NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE C alls for a wealth tax are rising across North America. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren each endorsed such a tax when running for the Democratic nomination. Its political attraction plays on the populist fantasy that taxes can painlessly be shifted to rich people and corporations. The temptation to adopt a wealth tax will grow in the aftermath of record budget deficits resulting from the pandemic-induced recession.
The political receptivity to a wealth tax is reinforced by a growing intellectual hostility to wealth inequality, most evident in Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The French economist argues that inequality will widen …