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Abigail Disney I'm a practiced and willing class trader because imagine what life would be if we all weren't just simply loyal to the class we were born into. (..)
Sanam That's Abby Disney, my guest this week on If You Were In Charge, with me, Sanam Naraghi Anderlini. Welcome, everyone. The show is brought to you by the Robert Bosch Academy and my organization, ICANN, where for 20 years we've been working with women peacebuilders on stopping wars and violence around the world. Each week, I talk with other doers and imaginers about the tough issues they're tackling, from police violence to biodiversity to war and peace in the Middle East, and I ask them what they'd do if they were in charge. I'm starting with an easy one, extreme capitalism and the ridiculous disparity of wealth around us. My guest is the wonderful Abby Disney, a member of America's best-known family and, as you heard, a class trader. She's an amazing vocal advocate for higher taxes on the uber-wealthy and the risks of money corrupting our politics.
Abigail Disney The folks that J.D. Vance represents, they're a totally new group of thinkers and they have an ideology. You know, it's essentially monarchist. The people with the money know the most. Just give them power.
Sanam I wanted to have these conversations because I get exhausted hearing pundits analyze problems but offer no solutions. So when I meet brilliant, caring people, I want others to know about them. Talking to my twin daughters, Sole and Lydia, it's clear we also owe their generation some answers. In a moment, the incredible Abby Disney on money, class and life around Disneyland. But first, like I plan to do every week, I'll get a reality check from Sole, who's back in her lab at Cambridge for the start of term. (....) Hi, Sos. How are you doing? What do you call this? What do you call the first term? Michaelmas.
Soleh Michaelmas, okay. You're in the Michaelmas term, okay. I'm sure the new students will arrive. Should be fun. Cool. That's great. (.)
Sanam So, Sos, today's episode of If You're in Charge, I will be talking to Abigail Disney. In the last five, six years, she's become a real advocate and a very prominent advocate for tax reform for the uber-wealthy in the U.S. So, I thought it would be really interesting to talk to her about these issues of, you know, extreme inequality, extreme capitalism, you know, how much is enough? And also just thinking about it generationally because she is also of the kind of baby boom or end of the baby boom era where they now hold so much of U.S. wealth and thinking about kind of your generation coming in. So, when you think about these things, and again, looking at the contrast between the U.S., U.K. and just growing up in the U.S., what are your thoughts? What would you find interesting to ask her? (.)
Soleh I think the whole generational thing is interesting. (.) Like, my generation and millennials and, like, the whole idea of even just owning a house or, like, getting on the, whatever, property ladder. Not that I know anything about that. Seems so just out of the question. There was that whole, like, boom of the, how can millennials get on the property ladder? Maybe the answer is eating fewer avocados and stuff like that where the narrative was, like, pushed as the younger generations are, like, financially irresponsible and that's why they're not able to, like, amass wealth in the same way as older generations when now it's, like, more recognized that it's actually because all kinds of problems in terms of, like, minimum wage not being raised and student debt and all that kind of stuff. But also people of the boomer and, like, Gen X kind of generation just holding on to so much wealth and this kind of, like, uber-wealthy class that's just making the divide, especially in the U.S., just grow so much larger every day. And kind of, like, also trying to pretend like it's not, like, it's always been this way or something like that when it hasn't always been this way. So it's interesting that she is a member of this, like, uber-wealthy, but is kind of recognizing that it shouldn't be that way and that it hasn't always been that way either.
