This piece is featured in The D.C. Brief, TIME’s political newsletter. Subscribe to have similar articles delivered to your inbox.
Abigail Disney found humor in being asked about the reception of her advocacy among her ultra-wealthy peers. “My calendar for dinner invitations isn’t exactly packed,” she quips.
Nevertheless, the Disney heiress and documentary maker comprehends why certain individuals—including close family members—are uneasy with her campaigning for increased taxation on the affluent, her efforts to secure better pay for theme park employees founded by her grandfather and granduncle, and her cinematic works that scrutinize the hubris of the One Percent. She is unconcerned that one of her brothers disliked her film The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales or that her “parents would be mortified” by her chosen projects. Disney is pursuing an agenda she acknowledges runs counter to her personal financial interests.
“We are not in need of additional funds. That much is quite apparent,” she asserts.
Disney, having attended a conference of the Patriotic Millionaires group in Washington last week, openly expresses her deep-seated conviction that privilege is excessively centralized, thereby disadvantaging those least able to afford it. Other individuals who share her views on wealth and income inequalities—which she distinguishes as separate issues demanding distinct remedies—converged with her near the Treasury Department’s headquarters. Their purpose was to devise strategies for presenting arguments they are uniquely positioned to make, particularly given their personal financial implications. Following a brief morning meal at the luxurious Hotel Washington, most prepared for a demanding day of advocating to lawmakers for higher taxes on their own fortunes.
The day felt almost otherworldly, as former hedge fund executives, White House staff, litigators, and individuals who inherited their wealth, converged on Capitol Hill to advance policies directly opposed to those of the billionaire President and his exceedingly wealthy associates.
Disney and her supporters propose a surtax on earnings exceeding $1 million. They advocate for working-class individuals to be exempt from taxes on their initial $45,000. Additionally, they suggest taxing businesses that fail to adequately compensate their employees until such companies find that increasing wages is more economical than their quarterly tax assessments.
Moreover, they seek to impose the same tax rate on investment income as on income derived from employment. Disney, fully aware of the implications, remarks, “My capital gains come from simply existing. It is, quite literally, the antithesis of taxing labor.”
Her message is replete with policy proposals—even contemplating a potential Constitutional amendment to more aggressively target the ultra-rich as per her wishes—yet, returning to the hotel, Disney prefers to discuss the matter through a moral lens.
“We are in a position to contribute more through taxes,” she states.
This insight became vividly clear to her in 1987, as she sat in a movie theater at 84th and Broadway, watching Wall Street and its iconic “greed is good” declaration.
“I was convinced he was the antagonist. Yet, the cinema erupted. People were quite literally exhilarated, shouting and cheering. They reacted as if it were the most profound statement they had ever encountered,” Disney recounts.
Abigail Disney, who is the granddaughter of Roy Disney and grandniece of Walt, has consistently found herself in disagreement with many within her social circle. Following her undergraduate studies and prior to her graduate programs at Stanford and Columbia, she spent a year working as a nanny in Ireland, aiming to avoid her family’s prominence. (Coincidentally, her uncle served as Ronald Reagan’s Ambassador to Dublin during that specific period.) Her documentary endeavors have addressed issues such as sexual assault within the military, the challenges veterans face upon returning home, campaign finance, external political interference, and, indeed, economic disparities.
However, justice has remained her enduring theme. Decades prior, she established a New York-based nonprofit dedicated to poverty alleviation. Last month, she addressed the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, criticizing the concentration of wealth. And just last week, she delivered a warning to G20 leaders convening in South Africa, articulated in an for TIME.
Her dedication to fair taxation is so comprehensive that Snopes, the widely recognized fact-checking resource, even that she genuinely desires to pay higher taxes.
“It appears to be genuinely challenging to accept that an individual would act for the collective benefit rather than their own self-interest,” she observes.
Disney possesses a complex connection to her fortune. (Her current estimated net worth is approximately $120 million, to The Chronicle of Philanthropy.) During her address at the IMF/World Bank in October, she virtually expressed remorse for it. “I can only share my personal journey,” she stated. “I was raised in an affluent family, a family that chose to expand its existing wealth into even greater riches.”
However, she noted that this abundance came with repercussions. “An excessive amount of money unequivocally exists. And it is certainly detrimental to the global community. Yet, it is also damaging to those who possess it. … It is agonizing, spiritually draining, isolating, and ethically corrupting.”
During our discussion, she makes an offhand comment about a recent lunch with her sister in Sedona, where burgers and sparkling water cost them $73. She finds it outrageous that Disney workers in California have established a food bank for fellow employees due to inadequate wages in the parks, while the company itself is ungenerous in its contributions to the local county food bank. She has consistently challenged the Disney board, particularly concerning executive compensation. She considers it horrific that the typical billionaire generates the same quantity of greenhouse gases in 90 minutes that an average individual produces in a year. And she particularly objects to Elon Musk, who could become the first person worldwide to achieve trillionaire status.
“It’s distressing to observe our society reach this point, primarily because I seldom hear widespread outrage over the concept of a trillionaire,” she remarks. “An average worker would require 16 million years to accumulate a trillion dollars. Sixteen million years surpasses the entire duration of human existence.”
She shakes her head disapprovingly, recognizing that a resolution will neither be simple nor swift. This, however, does not diminish her perception of the immediate necessity for intervention. “This is ridiculous. Can we not all concur that there exists a threshold beyond which wealth becomes excessive?”
Grasp the significance of events in Washington. .
