Embarrassment of Riches by Sheelah Kolhatkar

Table of Contents

Introduction
Main body
Conclusion
Work Cited

Introduction

In the article Embarrassment of Riches, Sheelah Kolhatkar addresses the tendency of ultra-wealthy Americans to consider rising income inequality and advocate the necessity to make higher taxes for them (32). In general, it is a highly informative article, and the author has managed to prove this main point in several ways. First of all, the validity of information is supported by facts, such as the personal story of Abigail Disney and the existence of the Patriotic Millionaires.

Main body

Abigail Disney is the granddaughter of Roy O. Disney, a co-founder and longtime senior executive of the Disney Company, raised in luxury (Kolhatkar 32). However, since her childhood, she started to feel discomfort for her privileged position in comparison with other people, regardless of her grandfathers statement that he had been working hard to provide the best conditions for her. Subsequently, she refused to use her familys private plane, started advocating for womens equality, peace, and adequate payment for workers in the Disney Company. She realized that the luxuries she and her family enjoyed were really a way of walling themselves off from the world, which made it easier to ignore certain economic realities (Kolhatkar 33). Thus, as a wealthy person, she wanted to contribute to social fairness and improvement by joining the Patriotic Millionaires.

In turn, founded by a political strategist Erica Payne, the Patriotic Millionaires is a group of more than two hundred ultra-wealthy people from thirty-four states, including software engineers, technology entrepreneurs, inheritors of family fortunes, and Wall Street investors (Kolhatkar 35). Their main goal is to lobby affluent policymakers in order to support policies that will raise taxes on riches and large corporations and increase the minimum wage. Despite multiple challenges mainly connected with the commitment of the majority of the countrys wealthy citizens to the traditional system, the members of Patriotic Millionaires believe in their ability to impact the nations future. The organization is constantly expanding the sphere of its activities, makes online video and TV advertising, and organizes meetings and speaking sessions before important votes.

As a matter of fact, despite a limited number of members, the Patriotic Millionaires are supported by economists and other business leaders. More and more of them began to realize that inequality has reached dangerous levels, and in the country where almost half of citizens earn less than fifteen dollars an hour and do not have savings while executive compensations are massively increasing, the possibility of riots and even a revolution is real (Kolhatkar 37). In addition, throughout the article, in order to support her thesis, the author provides the reasons why the activities of the Patriotic Millionaires and the desire of wealthy people to pay raised taxes are essential. For instance, she addresses the inappropriate working conditions of Disneylands employees who barely survive on the salaries they receive. In addition, a considerable number of them are homeless and are forced to live in their cars.

Conclusion

To conclude, it is possible to say that Kolhatkar has stated in her article that some riches currently understand the necessity of their contribution to the reduction of social inequality and managed to prove her point (32). She has provided detailed information related to the organization that takes action to raise taxes for wealthy Americans. In addition, the author has supported her thesis with the stories, interviews, and comments of people who share the opinion concerning the necessity of improvements. Moreover, she stated clear evidence why actions should be taken as an unacceptable number of workers across the country work are underpaid.