Thread by @GeorgeMonbiot

Billionaire power exists in conflict with democratic power.
Billionaires happen because of regulatory failure (weak anti-trust, employment, environmental laws etc).
They persist due to fiscal failure (not enough tax).
No one, in a functioning democracy, should be this rich.

When billionaires become sufficiently powerful, and governments become sufficiently weak, people start believing that they can solve the problems that made them so rich, and which they have almost certainly exacerbated.
You might as well believe in magic.

But we are now creating a superman myth, investing people like Musk and Gates with powers they either do not or should not possess.
In doing so, we enhance their power, and democracy is further weakened.

Research by the professor of social science Kevin MacKay suggests that the commonest cause of civilisational collapse is oligarchy. A few people become so rich and powerful that they can steer societies away from the common interest and towards their own interests.

Like states, billionaires wield soft power as well as hard power. It commonly takes the form of philanthropy and public influence, assisted by a sycophantic media.
Ownership of the media = hard power.
Penetration of their views into media they do not own = soft power.

So we should resist them, even when they smile nicely and wear velvet gloves.
Rather than relying on them to solve our problems, at their whim and pleasure, we should demand that they are properly taxed and the money is spent democratically.

By democratically, I mean more than just passed through the Treasury. Participatory Budgeting is one of the tools that ensure a much better match between public money and public needs. It works really well - unless it is stymied by oligarchs.

The System Justification is big in some of the responses to this thread.

It's a strange and interesting phenomenon.