The Moral Paradox of Extreme Wealth: Why People Oppose It Yet Are Reluctant to Take Steps to Reduce It By Jen Cole Wright
August 7, 2026
Introduction:
(The Conversation) In 2026 – up until July – Elon Musk’s estimated wealth was growing by somewhere between US$30 million and $100 million an hour, making him, at least briefly, the worlds’ first trillionaire. By comparison, the typical American worker earns between $23 and $56 an hour.
While Musk’s wealth, even in the face of recent losses, is extreme, dramatic disparities have become commonplace. As of 2026, America had nearly 1,000 billionaires, whereas, according to the most recent federal data available, in 2024 roughly 10.6% of the population – or 35.9 million people – lived below the poverty line. The poverty line is the minimum level of income a person or family needs to be able to cover basic living needs, such as food, clothing and shelter.
Given the prevalence of such stark inequality, it would be easy to assume that most people accept it as fair – but they don’t. As a psychologist who studies how people navigate moral problems, I suspect that one major challenge to effectively reining in extreme wealth is that doing so forces people to navigate between opposing moral demands.
The disconnect
In 2014, researchers used survey data from more than 55,000 people across 40 countries, asking what top executives and unskilled workers earn, and what they should earn. In the U.S. the average respondent – across income levels, education and political divides – said the ideal pay ratio would be about 7-to-1. At the time it was closer to 350-to-1, meaning that on average a CEO earned 350 times more.
In other words, Americans reported that the ideal was something far more equal. Yet they have generally been unlikely to support high taxation on wealth, redistribution or limits on wealth accumulation – though recent poll data suggests this may be changing.
Billionaire-Backed Groups Launch Ad Blitz Against California Wealth Tax By Jake Johnson
August 25, 2026
Introduction:
(Common Dreams) Organizations backed by mega-billionaires, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin and notorious venture capitalist Peter Thiel, have launched an advertising blitz aimed at convincing California voters to oppose a one-time, 5% wealth tax targeting the very richest people in the state.
The two most prominent groups fighting the tax, which will appear on California’s November ballot as Proposition 40, are Building a Better California and Californians Against Wasteful Spending and Higher Taxes. The former group, funded in large part by Brin, debuted its first television ad on Tuesday, just the start of what’s expected to be a massive propaganda push against the proposed tax.
The New York Times reported that the first ad from Building a Better California “emphasizes that unions representing teachers and firefighters oppose the tax, along with the state’s top politicians, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat.”
“The ad makes no mention of the billionaires who vigorously oppose the tax,” the Times added.
The coalition spearheading the wealth tax campaign is led by Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW). The tax proposal has won endorsements from the California Federation of Labor Unions, the California Nurses Association, and the California Democratic Party, along with high-profile progressive lawmakers including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
So, Will Rogers realized this when Herbert Hoover was President, and the GOP are still acting as if Hoover were the great economist. Maybe we just need to become a one-party (Democrat) country, or maybe we need "independents" to show up on the ballots. One way or another we need to just get rid of the GOP. (Using democratic means of course).
