had become powerful engines of wealth accumulation and consolidation of family dynasties. After this looting of the ecological commons created early fortunes, the wealthy protected their gains by eliminating competition and ensuring their businesses received favorable treatment from the government. And they ensured their wealth could be passed along to their heirs.

But the compounding effects of dynastic wealth were known even then. In 1891, the progressive economist Richard T. Ely noted that was one of three key policies that would have the greatest positive effect on society. 鈥淚f we鈥檙e going to talk about reducing wealth inequality, not only do we want to tax and redistribute, but we also want to prevent, discourage, or tax the initial extraction,鈥� Collins says.

Only now, in the 21st century, are movements gaining some traction in returning land to its original stewards. The in the U.S. and Canada, with Native tribes fighting to place more land in trust for reservations and, in some places, such as Northern California, even receiving their historical land back. Collins sees Indigenous forms of collective land stewardship as a promising model for interrupting the amassing of wealth and redistributing it to those from whom it was originally taken. Another form of collective ownership growing in popularity are community land trusts, where removing housing from the speculative market is seen as a way of preserving both affordability and communities.

In response to various reparative approaches, some among the superrich have simply hidden their wealth from taxing authorities. In 2021, ProPublica used leaked IRS data to reveal that half of the 100 richest people in the U.S. were . 鈥淚t鈥檚 not a sideshow, it鈥檚 the main stage,鈥� Collins says. 鈥淲e know how little money the estate tax raises now, and it鈥檚 sort of laughable how porous or almost voluntary it is.鈥�

The federal government brought in , according to the Tax Policy Center. State and local governments , according to the Urban Institute. 鈥淏ut if you think about how much wealth transferred from one generation to the next among that super-wealthy group last year, 2021, it鈥檚 probably more than $1 trillion,鈥� Collins says. 鈥淪o it鈥檚 capturing just a tiny, minuscule sliver.鈥� If we鈥檙e really going to upset the accumulation and concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, the people will need to find ways to capture a larger piece of that pie. 

Wealth inequality has skyrocketed in recent years; there are now nearly 1,000 billionaires in the U.S. alone. The wealthiest Americans have never been richer, while poor and working-class Americans have seen their incomes stagnate and fall. Radical government intervention in the economy to redistribute wealth could help bridge the gap. Here are several policies that could bring a much-needed infusion of cash into the public coffers.

A on overall wealth on the top 1% would net about $3 trillion over a decade. 

Raising capital gains taxes, currently capped at 20%, could raise over 10 years.

, when the top rate was 65% and the exemption level was just $520,000, would collect about $169 billion per year, or $1.7 trillion over a decade.

Imposing a on those earning more than $10 million could bring in $720 billion over 10 years.

Sources: The Washington Post, Brookings Institution