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Dear John,
Last time I checked, there’s no billionaire clause in the Bill of Rights.
We only have billionaires because we allow them to manipulate our economic system to create their empires. When you break it down, there are only five ways to accumulate a billion dollars and they’re all bad for free-market capitalism.
It begs the question: Should billionaires even exist?
Check out this week’s video to see me answer this question. Once you’ve seen how a few highly privileged individuals game the system at the expense of everyone else, I hope you’ll share this video with other non-billionaires and consider how we might send billionaires the way of the dodo.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing against big rewards for entrepreneurs and inventors. But do today’s entrepreneurs really need billions of dollars? Couldn’t they survive on a measly hundred million?
The point is that the massive fortunes held by today’s billionaires have been accumulated at the expense of a healthy economy and democracy for the rest of us. As I explain in our video, wealth doesn’t just beget more wealth. It begets more power.
Billionaires are now using their billions to erode American institutions. They spent fortunes bringing Supreme Court justices with them into the wild. They treated news organizations and social media platforms like prey, and they turned their relationships with politicians into patronage troughs.
Simply put: If capitalism were working properly, billionaires wouldn’t exist.
Watch our latest video to learn more.
Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action
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