Sanam Remembering that it wasn't always like this is a really important piece of this because there were a series of tax reforms that have taken place both in England but, you know, predominantly in the U.S. in the last 30, 40 years that have really enabled this. So, for example, I came across a paper that said that right now less than 0.1% of estates are subject to estate tax in the U.S. because they increase the upper barrier. So I think up to $13 million, that estate doesn't get taxed once a person passes away. In the U.S., currently less than 0.1% of estates are subject to estate tax, down from 7.65% in 1977. And as baby boomers die, they're set to pass down $72.6 trillion in assets to their heirs. So, you know, these are significant shifts. So, again, when you think about your generation and the messaging, if you want, that is coming about the myth of the two guys in the back of the garage at their parents' house and they invented something and all of a sudden they sold it. Or the endless stories that we get, you know, from Silicon Valley and places where they start a startup, two years later they sell it for millions and so forth. Does that filter into just the psyche or the zeitgeist of students and does it add pressure? Does it, how does your generation? //S01: I think it does.//
Soleh I think it does for sure. And there is definitely this kind of, like, startup culture that you see in a lot of places where people want to be the founders of something and do this kind of Silicon Valley rags to riches thing. (..) But I also, at least most of my friends, like people I talk to, know that it's kind of fake, right? Even if you just take the example of, like, elite universities and it's like, oh, anyone can go to Harvard and all these things that are coming out around legacy and how much that helps. And even, like, not even just legacy, but just having, like, familial wealth and how much that will help you just get into one of these universities that then gives you such a huge leg up. And it does exist. Like, some of them exist, right? These kind of the startups that become super successful. But then you also have Elon Musk's and stuff like that who are pretending like they, it's all them, you know, it's all their personal achievements. But then if you look at their parents, it was actually generational wealth that started all of this. I think it's both, like, people can see through it, but people still want it to exist. I don't know. It's just, like, a weird, there is this kind of appeal in the kind of billionaire hypes, again, like your Elon Musk's and your Mark Zuckerberg's or people want to, like, achieve that level.
Sanam You know, one of the things that they talk about is that this extreme wealth and this, you know, the uber wealthy, not only is creating a sort of inequality in society, so it's creating social fragmentation, if you want, but it's also kind of a fundamental threat to democracy.
Soleh Well, I think for sure it is. Like, if you look at just the US, you know, upcoming election cycle, what's the estimates that, like, each campaign is going to spend, like, $3 billion or something ridiculous like that before November, compared to the UK even, where it's like, I mean, to be fair, the election cycle is a lot shorter. It's only six weeks, but it's, like, less than $40 million or something, right? So, just because of that, obviously, people with money, like, you vote with your money, money is speech. The Supreme Court ruled, right, that money is speech. (..)
Sanam I think you need to explain that, because I think in most countries in the world, people wouldn't even understand what that means, money is speech. Because free speech is protected in the Constitution, and then, what I'm going to issue is that. (.)
Soleh Yeah, the Citizens United versus FEC ruled that the free speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations, non-profit organizations, labor unions, and other associations. (..) So, yeah, like, people don't necessarily notice all the time.
Sanam As you say, one is the direct donations and the direct access and, you know, wanting to, you know, push your agenda with the candidates. The other is doing it through, whether it's the PACs or through the lobbies. And at the end of the day, whether it's the National Rifle Association, the NRA, or APAC, or even these kinds of lobbies end up also being funded largely or often by wealthy people, right?
Soleh And why is there no A or P for young people, huh? We don't have any money. (.....)
Sanam That's right. (.) Anyway, so, yeah, so it's going to be an interesting conversation. Any particular questions that you would have that you would want me to ask?
Soleh I would like to ask her about private planes and carbon emissions and how she thinks, like, you know, the kind of interplay there of the taxing the rich, not just in, like, helping with income inequality and general inequality in the U.S., but also in, like, climate. And they try to tell you to turn off your lights when you leave and that's going to make the difference. But then Taylor Swift is riding around with however many private jet flights and whatever. That's also got, like, a much bigger impact than any, like, individual without that kind of wealth and access could ever even, like, think. Like, even if I tried, I couldn't emit that much, you know? Right. And why would I be trying? I don't know. But even if I did, like, I basically just couldn't. So there's also that aspect to it, which I think is interesting.
Sanam It's like when they talk about the World Economic Forum and, you know, discussions of poverty and everybody shows up in their private jets.
Soleh And then you look at Flight Mapper and there's, like, a billion private jets landing in wherever it's held. Bizarre, again, slightly dystopic sense of... Like the hypocrisy. Yeah. Also.
Sanam Okay. No, that's great. I will talk to her about that as well. And, of course, I'm going to ask her what her proposals are for tax reform. And I'm sort of curious about whether she gets invited to family and friends' dinners or do not want her around. We're saying what she does, but we'll see what she has to say about that. All right. I'll talk to you later. (........) Hi, Abby. (.) Hi. Glad to be here.
Abigail Disney First of all, how are you doing and how's life? Life is good. I, like everybody else in the U.S., was trudging along as though we were headed for the executioner. And then everything switched in a moment's notice. And now we feel like we have a chance in the election. And, like, I couldn't have told you I'm fine until that happened because the election was so deep a concern for me that it felt personal. It was personal. So I'm feeling like things are on the upswing. And that makes it possible for me to look at other things, personal things, you know, my family and everything. It's just been so hard in this country. These last eight years have been so hard.
