Should billionaries be illegal?

Limitarianism is a political position built around the belief that there should be a maximum amount of wealth any one person is permitted to possess. Not because everyone must be perfectly equal nor because becoming successful is inherently immoral, but because at some point, money stops purchasing additional comfort and starts purchasing power over everyone else.

The issue stems from the law of diminishing returns, because giving another million dollars to someone who already possesses 100 million is like pouring bottled water into a swimming pool as the children looking in from the other side of the fence are dying of thirst, but the even stronger libertarian argument is not merely that this lopsided distribution of wealth is socially unfair or rather that extreme wealth, in and of itself, possesses the capacity to become its own form of political authority by influencing elections, shaping legislation, purchasing media platforms, and controlling so much money that entire communities are forced to operate according to the personal preferences of an elite few. This produces the two most primary justifications for libertarianism. First, that money which generates almost no meaningful improvement in the life of someone who already possesses everything could instead be used to satisfy urgent human needs. And second, that democracy cannot remain meaningfully equal when private citizens are permitted to accumulate enough wealth to rival the political power of our public institutions. Now, some libertarians define the financial limit, often referred to as the “rich’s line,” as the amount one requires to live a completely flourishing and financially secure life, whereas others place it wherever private wealth begins producing political domination, with the proposed solutions ranging anywhere from steep inheritance and wealth taxes to maximum income ratios, anti-monopoly laws, campaign finance restrictions, or even a 100% marginal tax on all wealth accumulated beyond some unimaginably high threshold. We already debate where to place the minimum wage and poverty line, and a riches line would merely be applying that same moral reasoning in the opposite direction. A social floor asks how little a person can possess before deprivation destroys their freedom, whereas a financial ceiling asks how much a person can control before their power begins destroying the freedom of everyone else. Its purpose, therefore, is not to place the government upon a throne above the wealthy.

This to ensure that the wealthy never become powerful enough to stand above the citizen, because the function of democracy is not deciding who deserves the occupied the throne. It is ensuring that nobody can build one.

Source: @shabooki_sunshine