| One of the major problems with the concentration of wealth in such few hands is that the societies/countries where these folks live don't get to make collective decisions about how the money is spent. Most have made their money using the many advantages of their countries. Roads, infrastructure, eductaion, stability, government, etc. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But when we allow such concentration of wealth we have given away the decision power to this handfull of people about how all that wealth gets used. The very top wealthy may in some cases believe their motivations and decisions are altruistic. That they may be. But that doesn't give them the authority to think "I know better than every one else in my country/world how this wealth should be spent." So while the fault for how we get in these situations of terrible wealth inequality may be shared by the peoples and governments that allow it, the wealthy themselves cannot escape their share either. And in terms of who has more individual power to help restore balance by influencing the system, it sure isn't the single parent working a minimum wage job. Or a family barely getting by after an economic downturn destroys their jobs. Or the student struggling to pay their loans because they chose to get a degree in social work or eductaion instead of compsci or finance quant. So it would be nice to see a lot more effort by more these lucky billionaires to actually correct wealth inequality and the systemtic issues that leads to this type of inequality. |
Owning the wealth gives them authority on how it's spent.