Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Guardian author Kate Aronoff acknowledges the help to the climate cause Michael Bloomberg has provided, but she still wants to strip him of his wealth.

The problem with billionaires fighting climate change? The billionaires

Kate Aronoff

Tue 11 Jun 2019 16.00 AEST

It’s great that philanthropists are pouring money into environmental causes. But it would be better for the planet if billionaires didn’t exist at all

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The climate crisis isn’t going to be solved with the benevolence of a couple of billionaires, and their outsized control over our politics and economy stands in contradiction to our hopes for a liveable future. With rightwing populism on the rise around the world, having elites like Bloomberg as the public face of the climate fight is also risky politics. We don’t need their money to fund the Green New Deal – the US has more than enough for that – but we should take it anyway, with a far more progressive tax system than the one we’ve got.

If that sounds radical, it’s worth remembering that the top marginal tax rate during the time hailed as capitalism’s Golden Age floated somewhere north of 90% in the US. After it’d already fallen, Ronald Reagan’s administration collapsed it to 50% when he took office, and it would dip to just 28% by the time he left. The many billions that have been lost as a result are resources that have been captured out of democratic control, emboldening a handful of oligarchs to run roughshod over people and planet alike.

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