Sanam You know, it's so true. And the way I see it is that I'm optimistic about what could happen.
Abigail Disney But I also feel like either way, there is still a ton of work to do because of the way things are so polarized. I mean, we can't take our foot off the gas because so much damage got done in Trump's four years in office. And I think that the deeper problem, the deeper root of what's happening in America, it goes so much further back than that. And this wasn't just what people were willing to believe. It was the craziness that they wanted to believe about their fellow citizens, about people in public life and so forth. And, you know, I have a theory about why that is. I think it's been just so toxic to the culture.
Sanam And it kind of segues into the conversation that I wanted to have with you about your work on tax reform. And before we get to that, I got to know you because my cousin was your architect. And then you got involved in the world of women, peace building. And you made all those amazing films, 12 films. And you've won Emmys. You've won awards from religious organizations, from women's organizations. And then you've also won the Class Trader Award, which was extraordinary. (.) So, was that a good moment? Was that a strange moment for you? //S00: Yeah.//
Abigail Disney I love that moment because, actually, I'm a practiced and willing Class Trader. Because I think anybody who emerges from my class feeling perfectly comfortable with all the advantages is just either not paying attention or doesn't have a heart, you know, because it just shouldn't feel comfortable. Imagine what life would be if we all weren't just simply loyal to the class we were born into. And the class you're born into is a matter of, you know, basically winning the lottery or not. You know, it's not anything about whether or not you're a good, deserving person. So, and I've just felt that way since I was a child. So, I'm delighted to be a Class Trader. It's a good thing to be.
Sanam Does it make for awkward family gatherings? Or, like, you know, have you lost friends and family, you know, around this issue of tax reform?
Abigail Disney My parents had both passed. And with my parents and grandparents, it was hard. Especially one particular grandmother. It was really hard. And it was about more than class because they came from the South and it was also about race and other things. And so, it was really hard. We fought a lot. And before Fox News existed, there was just a lot of conflict that I tried to navigate as well as I could. But, you know, what are you going to do? It's just, you love your family. You don't want to just break with them. You have to find a way to navigate it. I sort of feel like that's a superpower I have because when I made the Armor of Light, I made it because I've always been able to talk to conservatives. (.) And I feel like I have, I call it bilingual. I'm bilingual because it is a different way of talking and thinking. And most people don't know how to do both sides. So, I wanted to use my superpower for good. (.)
Sanam When did you realize that you were a Disney-like, as in what it meant to have that name? I mean, did you, you know, I mean, the rest of us grew up with this idea of Disneyland and Disney World. Even in Tehran, we were like, I want to go to Disneyland. You know, it was such a global thing. (..)
Abigail Disney Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it's strange because, you know, any child grows up, first of all, as a fan, right? That's their first encounter with it. And then you realize somewhere along the line that, oh, that's also us, you know. And so, we lived in L.A., so we went to Disneyland a lot. And we would only go if there was a reason for us to be there. There was a new ride opening or some kind of special parade or something. (.) So, we tended to go in our best clothes. And we'd have to be on our best behavior. And we'd have to sit on whatever podium next to all the famous people. And so, that's when you begin to absorb the idea that you're not like everybody else. And you have some kind of closeness to this thing. But it doesn't feel great because you don't get to go get messy with the other kids, you know. And that felt frustrating. So, it was a complicated thing. Very complicated. It wasn't until I got to college, really. I mean, the 70s were a terrible decade for being a Disney because the 70s, the company was really on its last breath. I mean, it really was very close to dying. It couldn't make a film that would be successful to save its life. And it was just all kinds of uncool.
Sanam Is there a sense of which you sort of wonder whether people are friends with you because you're a Disney or whether because they actually like you?
Abigail Disney Always. Always. Always. There are some people who can't hide it, right? And it's like I can look into their eyeballs and I see like little Ds written there. You know, like they're like, I'm talking to this person. And that is a thing I think about every single day. And I kind of hate that, but it just sort of comes with the territory. So, you know, when I left for college, it started to kind of happen around me. And I could hear that people had been talking about me and things like that. It felt weird. And there have definitely been moments in my life that have very painfully, it's been revealed to me that, oh, that's why you were my friend. You know, so once in a while that will happen and it's crushing to me. I really hate it. But, you know, the thing is like my mom, you know, reacted to that kind of thing by basically just not trusting anybody ever. And I felt like I'd rather be burned once in a while because you don't get burned all that often. And that would be just the price I would pay for having an open heart, you know. So I shouldn't maybe broadcast that to the world. But I've made a policy of just defaulting to trust. And it's almost never the wrong choice.
