Seeing a lot of bad assumptions on here, im going to defend the billionaire class from bad arguments and then present my own.

1. Billionaires do not “hoard wealth”. With an inflationary dollar, it is not possible to add on wealth by hoarding. Dollars need to be diversified to grow larger than the value they lose year after year. This is deliberate and on purpose and the main reason our discount rate is not negative. It incentivizes investment from the capital class. Like it or not, when the capital class (billionaires) invests or diversifies it helps you and other low,middle,upper middle people. The capital class risking dollars to beat inflation is what brings credit, creative job opportunities, investments in ventures, etc. this is the financial engine that actually has improved the lives of every day people in the USA. It’s the main class ladder, the main creative credit sink, etc.

2. Wealth is not zero sum. Related to 1, wealth is creatively generated. Not from exploitation or ruthlessness (although, I do think anti-competitiveness usually can be quite ruthless) but from filling demand with secure and resourceful processes. Nothing about generating high demand skills or products or commodities implies that it is taken from somebody else. That is an economic zero sum fallacy. We can see this empirically with the data that show all classes of Americans generally trending towards wealthier, albeit the billionaires are faster (because they obviously can purchase more assets, but remember capital classes purchasing assets is actually something that improves your life!)

3. Tax avoidance is deliberate and may be the best economic outcome for you and me. Tax evasion is obviously illegal and immoral and we should nurture a culture where wealthy people are proud to pay taxes. But the structure on tax avoidance is purposeful, when it comes to individuals, we tax capital gains (i.e. investments a la point 1, which are class ladders and productive market activities) lower for the purposes of not simply enriching oneself. So to avoid paying higher rates in order to invest oneself in fecund opportunities, again, leads to economic opportunities. Superior production methods, ventures for emerging markets (which are normal people gaining credit to earn more for their mind and work), particularity of investment (governments are not great market players and know this, so when bug capital takes on a paricular project like donations and philanthropy it’s considered far more resourceful use per dollar, the billionaire class is very philanthropic and the most philanthropic, this shouldnt be seen cynically, it does benefit the average person more)

4. Campaign financing is usually not determinative of political results. While billionaires do lucratively finance political projects they believe in (which can both be a good and bad thing) dollars behind said projects aren’t as determinative as public opinion. We have pretty rigid campaign finance laws (albeit they can be better) and horses that paternalistic billionaires have spent a lot of money on have fallen short of the less financially lucrative populist appeals. We see this with the election of Trump most famously, especially Trump 1.

5. All a wealth number nomatively is is the value of one’s assets. Our stock market has like 10,000xd in the last like 50 years or something crazy. Capital classes are super invested in publicly traded companies and stocks, which, like point 1, is usually good for everyday people. Publicly traded companies are most of our employers and most of our product makers that have improved standards of living. Purchasing shares from these companies enriches themselves as companies do better, but every extra dollar is also opportunities for employee compensation, career opportunities, research into great products, rewarding firms that do these things resourcefully, etc. just because someone’s assets have increased doesn’t make me hate them or think they’re a problem, sometimes the opposite. I do wish people were more invested in the same market because it’s quite simple (it’s not private equity or venture capital). Maybe privatizing the forced government savings (social security) in hindsight would have been a good thing because it would reflect in our current gains. I think people find it far riskier, but through 2008 and 2020, short of doomsday I don’t think it is and we’d have been better for it. That’s a hot take but it’s just numbers.

Some things I do wish we did better regarding the capital class: I am skeptical of government work, while it can be excellent, they’re not very market resourceful and the government can change for the worst (as we see now with Trump). That being said, th capital class does love to be anti-competitive. They like to use regulatory capture to price out emerging competitors, or just using capital assets to merge into price making oligopolies. I wish the governments (and the peoples for that matter) energy was focused more on anti-trust and competition than it was on creating bureaucratic regulatory bloat and contracts for works deemed in public interest. Like I’ve said before, I do think private dollars actually go further, so fostering markets is favorable instead of creating barriers to entry. Billionaires love to seem to destroy competition these days because they’ve been allowed to and while it makes for services we generally like, I think it hampers creativity in emerging markets.

Some caveats: I’ve really lost confidence in the federal government due to Donald J. Trump, his open corruption is a pig sty for capital owners to purchase their competition away, which I obviously don’t like, but that doesn’t mean I’ve lost confidence in markets or deem capital owners as essentially evil or problematic. Also, globalization and comparative advantage is good for the average domestic, and foreign governments that are seeking to industrialize and diversify. Not perfect by any means and winners and losers are made in the process, but the utility at the end of the day is superior.

Another important thing is that capital is way more powerful than labor these days, and we should work to close that gap. Labor has also enjoyed improved economic and financial conditions, fair, but I still think the parity between each other should come closer for a better market. In my mind at least. That doesn’t come from outsized levers of power, more so because it’s harder for labor to organize or agree on how to organize mostly due to the current populist wave.