CHUCK COLLINS on Wealth Hoarding and Capitalist Capture /340
Aerial photo by Alexander Uhrin of rows of unprocessed spruce trunks stacked as far as the eye can see.
In an increasingly unequal and precarious world, how might we come to combat disconnection and disillusionment? In this episode, guest Cuck Collins dives deeply into the world of wealth hoarding and staggering inequality. Recognizing the complexity of these issues, Ayana and Chuck engage deeply with questions of philanthrocapitalism, tax spending, the wealth defense industry, and power inequities across society.
Chuck explains that as wealth concentrates in fewer and fewer hands it perpetuates and increases anti-democratic values and economic instability, leading to uncertain and uneven futures. This growing inequality is deeply intertwined with the capitalist extraction that has led to the climate crisis. As the fossil fuel industry has worked to shape public response to the climate crisis through denial, doubt, and delay, it is clear that the politics of our times are ensnared within corporate interest and greed.
At the same time, the climate crisis calls us to reckon with our value systems and to question the cultural conditionings by which we have been surrounded. It is delusional to think that even the wealthiest among us will be able to escape climate crisis entirely. Instead of relying on broken and untrustworthy systems, how can we seed a new economy of solidarity as we work to live within Earth’s boundaries?
“Privilege or wealth is a disconnection drug that keeps people apart from one another and from building authentic, real connections and communities.”
Photo of Chuck Collins
Chuck Collins is a campaigner and storyteller who has worked for decades on environmental and economic justice campaigns. He is the Director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies where he co-edits Inequality.org. He is co-founder of DivestInvest.org, a global movement to divest from fossil fuels and invest in climate solutions; and trustee of the Post-Carbon Institute and Resilience.org.
His 2021 book, The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions, is about the wealth-hiding industry (Polity). He is the author of the popular book, Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good (Chelsea Green) and, with Bill Gates Sr., Wealth and Our Commonwealth (Beacon Press), a case for taxing inherited fortunes.
He was featured in this interview in Sun Magazine and this interview on Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Collins is an expert on U.S. inequality, community resilience, and the racial wealth divide and the author of numerous reports and several other books, including Is Inequality in America Irreversible?, with Mary Wright, The Moral Measure of the Economy, a book about Christian ethics and economic life. He is a founding board member of the Patriotic Millionaires. He lives with his family in Southern Vermont. Altar to an Erupting Sun is his debut novel.
♫ The music in this episode is “Searching” by Vide Geiger, “Greetings, Death, Love (Excerpts)” by Sean Smith, and “Awake Before Dawn” by The Ascent of Everest.
Episode References
Listen, Billionaire Doomsday Preppers by Chuck Collins for Inequality.org
How COVID-19 Became A 'Tremendous Windfall' For The Ultra Rich : NPR
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