Winners Take All

Abstract

“It feels like I’m at a firefighters conference and no one's allowed to speak about water…We can talk for a very long time about all these stupid philanthropy schemes…we’ve got to be talking about taxes…Taxes, taxes, taxes. All the rest is bullshit in my opinion.” Thus did Dutch writer and historian Rutger Bregman introduce himself to the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos in January, 2019. Alongside government leaders, billionaire philanthropists were, as Bregman saw it, gathered in self-congratulatory mode. Out of the goodness of their hearts and their capacity to be disruptive, the global elite were changing the world. Bregman, an advocate for universal basic income, disagreed. We need not more charity, but structural change in social and economic arrangements.