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thomas piketty
To Crush Global Inequality and Secure Livable Future, Scholars Call for 90% Tax on Mega-Rich
"The current international order is plutocratic," said French economist Thomas Piketty. "It is essential to move away from this plutocratic system to a new democratic order."
Jun 04, 2026
A sprawling report released Thursday argues that averting the "bleak techno-authoritarian futures now being sold to us" and laying the groundwork for a just, livable future requires restructuring the world's economic order to widely redistribute wealth that has been hoarded at the very top for decades.
The report, compiled by hundreds of researchers from around the world and published by the World Inequality Lab (WIL), is billed as the first comprehensive attempt to lay out a plan to "reconcile planetary habitability and high well-being for all." Achieving that aim will be impossible, the authors argue, "without a drastic reduction in inequality of income, wealth, and power."
"The current international order is plutocratic," said French economist Thomas Piketty, a renowned expert on inequality and co-director of WIL. "It is essential to move away from this plutocratic system to a new democratic order."
The report outlines a number of proposals that would redress staggering levels of wealth and income inequality. Currently, the top 10% of the global population brings in more income than the remaining 90% combined. Wealth inequality is even more extreme, with the top 10% controlling 75% of global wealth, compared to 2% controlled by the poorest half of humanity.
Specifically, the authors call for a new, progressive global income tax that would peak at 90% for those who earn 5,000 times the average adult disposable income. They also propose taxing the wealth of millionaires and billionaires at a rate up to 20%.
Revenue from the new taxes would flow into a Global Justice Fund, which would distribute dividends to countries to help boost spending on climate, education, and healthcare. The fund would also invest in a World Sovereign Fund, whose returns on "sustainable assets" would be used to finance country dividends.
"The result is not a transfer from many to few but a gain for almost everyone," Piketty and other report contributors wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian. "Close to 90% of the world’s population would double their income between 2026 and 2100, and once leisure and a habitable planet are counted, more than 99% come out ahead."
"Technical impossibility is not what is standing in the way, but rather the absence of a shared vision of social progress, at once concrete and radical."
Redressing inequality would not be sufficient to secure a livable future, the report authors emphasize, given that continued fossil fuel use and expansion are pushing the world in the direction of climate catastrophe. What's required to prevent planetary disaster is a "fundamental transformation of energy systems," the report argues.
"This means electrifying energy demand wherever feasible (such as transitioning vehicle fleets) and switching to low-carbon fuels (for example, in steel and cement production)," the report states. "Crucially, electricity generation itself must be decarbonized, moving away from fossil fuels toward renewables like hydropower, solar, and wind."
The report also envisions a move away from overconsumption toward what the authors call a future of "sufficiency," which would entail shorter work hours for the global labor force, changes to land use, and other reforms.
Such ambitious goals will not become reality, the report stresses, without "a powerful citizen movement and a dense network of broad-based organizations (including labor unions, political parties, civic platforms, and other collective initiatives) which are sufficiently well-organized and effective at promoting broad institutional and policy change."
"A habitable, equal, and prosperous 21st Century is materially possible," the authors declare. "Technical impossibility is not what is standing in the way, but rather the absence of a shared vision of social progress, at once concrete and radical. What it will take instead is political choice, and the hard work of coalition-building behind it."
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500+ Experts Worldwide Call for Global Panel to Address ‘Inequality Emergency’
"Clear and proven steps can be taken to reduce it and build more equal societies and economies," wrote economists and other experts, "which are the fundamental foundation stone of a successful future for us all."
Nov 14, 2025
Emphasizing that economic inequality is "a policy choice," more than 500 economists and other experts on the global wealth gap are endorsing a call made earlier this month in the first-ever G20 report on inequality: The "inequality emergency" must be confronted by new international body inspired by the United Nations' panel on climate change.
The creation of an International Panel on Inequality (IPI) was a central recommendation of the landmark report set to be presented next week at the G20 Leaders Summit in Johannesburg, and renowned economists including 2024 Nobel economics laureate Daron Acemoglum, Thomas Piketty, Isabella Weber, Ha-Joon Chang, and Jason Hickel were among those who signed a letter Thursday urging the creation of the committee.
The inclusion of economists, climate scientists, epidemiologists, historians, and experts from a range of other disciplines "reflects a key fact," said the signatories. "High levels of economic inequality have a negative impact on every aspect of human life and progress, including our economies, our democracies, and the very survival of the planet."
"Just as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has played a vital role in providing neutral, science-based, and objective assessments of climate change, a new International Panel on Inequality would do the same for the inequality emergency," reads the letter, which was also signed by global economic leaders including former US Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and former World Bank top economists and leaders.
Since its inception nearly four decades ago, the IPCC has provided governments with the most up-to-date scientific information about planetary heating and its impacts. Its assessments have informed the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which subjected wealthy countries to emissions targets for the first time; and the 2015 Paris Agreement, which has required countries to develop and implement plans to draw down planet-heating emissions.
An IPI, said the experts on Thursday, "would provide policymakers the best, most objective assessments on the scale of inequality, its causes and consequences, and consider potential solutions."
