Billionaires Aren’t “Saving” Us
Without Reform, Democracy Will Crumble
Billionaires are not eccentric geniuses here to “innovate” humanity into utopia. They’re not benevolent overlords. They’re not even particularly interesting, in my opinion. What they are is a threat to the very foundations of democracy, wielding fortunes so grotesque they distort economies, corrupt governments, and reduce the rest of us to serfs in their privatized neo-feudal corporate states.
In the eyes of Republicans, a billionaire is the pinnacle of human evolution. As if, say, creating an online bookstore or an app that takes payments means one must be consulted on all things, from climate policy to the meaning of life.
The corporate media gleefully validates this nonsense, trotting out the uber wealthy for their “thoughts” on what all our fates should be, as if their bank account is a substitute for expertise.
Though, never once would they dare pose the moral question and ask how they can sleep at night knowing they have the power to end hunger but instead choose to fire people.
The Myth of Meritocracy Meets the Reality of Oligarchy
We’ve been force-fed the lie that extreme wealth is earned through grit, vision, or brilliance. The truth is, no one “earns” a billion dollars. That level of wealth is extracted.
As Oxfam wrote in a recent report, “Most billionaire wealth is taken, not earned, 60% comes from either inheritance, cronyism and corruption or monopoly power.”
Then add the exploitation of the workers, the dodging of taxes, the manipulation of markets and the “masters of the universe” have enough “mad money” to buy politicians and corrupt governments to ensure the money river flows ever-upward.
In the time before Reagan urinated on our legs and told us it was trickling, the U.S.A. was once the most upwardly mobile with the slightest income gap of all western democracies. Today, the exact opposite is true. The average CEO now makes 344 times what their employees earn. Meanwhile, wages for workers have stagnated for decades, rising only for those already floating in gold-plated yachts. Income disparity in today’s America is worse than it was in Ancient Rome.
This isn’t capitalism. It’s piracy with a lobbyist and a public relations firm.
Democracy or Billionaires? Time to Choose.
When a single individual becomes the richest person in the world courtesy to billions in taxpayer-funded government contracts, then has the audacity to “thank” the nation he profits from by firing workers and dancing on their sufferings with a chainsaw, it’s time for the American people to wake up and smell the sociopathy.
I’ve written numerous times here on PVN that Musk is a grifter, not an innovator or a genius. He’s a mentally ill malignancy that needs to be contained.
If watching Musk treat people’s livelihoods like a joke, the government the founders created as a hindrance and the federal treasury like his personal piggy bank proves anything, it’s how little we need billionaires.
In 2020, just 12 billionaires donated over $1.2 billion to federal elections-more than every single small donor in America combined. Their “generosity” isn’t charity; it’s an investment. They’re buying tax cuts, deregulation, and the right to pollute your air and water with impunity. If you think they’re doing it out of the goodness of their Nazi-saluting, empty hearts, I’ve got a Hyperloop pitch to sell you.
They’re Returning Us to Feudalism
I’ve been saying for years that Republicans aren’t just rolling back the New Deal, they’re dragging us past the American Revolution straight to the Dark Ages. While it’s no secret the Republican legislature have abdicated their “Article 1” powers to their convicted felon wannabe-dictator Standard Bearer, the kiss up/kick down neo-feudal oligarchy Republicans are rapidly building feature billionaires mirroring the divine-right monarchs of old.
Average MAGAts are already convinced morbidly bloated wealth reflects some kind of cosmic favor. Of course, this has a lot to do with the incessant propaganda churned out by the media empires billionaires own.
Meanwhile, teachers ration school supplies. Families ration insulin.
This isn’t an economy. It’s a hostage situation. Let’s face it, no one is coming to our rescue but ourselves.
Philanthropy is Bullsh*t
Citizens of a democracy that works for everyone (not just the ultra-wealthy) don’t have to hope a “benevolent” billionaire will trickle a few crumbs their way just so they can have decent schools, roads, or hospitals.
