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by scrollaway 1557 days ago
I apologize for the strawman, then. And yes, it's not like there aren't parallels, but you cannot compare the power and influence of a Russian oligarch, who tends to serve as both a proxy/puppet to Putin and a useful way to stash riches, to, say, Musk or Bezos who tend to very much follow their own goals.

American billionaires have too much power, for sure, but that's a statement on the power of money and the ability for people to amass too much of it in one place in the USA. Russian oligarchs have this power because Putin shares it with them.

Since you've read the book (and I'm guessing agree with it, as I do), we're on the same page about the spectrum of democracy vs authoritarianism. But nowhere can you compare the actual individuals. Individual Russian oligarchs are the equivalent of extremely large corpora of people, servants and businesses; not of individual CEOs.