"We believe this is in the interests of policymakers from across the political spectrum, who see the importance of this issue and the need to base responses to it on data and evidence and sound analysis," reads the letter. "We know that scholars and experts across the world would readily contribute their time voluntarily—as thousands do for the IPCC—in support of such a necessary and vital international initiative. We are ready to assist in this process."
The letter followed the release of the G20 Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts on Inequality's landmark report, which was presented to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this month ahead of the G20 Leaders Summit.
The Extraordinary Committee, which is led by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and also includes inequality experts such as Winnie Byanyima of Uganda and Jayati Ghosh of India, warned that in the last quarter-century, the wealthiest 1% of people around the globe have captured more than 40% of all new wealth—$1.3 million on average—while the bottom 50% has seen its wealth grow by just 1%, or about $585, in constant US dollars.
One in four people around the globe—roughly 2.3 billion people—face moderate or severe food insecurity, meaning they regularly skip meals. The report found that the problem is getting significantly worse, with the number of food-insecure people rising by 335 million since 2019.
The report found that 80% of all countries—accounting for roughly 90% of the global population—have high levels of income inequality, making them seven times more likely than more equal countries to experience democratic decline.
“We are at a dangerous moment in human history," said Piketty, co-director of the World Inequality Lab and World Inequality Database. "Rampant inequality is dividing nations and communities, threatening our social fabric, human rights, and the very essence of democracy. A global effort to tackle inequality is needed—and rigorous analysis of its causes, drivers, and solutions is the first step."
"Governments need to live up to the G20 Summit’s promise of ‘solidarity, equality, sustainability’ and urgently establish an International Panel on Inequality," he added.
Countries with low levels of inequality included Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland—places that also consistently rank high on global reports on happiness and that were found to have low levels of "health, social, and environmental problems," according to the report.
The countries with low levels of inequality have "generous universal transfers and social insurance, supplemented by targeted assistance," the report says.
“High inequality is the result of decades of a failed economics that has primarily benefited the richest in our societies," said Chang, research professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London. "Not only is there a lot of evidence showing that higher inequality produces more negative economic and social outcomes, there are quite a few examples of more egalitarian societies growing much faster than comparable but more unequal societies.”
The signatories of the letter emphasized that inequality "is not inevitable."
"Clear and proven steps can be taken to reduce it and build more equal societies and economies," they wrote, "which are the fundamental foundation stone of a successful future for us all."
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Leading Economists Endorse UN Expert's 'Economy of Genocide' Report After Trump Attack
A group of economists, including Thomas Piketty and Yanis Varoufakis, expressed solidarity with Francesca Albanese as the Trump administration pushes for her removal as U.N. special rapporteur on occupied Palestine.
Jul 08, 2025
A group of world-renowned economists has penned an open letter expressing support for United Nations expert Francesca Albanese's recent report scrutinizing the integral role that powerful corporations have played in sustaining Israel's genocidal assault on Palestinians in the illegally occupied territories.
The letter, first obtained and published in English by Zeteo on Monday, characterizes Albanese's report as "a major contribution to understanding the political economy of Israel's apartheid state, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and, now, their genocide," and argues her findings "must be studied and debated widely and freely."
The letter's signatories include former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, French economist Thomas Piketty, and University of Massachusetts Amherst economics professor Jayati Ghosh.
The economists' endorsement of Albanese's report comes days after the Trump administration issued a statement calling on United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to remove her as special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories. The statement was released a day after the publication of Albanese's report, which the Trump administration characterizes as part of "an unacceptable campaign of political and economic warfare against the American and worldwide economy."
The top economists cited the Trump administration's statement as a key impetus behind their decision to publicly back Albanese's work.
"In view of the virulently hostile and indeed intimidating letter from the U.S. government to the U.N. secretary-general demanding the dismissal of Ms. Albanese and the quashing of her excellent report, we felt the need to express our strong support for Ms. Albanese and to encourage the U.N. to dismiss the shrill demands of the U.S. and Israeli governments," the economists wrote.
"Following a well-trodden path of genocide denial and of bullying anyone who challenges the right of the colonial power to dispossess Indigenous peoples," they continued, "the U.S. and Israeli governments, with most European governments too timid to take a stance, demand that the international community turn a blind eye to the ongoing genocide and, in particular, to the key role that multinational and national corporations are playing in maintaining the apartheid regime and enabling the subsequent genocide."
This is not business as usual.
My new UN report, From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide, is out today.
It shows how corporations have fueled and legitimised the destruction of Palestine.
Genocide, it would seem, is profitable. This cannot continue, accountability must… pic.twitter.com/Ei3atw0TQ1
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) July 1, 2025
Albanese's report thoroughly documents corporate complicity and direct participation in Israel's assault on Palestinians, specifically naming dozens of corporations in a range of sectors—from Lockheed Martin to Microsoft to Chevron to Palantir.
"The complex web of corporate structures—and the often obscured links between parents and subsidiaries, franchises, joint ventures, licensees, etc.—implicates many more," Albanese wrote. "Israel's ongoing illegal occupation of the oPt creates an untenable situation for corporate entities to simply continue business as usual."
"The private sector must, in its own interests, urgently reconsider all engagement connected to Israel's economy of occupation and now genocide," she added.
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