On CBS Sunday Morning, the broadcast network made a new push to sell socialism by arguing that billionaires shouldn’t be allowed to exist and that their wealth should be seized by the government and spent on left-wing priorities like climate change. The segment featured radical guests demanding wealth redistribution and advocating the notion that “maybe you can be too rich.”
“A recent report reveals the world’s nearly 3,000 billionaires increased their wealth by $5 trillion last year....Which prompts Mark Whitaker to ask: When is more than enough, enough?,” host Jane Pauley announced at the top of the segment. Whitaker went on to warn viewers: “The wealth gap has reached stratospheric levels. The richest one percent of Americans now has almost 13 times the wealth of the bottom 50 percent. It’s led some to consider: Maybe you can be too rich.”
He turned to a far-left, European philosophy professor to explain her socialist ideology of seizing wealth by giving it a new name: “Professor Ingrid Robeyns teaches philosophy and ethics at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She’s been promoting a concept called limitarianism. Define limitarianism.”
Robeyns lectured: “So limitarianism is just the word for the thought that there should be a moral limit to how much wealth you can accumulate. So it’s the idea that it’s fine to be well off, but at some point one has too much.”
After noting that she was “talking mainly about the really rich,” Whitaker wailed: “Robeyns believes the case against the super rich isn’t just moral; it’s also environmental. From the profits of businesses that haven’t paid for polluting the atmosphere to the emissions from mega mansions and private planes, and the unused dollars just sitting in offshore accounts.”
The radical professor argued private fortunes should be confiscated to combat climate change:
There is money in the hands of those who are super wealthy that is not used for meeting their needs. It’s used for luxury spending or for accumulating further and further, whereas we have this massive problem of climate change that also needs funding.
Whitaker fretted: “The world’s wealthiest one percent are believed to use double the carbon emissions of the bottom 50 percent.”
He then asked: “So where to draw the bottom line on wealth?” In response, Robeyns quoted the economic adviser of far-left Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: “In America, you now have the saying, ‘There shouldn’t be any billionaires,’ ‘Every billionaire is a policy failure.’ And my initial reaction is a billion is way too much.”
Whitaker followed up: “So whatever your line would be, it would be under a billion?” Robeyns declared: “Yes, absolutely. I think you can have a fully flourishing life and do all of the things you want with, well, perhaps not with 10 million, but then with 20 million. I don’t think you need a billion.”
In addition to fawning over Robeyns, Whitaker also spoke to Disney fortune heiress and left-wing political activist Abigail Disney, who compared the wealthy to an infestation:
I really believe that money ruins people....There’s this bug called the Japanese beetle and it eats the tree out from the inside and the tree looks completely until it falls over. I think money is like that. You develop a pattern of thinking and feeling that is – that’s corrosive.
At least the last time CBS tried to sell socialism, in 2020, CBS Mornings co-host Tony Dokoupil used tasty baked goods to lecture unsuspecting mall shoppers on the evils of capitalism. In 2021, the wealthy anchor hypocritically ranted about the rich leaving “us” with “crumbs.”
CBS’s latest advocacy for socialism was brought to viewers by Colgate and Downy. You can fight back by letting these advertisers know what you think of them sponsoring such content.
Here is a transcript of excerpts from the January 23 segment:
9:06 AM ET
JANE PAULEY: A recent report reveals the world’s nearly 3,000 billionaires increased their wealth by $5 trillion last year. A rate unprecedented in human history. Which prompts Mark Whitaker to ask: When is more than enough, enough?
(...)
9:08 AM ET
MARK WHITAKER: Abigail Disney is the granddaughter of Roy O. Disney, who along with his brother Walt, started the Disney empire. She’s inherited millions of dollars, seen the gilded life up close. But these days she thinks that great wealth isn’t necessarily so magical.
ABIGAIL DISNEY: I really believe that money ruins people.
WHITAKER: Disney is now a social activist and documentary filmmaker.
DISNEY: There’s this bug called the Japanese beetle and it eats the tree out from the inside and the tree looks completely until it falls over. I think money is like that. You develop a pattern of thinking and feeling that is – that’s corrosive.
