We can accomplish these goals by incentivizing the market to backsolve for the middle class and upward mobility.  The incentive can be created by rolling back America’s median-top household wealth ratio from 2,000,000:1 to 10,000:1. This would ensure that America’s top households never again become more than 10,000 times richer than the middle class.

Going forward, we propose to tether the outcomes of America’s top households at 10,000x the national median household net worth, such that the fortunes of the top households rise and fall lockstep in mathematical proportion to the median. The economy thus benchmarked against the median, those who control the market must ensure it increases the median to improve their own outcomes. No gains for the median, no gains for the top. The specific methods employed to raise the median is for the market to decide. As this plan applies only to households, it imposes no new business regulations or taxes. To the extent the market fails to raise the median, the top households bear the expense of such failure.

America’s household net worth is around $120k. The 10,000:1 ratio sets the cap at $1.2BN. Every $10k increase to the median lifts the cap by $100MM.  If the median doubles, the cap would double to $2.4BN. If the median increases to $500k, the cap would increase to $5BN. It’s all up to the market to decide.  

This would create powerful incentives to ensure that capital doesn’t abuse labor and a failsafe if it does, for whatever the top takes from the middle would be taxed right back from the top by enforcement of the ratio. Extravagant riches remain open to all, but if the market, operating under freedom of contract, not under duress, in arm’s length negotiation with America’s top households, doesn’t bother to increase the median above $120k, why should anyone else bother to increase the cap above $1.2BN?

To be sure, inequality isn’t inherently bad. Inequality is a measure of innovation and entrepreneurship. The Founding Fathers knew this, promoting the arts and sciences by granting authors and inventors exclusive patents and copyrights for limited times. But rising inequality is only tolerable so long as the median rises fast enough to divert sufficient attention from the unequal distribution of gains. When the few gain at the expense of the many inequality transforms into a symbol of greed, converting the people into the friends of socialism and the enemies of capitalism. Then follows an endless litany of corporate taxes and business regulations that menaces productive enterprise.

To protect capitalism, it must be given the proper incentives. Not by a plan that makes war upon the moneyed interest, but one that instead harnesses its ambition in the service of the general interest.  By a plan that recognizes the value of unlimited capital accumulation by enterprises, but understands that there is no utility in unlimited capital accumulation by households beyond rewards sufficient to induce innovation. Every capitalist expects a sensible incentive plan to govern their enterprises. The American people should demand no less for capitalism itself. 10,000:1 is capitalism’s long-term incentive plan.

This framework dutifully enforced, only mathematical administration remains: to discover the optimal ratio, covering the appropriate number of households, having sufficient market power, producing maximum market-generated distributive force. We start with 10,000:1 for various historical and practical reasons. Given how far we’ve strayed from our founding ratio of 1,000:1, the idea of rolling America back to 10,000:1 is in truth more conservative than progressive.  

This Rationism, or Vitruvian Capitalism, was originally conceived as a method to backsolve for a target-size middle class sustained by wages and opportunity, not subsidies and patronage. It was designed as an alternative to socialism, to solve for household precariousness without aggravating household dependency. It was inspired by Aristotle’s advice that the middle class encompass at least 51% the citizenry (Politics, 1295b). It also resembles Plato’s proposal to establish a 4:1 bottom-top wealth ratio (Laws, 744E). Though Rationism was designed to serve America’s middle class at large, additional beneficiaries include:

• Black Americans: The national median is $118k. The White median is $187k. The Black median is $14k. By our calculations, eliminating these disparities would increase the household median by $44k, to $160k. This would accordingly raise the 10,000x threshold from $1.2BN to $1.6BN. A 10,000:1 ratio gives America’s most powerful households a $440MM reason to see Black wealth disparities mitigated. White Americans needn’t fear, however, because the median can’t be raised by transferring wealth from Whites to Blacks. Simply redistributing wealth within the bottom quintiles won’t increase the $118k median. The wealth of all bottom quintiles must be increased to raise the median, thereby expanding America’s ranks of productive, working taxpayers.

• Young workers. Outsourcing has already given American labor a beating, fueling growing populism and nationalism. Labor-saving technology will probably be worse. Automation threatens to substitute human labor with work performed by various capital assets, further suppressing wages and inordinately rewarding few owners thereof. 60% of US employment may be at risk of automation. Technology will perform more work-hours than humans by 2025. Come what may, the 10,000:1 ratio nullifies the benefits of automation-related wage suppression for all top households. This is because every dollar withheld from a human worker depresses the national median. The more income technology diverts from the national median, the more the ratio drags down the outcomes of the top households.

Fortunately, this plan creates adequate rewards to accomplish this. Article V empowers 34 states to convene a constitutional convention. 38 states must ratify proposed amendments. To incentivize the states to so act, all direct revenues arising from ratio enforcement should be divided equally among states voting for ratification. Roughly 650 households exceed 10,000x. Existing fortunes should be grandfathered (provided only they are repatriated back to the United States) but if subsequent generations of top households acquired as much wealth as the current generation, direct revenues could approach $4TN total. If all states ratified, such an amendment could deliver up to $4BN per state annually. The proposed Amendment is drafted to ensure that renunciation of citizenship would not evade this tax. 

In his second inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson proposed a similarly-conceived constitutional amendment which would have delivered surplus federal revenues levied on a luxury tax to the States. True to America’s original egalitarian aspirations, this amendment would enhance federalism by increasing the relative importance and influence of state governments. Despite these benefits, however, Rationism’s primary objective is to rebuild the middle class foundation upon which every stable, moderate, and authentic democracy rests.

In 1776, America’s rallying cry was: No Taxation Without Representation. 

In 2026, America’s rallying cry will be: NO GAINS FOR THE MIDDLE, NO GAINS FOR THE TOP.