Rigged game: Australia's obscene concentration of wealth

The obscene concentration of wealth in Australia isn’t an accident. It’s a policy choice. And it’s one we’re paying for with our democracy, writes Dr James Schuurmans-Stekhoven.

LET'S BE BLUNT, the top 10% of Australian households control 44% of all our wealth – the richest 200 Australians now control $667 billion – more than 36% of Australia’s annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Meanwhile, 3.7 million people, including 757,000 children, live below the poverty line.

This belies the neoliberal “level playing field”, “trickle-down” and meritocracy myths we’ve been peddled.

In truth, it’s a rigged game.

The philosopher Ingrid Robeyns calls it "limitarianism" — the principle that at a certain point, wealth is no longer a personal achievement but a systemic risk. The arguments for capping extreme wealth are devastating.

First, excess wealth is directly linked to poverty. Research shows the lion’s share of economic gains go to the wealthy, while only a tiny fraction reaches those who have the least — a fountain up, not a trickle-down. Tax deductions disproportionately benefit the rich, whose tax contributions could have supported the poor.

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Second, extreme wealth undermines democracy.

The ultra-rich fund political parties, buy media outlets, and hire lobbyists to write the rules in their favour. They don’t just follow the rules — they write them.

Just look at Advance. Described as a “stratospherically elite clique of rich, bored men looking for a hobby”, this digital campaigning organisation bankrolled the successful “No” campaign against the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, spending $15 million to help defeat it. Its donors include retired fund manager Simon Fenwick ($750,000), Perth car dealer Brian Hadley Anderson ($1.025 million), and the Liberal Party’s own Cormack Foundation ($500,000). Clive Palmer poured $1.93 million into advertising against the Voice.

This isn’t grassroots. This is oligarchy in action.

Third, the super-rich are disproportionately responsible for climate change. Their lifestyles and investments generate vastly higher emissions. In an ecologically just world, they would never have become so rich.

Fourth, no one truly “earns” their fortune by merit. The late Nobel laureate Herbert Simon estimated that 90% of economic welfare derives from what previous generations left us. Wealth is largely the result of the “natural lottery” of birth and inherited advantage.

So what’s the solution?

Dutch-Belgian philosopher Ingrid Robeyns proposes two limits: an ethical limit – the amount needed for a fully flourishing life, around 1 million euros – and a political limit decided democratically, perhaps 10 million euros per person. Beyond that, near-total taxation. And inheritance ceilings to break the dynastic transfer of privilege. Meritocracy means nothing if someone’s grandparents can just buy them a seat at the table.

Australia’s social cohesion troubles can be resolved by addressing inequality

Australia’s fraying social fabric isn’t being torn apart by culture wars or extremism alone, but by a deepening inequality that no royal commission can paper over.

Critics whine about “incentives”. The standard defence: “If you tax the rich, they’ll stop creating wealth”. It’s a tired old lie.

People create and contribute for non-profit reasons. And it neglects the environmental, democratic and social cohesion benefits that would ensue.

Robeyns notes that even if a limitarian economy did disincentivise workers, that would weaken the fiscal case — but it doesn’t affect the ethical case for limiting extreme wealth.

Legal scholar Tammy Harel Ben Shahar has proposed an alternative relative threshold – capping wealth based on the gap between rich and poor – which better addresses the political inequality justification for limitarianism.

The budget just took a step in the right direction

The 2026–27 Federal Budget delivered one of the toughest hits to high-net-worth wealth in decades. The 50% capital gains tax discount is being scrapped, replaced by an inflation-indexed model with a 30% minimum tax floor. Negative gearing is now restricted to new builds.

The changes are framed as a pivot toward intergenerational equity and housing affordability. The response from the innovation sector has been swift – founders warn of talent relocating overseas – but these are the banal squeals of an overly-privileged class finally being asked to pay its share.

The fair go has got up and gone

Australia can keep telling itself the fair go is alive, but fairness is not a slogan or kerosene sold as relief.

We cannot rely on trickle-down morality to fix a structural failure

John Maynard Keynes dreamed we would outgrow the 'money motive' — instead, neo-liberalism has institutionalised it. Taming capitalism, protecting democracy, and meeting urgent unmet needs requires rethinking how much inequality we will tolerate.

Oxfam Australia has called it what it is: inequitable, unsustainable, and amoral. Their big ask? A 5% wealth tax on billionaires alone could have raised $17.4 billion just last year — enough to fund universal cheap childcare, extend energy bill relief for years, and ease the housing and childcare squeeze crushing everyone else.

It’s past time that Australians reasserted that the democratic state – and the laws that bind it – is superior to the fortune of any individual.

No bank account should be large enough to buy a seat above the law. No donation should be large enough to silence the voice of the people. And no inheritance should be large enough to create a hereditary aristocracy in a country that supposedly believes in the fair go.

The price of exceptionalism is clearly too high. Is it now time to cap the rot?

Dr James Schuurmans-Stekhoven has a career defined by high-level academic rigour, a polymathic approach to research and a commitment to strategic optimisation across multiple disciplines.