[The only way to steer American democracy to safety is to wrest
money out of the claws of the wealthiest elites, who now control
finances rivaling the economies of whole nations. ]
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BILLIONAIRES OR DEMOCRACY, BUT NOT BOTH  
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Sonali Kolhatkar
December 2, 2023
LA Progressive
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_ The only way to steer American democracy to safety is to wrest
money out of the claws of the wealthiest elites, who now control
finances rivaling the economies of whole nations. _

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As we count down toward the 2024 general election, we should expect to
hear from media pundits about candidates and their viability, swing
states and the electoral college, likely voters and poll results, and
much more. Occasionally we may hear about some issues of importance.
Most likely, we will hear little about the urgent need for wealth
redistribution in the United States. Extreme inequality remains an
invisible scourge underlying so much of what ails society and, even
when discussed, is touted as an unavoidable and inevitable outcome of
our economy.

However, there is abundant evidence that wealth inequality is the
product of intentional design and the idea that what is good for
billionaires is good for society. Nothing could be further from the
truth.

The Switzerland-based global bank UBS just released its 2023
Billionaire Ambitions report
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concluded, “For the first time in nine editions of the report,
billionaires have accumulated more wealth through inheritance than
entrepreneurship.” Benjamin Cavalli, Head of Strategic Clients at
UBS Global Wealth Management said, “This is a theme we expect to see
more of over the next 20 years, as more than 1,000 billionaires pass
an estimated [$5.2 trillion] to their children.”That’s more than
the economy
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the entire United Kingdom. It’s more than the economies of Canada
and Mexico combined.

The UBS report was not a critical one and hardly blinked an eye about
the obscenity of wealth being hoarded in dynasties. About half of all
billionaires around the world use UBS’s banking services
[[link removed](UBS)%2C%20which%20counts,globally%20climbed%207%25%20to%202%2C544.],
so the bank merely analyzed the investment habits of its most
important clients. It did so candidly, referring to “the great
wealth transfer” from one generation to the next, avoiding mention
of the wealth transfer from the majority of the public to an elite
minority.

The report also declared with pride that intent on “continuing the
current family legacy, 60% of heirs want to enable future generations
to benefit from their wealth.” Of course, they meant future
generations of their own families, not in general.

But this wealth transfer is directly the result of tax codes written
to benefit the uber-rich. ProPublica’s 2021 analysis of the tax
returns
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the richest Americans found that they paid an average of 3.4% in
taxes, employing armies of lawyers to exploit every loophole carved
out to offer special advantages to wealthy elites. Meanwhile,
middle-class and working-class Americans pay double-digit tax rates.
What this amounts to is collective theft from government revenues.

It’s time to reverse this trend by resorting to a concerted project
of wealth redistribution. It’s time to wrest billions, if not
trillions, out of the hands of billionaires and their heirs and pour
it back where it belongs: to the rest of us.

Call it socialism—which is what the pro-rich rightwing GOP does
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call it progressive taxation, or economic justice. It doesn’t
matter; the nation’s fiscal conservatives will demonize any ideas of
wealth redistribution and will attempt to instill baseless fears of
creeping communism, no matter what specific language we use around
fairness. So, we might as well start spelling it out instead of trying
to appease the right. After all, there’s a reason why conservatives
and wealthy elites want the public to be afraid of socialism:
they’re terrified that Americans might be thrilled to embrace
policies such as wealth redistribution through taxation.

And if we need any more reasons to put a bullseye on billionaire
wealth, it turns out they are vicious, dangerous fascists, whose
children are an even more callous lot than their parents.

Billionaires don’t need the protections that democracy offers:
earned benefits like Social Security or Medicare
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access to free or affordable health care including abortion, labor and
wage protections, and due process (they can buy the best legal help
when they get in trouble).

In fact, democracy is a _threat_ to their wealth hoarding, which is
why they are backing the most dangerous demagogue to have ever
occupied the White House: Donald Trump. Economic analyst and former
U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich lists the numerous billionaires
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Trump for a second term and cites Trump’s promise to wealthy elites,
that he plans to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and
the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of
our country.” Wealthy elites helped bring us Trump’s first term
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and they’re itching for a second.

Why wouldn’t billionaires back fascism? It benefits them in ways
democracy doesn’t. Indeed, billionaires exist as a design flaw in
democracy. The greater the number of billionaires and the greater the
wealth they hoard, the weaker the democracy that binds them.

Legislation like Senator Ron Wyden’s Billionaire Income Tax
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they fear if democracy trumps fascism. Wyden’s bill is so modest
that it doesn’t target wealth, only income, and would affect fewer
than 1,000 Americans, trimming off tiny slivers of their unprecedented
hoardings, leaving them as fabulously wealthy as before. After all, is
there a real difference between being worth $10 billion versus $9.9
billion?

As to the children of billionaires
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worse than their parents, there is a small mention in the UBS report
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how heirs of billionaires are far less philanthropic than
first-generation billionaires: “while more than [two-thirds] (68%)
of first-generation billionaires stated that following their
philanthropic goals and making an impact on the world was a main
objective of their legacy, less than a third (32%) of the inheriting
generations did so.” One could conclude that empathy among children
of the ultra-wealthy drops by half each generation. This could be a
generation even more determined to fund and fuel fascism in order to
protect their riches compared to their parents.

The wealthy are so secure in the protections they have from democratic
curbs on their financial power that their biggest worries, as per
the UBS report
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include “geopolitical tensions,” inflation, recession, and higher
interest rates. Fears around a “tight jobs market” and “stricter
sustainability rules,” fall low on their list. In other words, they
feel secure against threats of wage rebellions and government
regulations.

And so, as we hurtle toward authoritarian aristocracy, we must
normalize the idea of wealth redistribution. There is no good reason
against it, not a single one. We can have either billionaires or
democracy, not both.

_This article was produced by __Economy for All_
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of the Independent Media Institute._

_SONALI KOLHATKAR is the founder, host and executive producer of
“Rising Up With Sonali,” a television and radio show that airs on
Free Speech TV (Dish Network, DirecTV, Roku) and Pacifica stations
KPFK, KPFA, and affiliates._

_The LA Progressive openly and unapologetically supports and employs
advocacy journalism. We believe the media not only informs the public,
but it also works towards engaging citizens and creating public
debate. We embrace the idea of civic journalism and reject the idea
that objective reporting is even possible. We don’t believe that
journalists can be objective spectators of politics and we don’t
pretend otherwise._

* wealth inequality
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* Billionaires
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* democracy
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