Sanam That's great. It must be very hard. And you almost have to do triple the work to be able to, whether, you know, in terms of friendships, in terms of the work you've done. I mean, you know, it's sort of, you know, when I talk to my kids about what they see in the world and how they're dealing with it, one of the issues that comes up, of course, is the sort of disparity of wealth and opportunity. And yesterday, Sola was saying, you know, so often, like, it's as if young people, the millennials or the Gen Z are being, you know, they're being accused of, oh, you know, well, you guys eat too many avocados or, you know, as if the avocado, one less avocado is going to allow them to put a down payment for a home. How do you see it? How did you get involved in this discussion? And you've talked about it being a threat to democracy. sort of, yeah, well, how do you understand the problem?
Abigail Disney I'm old enough to remember when Ronald Reagan took office and pretty much jumped right in to the plan. And I mean, it was it was its own version of Project 2025. You know, there were a bunch of conservatives in the 70s. They ran Reagan in 76, but he was too radical to get the nomination, which is interesting. And then they kind of repackaged him in 1980 as this grandfatherly old guy who wouldn't say scary things. Or if he was going to say scary things, he'd say them more genially. And he came with this massive tax cut, massive, massive, mostly benefiting the wealthy. And then through the 80s and the 90s, and that's Bill Clinton on the helm, there was a long string of tax cuts and revision of the tax code so as to just privilege people in the finance business mainly. And things changed, things radically changed. It was not just that the taxes, the laws had changed, the ethos had changed. It had switched into something else. And I was there in a theater in New York City watching the movie Wall Street in 1984, 1987, whatever year it came out. And I can remember that when Gordon Gekko says the famous line, greed is good, the theater erupted in applause. You know, he was meant to be the bad guy in that movie, but that was how totally inverted our value system had become. And in such a short period of time, it was horrible. And I kind of sat back and watched the hedge fund industry happen and the private equity business happen. And my family did some private equity and some hedge fund in that, so I knew it kind of in a small way from different angles. And all I could see was these are people who are making shit tons of money, sorry for the swearing, at the same time as when I was doing my foundation work in New York City, working with low-income families in New York City, it just was steadily getting worse and worse. And what the upshot of that was that they lowered the capital gains tax so low that I was taxed less for not doing anything, you know, for just taking dividends for my stock or selling stock than a person who worked all day long got taxed. And that just, that we've, you know, we've lost it completely, you know, and a lot of this in the 80s, the ideologues who kind of set us up for this were really people who hated FDR. They wanted to unwind everything FDR had put into place. They believed he was a communist. They believe anybody's a communist who believes that we're all in this together. And they wanted to unwind every last shred of what had been accomplished in the 30s and 40s. And by the 80s and 90s, they had done that. So right now, the, the, the, we need to talk about the income tax and the various brackets and how we tax capital gains and stuff like that. But, but because the taxes at that level have been so not aligned with our values, the wealth building has taken place over the last 40 years, has put the wealthy in such a huge position of, of, of, you know, this astronomical amount of wealth and so far from regular people that merely addressing it through income taxes won't be enough. We won't close the inequality gap unless we think about taxing wealth.
Sanam I grew up, uh, in the 80s here in England and we saw the same thing with, um, Mrs. Thatcher, right? That it was kind of changes in tax laws, privatization of everything, privatization of water companies. I mean, right now we have Thames Water, which is, um, you know, basically is, is the source of water for, for, you know, half of the Southeast. And it's owned by a hedge fund in, I don't know, Dubai or somewhere. And they give dividends to their shareholders, but literally there is sewage pouring into the rivers and into the sea because they didn't, um, there weren't enough regulation and, and the government didn't care. And, um, and it, it just, this, this disparity, I, I call it kind of extreme capitalism. It's like, we're not against capitalism, but I am against extreme capitalism. Yes, exactly. Um, you know, that seems to be the sort of the, the era that post cold war, like it's almost like politics ended and it became all about money. Is that kind of what, what you saw as well from the 80s and 90s?
