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The problem(s) with billionaires

March 24, 2021 By Useful Ideas Project Leave a Comment

There are thousands of billionaires, and they are making things worse. Here’s why.

Donald Trump in his gold palace
Donald Trump in his gold palace

Why we should worry about billionaires

  • Us humans struggle with large numbers. Because of this, many of us cannot fully comprehend the billionaire. We underestimate their wealth and power.
    As the memes say: “People don’t have a strong intuitive sense of how much bigger 1 billion is than 1 million. 1 million seconds is about 11 days. 1 billion seconds is about 31.5 years.”
  • Because we cannot fully comprehend the billionaire, they often escape proper scrutiny. The lack of scrutiny should be a worry, because:
  • Studies have shown that wealth reduces empathy and compassion for others. And that wealth can cloud moral judgment.
  • Also, higher than expected levels of psychopathic traits exist among people found in the upper echelons of the corporate business sector.

Examples: How the very rich, who may (or may not) lack empathy, wield power

  • They buy and manipulate the media, further obscuring, and empowering themselves. E.g. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. Gawker.com closed after a lawsuit funded by Peter Thiel.
  • Distort democracy. E.g. “Far-right parties’… funded by massive cash infusions… sometimes openly attributed to the richest, most powerful people in Europe”
  • Destroy lives. E.g. “The secretive wealthy family behind the opioid epidemic are using the same tactics to kill public education”
  • Perpetuate inequality. E.g. “Richest 25 Americans reportedly paid ‘true tax rate’ of 3.4% as wealth rocketed”

How can the power of billionaires be challenged?

  • Tax them so their wealth is redistributed more widely.
  • But also: Take a critical interest in them, and their activities and change the law accordingly. In summary: “Every Billionaire is a Policy Failure.”
  • As Anand Giridharadas says: “I think we’re all passengers in a billionaire hijacking. We were all drugged on the plane, and these guys are now terrified in the cockpit because they’re realizing that in the back there we just woke up.”

See also

Billionaires are very real. Here are the names of 25 of them:

RankNameNet
Worth
AgeSourceCountry
1Jeff Bezos$181.2 B57AmazonUnited States
2Bernard Arnault & family$158.5 B72LVMHFrance
3Elon Musk$157.4 B49Tesla, SpaceXUnited States
4Bill Gates$126.2 B65MicrosoftUnited States
5Mark Zuckerberg$102.9 B36FacebookUnited States
6Warren Buffett$95.1 B90Berkshire HathawayUnited States
7Larry Ellison$89.9 B76softwareUnited States
8Larry Page$89.0 B47GoogleUnited States
9Sergey Brin$86.4 B47GoogleUnited States
10Mukesh Ambani$80.0 B63diversifiedIndia
11Amancio Ortega$77.4 B84ZaraSpain
12Francoise Bettencourt Meyers & family$75.4 B67L’OrealFrance
13Steve Ballmer$69.8 B65MicrosoftUnited States
14Carlos Slim Helu & family$64.0 B81telecomMexico
15Alice Walton$63.4 B71WalmartUnited States
16Jim Walton$61.7 B72WalmartUnited States
17Zhong Shanshan$61.5 B66beverages, pharmaceuticalsChina
18Rob Walton$61.0 B76WalmartUnited States
19Ma Huateng$60.7 B49internet mediaChina
20Michael Bloomberg$59.0 B79Bloomberg LPUnited States
21Gautam Adani & family$55.7 B58infrastructure, commoditiesIndia
22MacKenzie Scott$54.5 B50AmazonUnited States
23Phil Knight & family$49.8 B83NikeUnited States
24Jack Ma$48.0 B56e-commerceChina
25Daniel Gilbert$47.1 B59Quicken LoansUnited States

Elsewhere

Inequality.org

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Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: billionaires, Conspiracy theory, Koch brothers

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