Is It Time to Redistribute the Wealth?

Open to Debate

Education, Society & Culture, News, Government, Politics

4.5 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2021

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Economic inequality has become a linchpin of modern politics. As nations around the world face a reckoning on racial and social justice and work to combat the economic impacts of the pandemic, we ask: Is it time to redistribute the wealth? Should we address growing inequality by overhauling our tax system, expanding our social safety nets, and investing more in public initiatives like universal health care, education, and infrastructure? Or would a wealth transfer unduly punish the economic elite, destroy the promise of a meritocracy, and inevitably lead to excessive government intervention in our social and economic lives? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm John Don Van and this is Intelligent Squared US.
0:08.2	This special episode marks the premiere of our new global television series That's Debatable,
0:14.3	which we're presenting in partnership with Bloomberg Media and sponsored by IBM.
0:18.9	So let's get to it.
0:20.4	Some statistics come as a jolt and one of those is the headline number about wealth inequality
0:25.6	that of the world's wealth, 44% is owned by the richest 1% alone.
0:31.2	And it didn't use to balance out that way.
0:33.8	Wealth was more spread out.
0:35.8	The trend in our lifetimes has been and continues to be more wealth in fewer hands.
0:42.1	And is that a trend that merits disruption?
0:44.8	Can we pinpoint what the harms are?
0:47.4	Can those harms be addressed without unintended consequences?
0:50.7	Well, in these questions we thought we had the makings of a debate, so we had it.
0:54.4	In front of a live virtual audience, we brought together four experts, two teams of two,
0:59.0	who have spent decades thinking about these issues.
1:02.0	They argued for and against the resolution, it's time to redistribute the wealth.
1:08.2	This debate was recorded on October 9th and it went in three rounds and then our live
1:12.6	audience voted to decide the winner.
1:14.4	But you can still weigh in.
1:16.0	The vote is still open online at our website, IQ2US.org-flash-vote.
1:22.2	All right, let's meet our debaters.
1:24.2	First, I want to welcome the team arguing in favor of the resolution.
	...

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