Abigail Disney For sure. I, I've been calling it fundamentalist capitalism. Yeah. So we're on the same page about it. And, and, you know, all faith systems have a version of itself that's fundamentalist. And usually it adheres really tightly to a text or a set of precepts that are very old and they adhere literally and with sort of slavish belief, even to the parts of it that are absurd. Fundamentalist capitalism, it has the same quality as a fundamentalist faith system in the sense that it will take you to crazy places if you don't put limits on it. And if, and if you don't all agree as to what your values are, there was a long period in the 90s and the oddies where it didn't really matter what our values were. The world was being shifted in front of us without our permission because the finance world especially had gained so much power and had so totally co-opted anybody who was regulating them that everything became possible for them. So there was little antitrust work being done, very little work being done on campaign finance reform. We had the horrible Citizens United decision. And now we have so much money in politics, which is warping the entire system, which is precisely why it's a danger to democracy. And I think that the really insidious thing about offering the wealthiest people that much power and visibility and leeway, it's like telling them that they are, in fact, that great, that they are, in fact, worthy. And they get an idea of themselves that they should be running things. And if you listen to the new, you know, national conservatives, the folks that J.D. Vance represents, they're a totally new group of thinkers who are, who weren't even talking to the public as little as four years ago. They weren't, they're brand new and they have an ideology that, you know, it's essentially monarchist. It's autocratic. It's like the people with the money know the most. Just give them power.
Sanam It's kind of hard to believe that we're there and accept that we are. I mean, that's kind of what we're seeing. In terms of your group, Patriotic Millionaires, are you getting more people involved?
Abigail Disney I didn't found it. I'm just one patriotic millionaire. It has a brilliant founder, Erica, and she's been bringing in loads of people. I actually am amazed by the number of people who want to join. And it feels actually quite logical. You know, it's a little bit in self-interest to say we want the tax codes changed because we are seeing increasing, you know, amounts of social unrest. There is every chance that the country could break out into a kind of a low-level civil war. That wouldn't surprise me a bit. That is partly about economic inequality. It's about the way workers have been treated by very empowered managements. You know, they're not wrong when they say there's a handful of elites who control everything. They're not wrong about that. But that is raising the temperature in the country so much that, you know, we have to think about a way to re-fix this thing. Or, you know, so there are a lot of wealthy people. I have a wealthy friend in Patriotic Millionaires who gave up this private jet. Yay! Bravo! And that's a really big deal for someone to do that. But, you know, it's time we stopped taking up so much more space than we're entitled to as individual human beings.
Sanam When you link it to the political space and democracy, one of the things that we saw was after the Biden-Trump debate, one of the first signals of the fact that Biden was not going to be a tenable candidate was when people, including you and others, said, we're not going to give money anymore. Can somebody look at that and say, oh, well, that's how you're using your power? Or, you know, aren't you being sort of hypocritical about what you're saying? Or is that something that in the U.S. political space, election campaigns are run by donors, and so donors do need to weigh in based on their own ethics and morals and values as well?
Abigail Disney Well, the thing is that if you don't do what the bad guys are doing, you're unilaterally disarming. And they have to be beaten. They just have to be beaten. And I was on more than one phone call with a lot of Democratic donors. And on the phone calls, there was, they were unanimity about, like, we are going to lose this election. We are definitely going to lose this election. And I kept saying, well, then we have to say something. I mean, it's not right for us to be quiet about this. Well, it's Biden's decision. It's Biden. And I'm not sure it's Biden's decision because, like, this affects not only all of us as Americans, but also, like, the world. So I just got really tired of the fact that people were afraid to speak up, partly out of the fear of being called a hypocrite for using our money to express a big, strong opinion and bring pressure on the president. And I just thought, you know what, being worried about, yes, I'm being a hypocrite. And from time to time, life requires that. You know, there was not much time. It had to be heard. And somebody had to be brave enough to say it. Nobody on those calls wanted to be public about it. I just thought, then, like, fuck politics. I mean, fuck politeness. (.) This is too important. And, you know, I did have a suspicion that something would happen once we let go of that option and then looked at Kamala. I suspected there would be a rush of energy. And I had no idea it was going to be the kind of rush of energy that came, but I'm so happy about it. Because this has been partly about generations and that boomers in particular just refusing to move on. You know, and these are the same people who are saying, millennials, you eat too many avocados and, you know, get off your phones and all the rest of it. And when they were, you know, held in the same kind of contempt by the generation before them, how can they possibly not remember that feeling? It astonishes me. So what was clearly happening was we had two very old white guys who were kind of both falling apart and too proud to step aside who actually in their hearts believed they were the two best people for this very difficult job. And, you know, I could see that young people were so alienated by this. We had to offer them this change in generation. And when I heard people disparage Kamala, it was 100% of the time white men who were boomers who had a lot of money. And, you know, they are people who would swear to their dying breath that they were not racist and they were not misogynist, but they really had substantial problems with her, et cetera, et cetera. And maybe they did, maybe they didn't, I'm not sure, but I'm so glad we were able to get over that hump as quickly as we did because 100% we wouldn't have had such a hard time deciding what to do if it hadn't been a black woman as our vice president. Any other vice president would have been a no-brainer.
