Middlebury College is opening their doors to the public to hear from Chuck Collins, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and Director of the Program on Inequality. Collins will speak to the ethics of economic inequality in this political moment.

This Economics Lecture is titled “Reversing Wealth Inequality: The Case for Restoring Progressive Taxation and Bringing Wealth Home.”

Research has shown that three billionaires today own as much wealth as the bottom half of U.S. households combined. Chuck Collins will cover in depth the root causes of inequalities of wealth and power across our society. Furthermore, he will focus on tax and other public policies, which would effectively reverse four decades of inequality. And all of this from the perspective of someone who knows first-hand what it means to give back personal wealth to our society.

We’re living through a period of extreme inequality, where the gap between rich and poor is at its greatest level since the Gilded Age a century ago. But our national conversation about how to address this challenge is equally polarized. Why is inequality growing? Why does it matter? What is the impact on business climate and economy? What are the public policies that would be most effective in reversing inequality? What are the barriers and possibilities for change?