(...)
9:09 AM ET
WHITAKER: The wealth gap has reached stratospheric levels. The richest one percent of Americans now has almost 13 times the wealth of the bottom 50 percent. It’s led some to consider: Maybe you can be too rich.
Professor Ingrid Robeyns teaches philosophy and ethics at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She’s been promoting a concept called limitarianism. Define limitarianism.
DR. INGRID ROBEYNS: So limitarianism is just the word for the thought that there should be a moral limit to how much wealth you can accumulate. So it’s the idea that it’s fine to be well off, but at some point one has too much.
WHITAKER: Robeyns is talking mainly about the really rich. And there are more of them than ever. Since 1990, the number of billionaires in the U.S. has grown from 66 to 745. Robeyns believes the case against the super rich isn’t just moral; it’s also environmental. From the profits of businesses that haven’t paid for polluting the atmosphere to the emissions from mega mansions and private planes, and the unused dollars just sitting in offshore accounts.
ROBEYNS: There is money in the hands of those who are super wealthy that is not used for meeting their needs. It’s used for luxury spending or for accumulating further and further, whereas we have this massive problem of climate change that also needs funding.
WHITAKER: The world’s wealthiest one percent are believed to use double the carbon emissions of the bottom 50 percent. So where to draw the bottom line on wealth?
ROBEYNS: In America, you now have the saying, “There shouldn’t be any billionaires,” “Every billionaire is a policy failure.” And my initial reaction is a billion is way too much.
WHITAKER: So whatever your line would be, it would be under a billion?
ROBEYNS: Yes, absolutely. I think you can have a fully flourishing life and do all of the things you want with, well, perhaps not with 10 million, but then with 20 million. I don’t think you need a billion.
WHITAKER: Do you think that there’s a point at which it becomes a problem for an individual, but also for society, when not just one person, but a whole class of people, has vastly more wealth than anybody else in the society?
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: I don’t think that’s inherently a problem.
WHITAKER: Vivek Ramaswamy is an entrepreneur who made more than a few dollars as the founder of a bio-pharmaceutical company.
RAMASWAMY: I’m not gonna be here telling you that capitalism is a perfect system. But I will tell you that think it is the least imperfect system in ultimately lifting up people who are at the bottom.
WHITAKER: And there’s the argument about incentives – that you, too, could become the next Bill Gates.
DISNEY: I think that’s hogwash.
(...)
9:12 AM ET
ROBEYNS: So rich people say, “I did this. I took the risk for whatever I did, so it’s mine. I deserve it.” But the truth is, take any of these billionaires on a deserted island, and just look at what they can do? They can do nothing. They can survive. So that means for all of us, our quality of life and the degree to which we can flourish depends on what others do.
WHITAKER: Limitarians also raise concerns about the outsized impact that the wealthy have on society – from politics to philanthropy.
ROBEYNS: And it can, of course, be that you just fund somebody who is standing for office or – and who then becomes a president or a member of Congress. It can also be that you, for example, buy up or heavily fund say university institutes, and in that way you shape the way the public conversation is going. So these are ways in which you can turn financial wealth into a political power.
DISNEY: I don’t think it’s right for a private individual, or a group of individuals, to have that much say in the direction of social issues that all of us are affected by.
WHITAKER: It’s one limitarian point that Vivek Ramaswamy agrees with. He has criticized corporations and the wealthy for exerting their influence on social issues.
RAMASWAMY: The source of equality that I think we need to restore isn’t an equality of wealth, it isn’t a redistribution of wealth. It is a restoration of the idea that we are equal as citizens. I prefer to talk about not a redistribution of wealth, but a redistribution of duty.
WHITAKER: A startling new study just out finds that the world’s ten richest men more than doubled their fortunes during the first two years of the pandemic. While income levels for the 99 percent of people around the globe actually fell.
From a real world perspective, how realistic is what you’re talking about, putting an absolute limit on wealth?
ROBEYNS: Yeah, it’s a very good question. So philosophers need to ask questions that make people think, even if they disagree. So I think that’s my role. I do not believe that in my lifetime there will be any country that has a genuine limit on wealth.
(...)