Sanam Yeah, it's true. So coming back to the question of tax reform and how you see things, so, you know, what's the piece of the puzzle that you've actually taken on and you're working on?
Abigail Disney What I'm doing is I'm latching on to people's pre-existing campaigns where I can and where it can be helpful. I can help with raising visibility and I can help with raising credibility. The capital gains tax needs to be changed, for instance, because people who own stock are not job creators. They're stock owners, and so rewarding stock ownership with the capital gains tax is not promoting business and is not helping small business people. That's absurd. The inheritance tax is something that Republicans have been trying to get rid of for years, and I've been speaking up and defending it because it's a ridiculous thing to think that a person can amass a great amount of wealth over a lifetime and not have it taxed when he dies, even though the infrastructure caused his wealth to happen, the investments by the government into their trades would have made it happen and so forth. So that strikes me as just ridiculous and it tends toward creating dynasties. And we have to think about all the different manifestations of wealth that are new, that have happened in the last 40 years, like people owning multiple homes, which are basically places where they're parking cash all around the world to keep it from being repatriated and being taxed. So we have to look at the systems that have grown up around tax avoidance, and we really have to hold people's feet to the fire and get the IRS to be able to collect the taxes they're actually owed. And then we have to think very seriously about a wealth tax. Now, a wealth tax is unconstitutional, and the reason a wealth tax is unconstitutional is because slave owners were scared that the North would tax the slaves they owned, and they would essentially create an abolitionist tax system. And so that is why that's in the Constitution. It was yet another stop to slave owners who got the three-fifths of a human thing into the Constitution, which, you know, how anybody was willing to sign that, I don't understand. I think it's possible to take another look at a wealth tax and the particular part of the Constitution that says we can't have it. I mean, Elizabeth Warren has a lot of great things to say about it, and I want to help her in any way she wants help.
Sanam You know, when we talk about these things, so often people, in the narrative from the other side, it's as if it's going to affect ordinary people, right? So when you say, you know, I mean, I think you've talked about the higher marginal tax rate and how your grandfather and your great uncle, Walt Disney, you know, they amassed plenty of wealth, and they had 90% marginal tax rates over a certain amount. What's the threshold that you would be talking about?
Abigail Disney AOC famously said that, like, in her first day in office, every billionaire is a policy error or a policy failure. I do think that as a threshold for really bringing in a lot of taxation is a billion dollars, because if you can't live on $999 million, I don't understand you at all. Which is not to say that people shouldn't be encouraged to amass wealth if it, you know, if they're building a company or whatever. But come on, I don't think Elon Musk is motivated by being a creative, you know, contributor to society. He's amassing wealth, period. End of story. And with that wealth power. Same with somebody like Jeff Bezos. So I do think that over a billion dollars, we really need to look at a wealth tax. And something like a 2% wealth tax, they always say, oh, but our assets are hard to value and blah, blah, blah, and they're illiquid. It's like, just baloney. That's like the kind of thing people say when they're bullshitting you. 2% wealth tax would not interfere with the growth of their assets if the return on their assets is more than 2% a year. So it would still grow, it would still compound, but it would create enough to just create the best public education system in the world. I mean, that's the kind of money we're talking about if we were to actually tax billion dollars plus at 2%. If we went to a half a billion, it would create even more money. So we're not talking about affecting people, you know, who are struggling. This is the last thing on earth that's happening. And if they have to sell an asset to pay the tax, how many other assets do they have lying around? This is crazy talk. So that's the first place to start. That's the place that will make enough of a difference that the wealth gap will start to close. Because income taxation is incremental. And so it only will get you so far.
Sanam You know, do people get that, you know, if you give back to society, if you give back to people, if you give back to the world, it gives you so much more. I mean, selflessness isn't actually just selflessness. It's also selfishness, right?
