The Profligacy Paradox: Why Limitarianism Needs a Lifetime Limit

Abstract

ABSTRACT Limitarianism's paramount claim is that no one should possess surplus wealth. Ingrid Robeyns's Power of Material Resources (PMR), the leading operationalization of that claim, identifies such surplus through a snapshot of income and annuitized assets. This article argues that the PMR is self‐defeating. It does not punish the appropriation of excessive resources, but only their retention: it thereby penalizes individuals who save while privileging those with identical inflows who immediately consume away their surplus before it can be recorded against the limitarian threshold. Limitarianism therefore does more than fail to prevent waste: it can incentivize it – a result incompatible with Robeyns's own non‐intrinsic justifications, which rely on harnessing morally weightless surplus wealth to address urgent needs. As a corrective, this article proposes a lifetime limitarianism , operating under a lifetime PMR (L‐PMR), which caps total resource appropriation over a lifespan regardless of usage. Under the L‐PMR, prudence is no longer punished, and profligacy is no longer privileged.