The poor will always be with us, it is said. But, then, so will the rich — or will they? Should they?

Not necessarily, if a glance at the shelves at your local bookstore is anything to go by. Three new titles on the place of the rich in society show that the question has always been controversial, but is especially so today amid rapid increases in the fortunes of the super-rich and accelerating inequality. That publishers sense a market in books that aim to expose and even abolish extreme wealth indicates that the super-rich may want to pay attention. 

The two “abolition” books are Limitarianism by Ingrid Robeyns, a philosopher at Utrecht University, and Enough by Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Centre, a UK think-tank. They cover much the same ground and make similar, often familiar, arguments, although the Robeyns book has more of the leftist academic to it; Hildyard’s more of the leftist activist.