Abigail Disney Exactly. Exactly. You know, it's funny because Adam Smith, the patron saint of fundamentalist capitalism, also gave away most of what he had at the end of his life to charity. Spent time wrestling with the idea of whether or not there was such a thing as altruism. He, you know, he wanted us to believe everything we did, we did in our own self-interest, including altruism. And yet, and yet he, at the end of his life, committed the great act of altruism. So what's going on in those men is a very specific kind of thing. And I've, I've seen it, I've seen it in these men, more than just my father, but I certainly saw a very up close with my father who, being a white man with a lot of money, he was surrounded by people who would never tell him anything he didn't want to hear. And it takes an enormous amount of strength of character to not surround yourself with those kind of people because they find their way in, they find ways to push the others out, you know, and, and, and they will fire anybody that they don't want to hear from. So I, I have watched, I mean, I've seen wealthy, wealthy men who can't get sober because getting sober involves you having to say, I'm just a regular person and the rules apply to me the same as everybody else. And like, that's the sticking point for them. They just won't accept that. So, so there's, there's ways in which their personalities change. I actually call it going feral because like, I do feel like they kind of become uncivilized. Like they've been de-civilized by like, you could tell the wealthiest guy in the room is always the worst dressed. Like he doesn't feel like he owes you the courtesy of putting on nice clothes when you come to his house. That's always the case. His hair is always a mess. He's the guy who says the rudest thing in the room because nobody will tell him not to. It's just over and over again, there are all these signs that they've just lost track of all that they were raised on. You know, all of the like, don't bite, don't kick, share your toys kind of stuff that you got as children. (.) They've lost track of it. That's a mindset I can't begin to understand. But I've seen it over and over again. And we need to find ways to speak into that mindset because a lot of them still have that good guy inside of them. They just don't have access to him anymore.
Sanam Now, the big question is, if you were in charge, how would you go about making the changes? And what would be the first change that you would want to enact?
Abigail Disney Wow. Okay. Wow. I think the heart of the heart of political polarization and chaos in our country, it's partly about economic inequality, but it's really about racial justice, white supremacy, and patriarchy. And if you want to change America, you would go to that. I really believe that it's eating away at our insides, that nobody's ever said, I'm sorry. (.) And, you know, isn't it remarkable that we set up our economy, the economy on top of which we're still building our economy, on free labor, stolen labor, and stolen land. And yet, at no time does anyone consider that we have to acknowledge the wrongs. (.) And the longer we go without acknowledging them, I think it festers. So I would start a process of reconciliation, racial reconciliation, led by people of color and especially indigenous people, and, you know, kind of open it up community by community, because it can't happen at a national level, and see what communities come up with as a way of thinking differently about how to go forward. So that is the first thing I would work on, and then the second thing I would work on is taxation, I would rearrange the tax system so that, yes, we have a wealth tax, and it becomes punitive, a wealth tax over a billion dollars. Because, look, you shape a society, your tax code is a statement of your ethics, it's a statement of your values. And plenty of countries, and plenty of countries don't want billionaires, they just don't want them. I mean, I hear that Denmark is going a little crazy right now because of Ozempic, and there are all these super rich people wandering around in a country that doesn't want them. So we have to find a way to kind of reshape income distribution, and yes, redistribute, even though that's a word that is so unwelcome. Not necessarily in the form of cash, but in the form of opportunity for the people who've been locked out of opportunity. You know, my eldest is living in Paris and thinking about getting married and having a child there. None of her friends, she's 33, none of her friends the same age in the United States are having children because they can't afford it. Because they have debt, because they can't afford health care, because they can't afford housing, because they can't imagine having a job that could support all of them. This is a terrible crime we've committed against that generation, and we need to start fixing the economies and the way society is shaped such that the younger people thrive. I'm not interested in me thriving anymore. Well, if you care about society, your young should be thriving.
Sanam My children and their friends, and of course, my nieces and nephews, everybody's sort of in college or graduating, and the push to go into banking, you know, or consulting. And if you want to do environmental work, which is where my kids are heading, or medicine, you know, I have one of my daughters, you know, has a friend who wants to be a doctor here in England. It's barely a living wage, let alone teachers and social workers or dancers and, you know, musicians. I mean, all these things that a society needs.
