I find it interesting to think about the mechanics.
1. Things have value.
2. People can own things, fractionally or entirely.
3. Owning a thing entails control of that thing.
So what does a world in which billionaires aren't allowed to exist look like? If the wealth is from creating a company, do we tax companies so progressively that it simply isn't possible for a billion-dollar company to exist in the first place? Do we take some fraction of the founder's company, and therefore their control over that company, away, e.g. with a wealth tax?
In principle I'm happy to ban billionaires, but I also don't love the idea of someone losing control of the company they created because other people decided it was too valuable. Asymptotically capping the growth of companies is appealing, but who knows what the second-order market effects might be (imagine if Apple had no incentive to scale to serve everyone who wants their products), and anyway one person can own multiple companies, so per-company limits by themselves won't put an end to billionaires.
The folks in mechanism design have to have done research in this area, but I'm not familiar with it.
1. Things have value.
2. People can own things, fractionally or entirely.
3. Owning a thing entails control of that thing.
So what does a world in which billionaires aren't allowed to exist look like? If the wealth is from creating a company, do we tax companies so progressively that it simply isn't possible for a billion-dollar company to exist in the first place? Do we take some fraction of the founder's company, and therefore their control over that company, away, e.g. with a wealth tax?
In principle I'm happy to ban billionaires, but I also don't love the idea of someone losing control of the company they created because other people decided it was too valuable. Asymptotically capping the growth of companies is appealing, but who knows what the second-order market effects might be (imagine if Apple had no incentive to scale to serve everyone who wants their products), and anyway one person can own multiple companies, so per-company limits by themselves won't put an end to billionaires.
The folks in mechanism design have to have done research in this area, but I'm not familiar with it.