In functioning societies, these basic services are funded by taxes and provided by accountable governments, not handed out as charity by the richest guy in town.
Billionaires just love to play savior. They’ll toss a few crumbs to hospitals and schools, then slap their names on the buildings as if that somehow justifies their rapacious greed. We’re supposed to bow and thank them-“Oh, thank you, my M’Lord, for your gracious bounty!” Meanwhile, ignoring the fact that this is the exact system America’s founders tried to prevent. The whole point of a functioning democracy is that we all pay our fair share in taxes, and our elected representatives openly debate and decide how that money gets spent-not that society should have to beg for a wealthy benefactor’s approval to fund basic needs.
Make no mistake. This philanthropy isn’t just charity. It’s a billionaire survival tactic. Just look at the Sackler family, who plastered their name on hospitals, universities, and art galleries while fueling the opioid crisis that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. A functioning democracy doesn’t need the blood money of billionaires paying for rehabs for an addiction crisis they happily fomented.
Billionaires like Bill Gates are lauded for their “generosity,” but a closer look reveals that their giving is a drop in the bucket compared to what they keep— and their foundations often serve their own interests more than the public’s. Bill Gates’ foundation says they intend to donate $67 billion, yet he’s still getting richer every year, and most of the money goes to organizations in wealthy countries, not the poor communities used in PR campaigns.
It’s less about solving problems and more about polishing a legacy.
So, next time a billionaire wants applause for tossing a few coins from their balcony, remember that actual democracy means public goods are funded by all of us, not at the whim of a few ultra-rich.
Philanthropy isn’t a salve. A society that relies on billionaires’ “generosity” is one that’s already been bought and broken.
True freedom means dismantling the systems that let billionaires exist in the first place. Not because we hate success, but because we love democracy enough to save it from being absorbed and exploited by the morbidly rich.
Starve the Tumor and Live
When one cell in a body hoards all the nutrients, we call it “cancer”. If left to grow, the body dies
The same principle applies to our democracy: when a handful of billionaires absorb the nation’s wealth and power, the body politic withers. This isn’t just a metaphor—economists increasingly warn that billionaire dominance is eroding the foundations of democracy and fueling inequality.
For decades, we’ve watched this oligarchic tumor metastasize. Billionaires now wield more influence than entire communities, buying elections, shaping policy, and even dictating which public services survive. This is absolutely unacceptable, if we want the American Experiment to survive, that is.
In 2024, the top 100 billionaire families poured a record $2.6 billion into federal elections. One out of every six dollars is now spent-drowning out the voices of ordinary citizens. This is not democracy— it’s a hostile takeover.
History shows that societies with extreme wealth concentration are prone to instability, social unrest, and the rise of authoritarianism. As Noam Chomsky and others have documented, the cycle is self-reinforcing: concentrated wealth breeds concentrated power, which then shapes laws and policies to further entrench the elite.
We’ve tolerated this cancer in our body politic to grow for too long. Many progressives have warned about this for years, but hopefully now, watching Musk and his ilk insert themselves inside our federal government, gobbling it up from the inside, others are seeing the reality of what needs to be done.
Just as bandaids don’t cure cancer. It’s time to tax billionaires into obsolescence—not because we envy their jets, but because no democracy cannot survive when a handful of individuals wield more power than nations.
Here’s a couple of steps we must take if we want American democracy to survive:
Tax the rich: Time to bring back that socialist Eisenhower’s top marginal tax rate of 90%. I say 90% on income over $100 million. Others say 90% over $1 Billion. What do you think? A person should be able to scrape by on a billion? No loopholes. No offshore hideaways.
Get money out of politics: If corporations aren’t people, billionaires shouldn’t be governments.
They’ll whine, winge and threaten to “leave”— but as FDR said in 1936 with a heavy dose of sarcasm, “I shall miss them very much.”
Have a nice trip to Mars, Elon. Democracy loving patriots (AKA: not you) have a nation to rebuild.
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