Abigail Disney I started college in 1978, Reagan took office in 1980, and I left in 1982. And the people who had shown up in sandals and Grateful Dead t-shirts in 1978 suddenly started showing up in suits and ties because they were going to interviews at Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns and other places, and so many of these people. And in the 80s, as there was a certain kind of wild west ethic that formed around making money, and as they started making more money, they started crafting laws around their self-interest, taking the cap off the money they could make. And what became clear in the 90s was, and what became clear in the 90s was, if you were smart, if you were creative, if you had a good mind, why would you go and be a doctor? You go and you go and you work for the bank. I mean, all of our best and most promising intellects went into banking, and that has been very much to our detriment because they're not out there creating the new company or thinking of the new product that needs to be done or making a film or taking care of low-income people or solving the housing crisis, figuring out a better way to get food to everybody. Those people are just thinking about, like, what's a great way to make money on top of this thing I'm already making money on? What's a good new idea to squeeze some more pennies out of this transaction?
Sanam And, you know, one of the questions is, like, when is it enough? You know, the high net worth and the uber wealthy live in a different tax universe, but more and more, they just live in a different universe. I mean, whether it's, you know, mega yachts or the, you know, gated homes and schools. To what extent do they ever interact with ordinary people?
Abigail Disney No, that's really important to me. I mean, I've kind of been making a point of not getting on a private airplane anymore, and that's partly about greenhouse gases. And it is the low-hanging fruit in terms of greenhouse gases. It's ridiculous how many of them there are and how few people are flying on them. But on top of it, I just think it's bad for your soul. I think it's really bad for your soul to never stand in a line, to never have to be patient, to never have to wait with people you might not have chosen to wait next to, or to sit in a seat that's a little smaller than you like. That is a part of being a human being. And they have given themselves, like, a get-out-of-jail-free card for being human. They think they can sort of finesse their way out of having to be normal. I mean, right down to, they think they can cheat death. They're lost. (.) They're lost. I feel bad for them. I know so many unhappy, wealthy people. And the unhappiness is partly because it doesn't make you happy to be wealthy.
Sanam The next big question that we always ask people is, and it's kind of ironic, I probably know the answer, but I'm going to ask you anyway. So if you were a billionaire, or if you may be a billionaire, what would you do to address this problem right now?
Abigail Disney Wow, that's such a good question. I mean, I think if I were a billionaire, I would go down the same path Mackenzie Gott is going down. She is, like, finding really great organizations run by really great people and offering them enough money to set them free from the hamster wheel that they're always, always on. And it's amazing what a healthy injection of capital will do for an organization like that. And, you know, the way philanthropy works now is it funds everybody at about 75% of what they really need to do the work we're asking them to do. And then we expect them to do it anyway. I think what she's doing is brilliant and creative and has a chance at changing the sector. But I also don't think that the answer is in philanthropy. You know, I would hope that we would not leave the well-being of our society up to the whims of a handful of billionaires deciding whether or not we need new roads or a polio vaccine. So I would also take all of that money out of the freaking New York Stock Exchange. And because everybody on the Stock Exchange is playing according to one set of rules, and it's not the only set of rules we need to play by. And it's a set of rules that has hardwired into it damage to real human beings and to the environment. And then I would invest it in companies and in people using capitalism to do the right thing all around the world.
Sanam That's very, very cool. Thank you. And on the philanthropy note, I so relate to that because it is, it's not just dealing with philanthropists, it's also dealing with governments. They, you know, the burden that they put on us as nonprofits is just growing and growing and growing. From your word to the ears of those who can make this difference.
Abigail Disney Yeah, if only.
Sanam Yeah. So in all of this, what is it that gives you hope? (.)
Abigail Disney I feel hope whenever I think about that U-turn the Democratic Party made. And very much together, so many people set aside the things they were arguing about because they understood that, like, they love their country. They cannot risk that man in office again. That this was too important and too valuable a treasure that we have to let it go. And, like, the majority of people are still kind, thoughtful, honorable. That is no matter the cynicism brought to you by most of the right wing, that is still my experience of the world. And I will continue to believe in that for as long as I live. (10 seconds pause)
Sanam This is an Africa digital audio production. My executive producer is Pierce Lynch, and it contains original music by Little Monster Media. Remember, you can catch a new episode of If You Were In Charge every Tuesday. A huge thanks from me to the Bosch Academy for making these conversations possible, and to my own organization, ICANN, for allowing me the time to explore these big issues with my guests and spend some time with my daughters. If you want to get in touch, you can find all our social media links on our website, and the link is in the description of the episode. So that's it for If You Were In Charge. I'm Sanna Amnaragi-Angelini. See you next time. Bye.