Should we ban billionaires?

There’s a growing movement to condemn billionaires for the many problems that ail society. This is happening largely in the United States and in the Philippines to a certain extent. Billionaires are blamed for the ever-widening economic inequality, for their political influence, and for the environmental destruction caused by their businesses.

In the US, the denunciation of billionaires is at its peak because they are perceived to be receiving enormous advantages and massive undeserved rewards from the administration of US President Donald Trump. American billionaires are accused of amassing more wealth even while ordinary Americans are suffering from economic hardship. The extremely wealthy are also accused of paying measly taxes or zero taxes even while they’re earning exponentially in the hundreds of millions of dollars, while ordinary Americans are paying heavy taxes in proportion to their meager incomes. And then there’s the allegation that business tycoons are funneling hundreds of millions to politicians to stop the creation of laws and the implementation of policies that are intended to provide free education, medical coverage, and social welfare benefits for the poor.

In the Philippines, billionaires are accused of underhandedly capturing public utilities and government franchises on terms that allow them to collect unmerited charges at the expense of the public and letting them amass wealth well beyond what is fairly due them. Some Filipino tycoons are accused of meddling in politics by having politicians in their pockets as a means of ensuring that they gain unlawful advantage in ensnaring fat government contracts and as protection against being made answerable for serious defects in their operations.

As a result of all these controversies, there’s an emerging clamor to heavily tax the rich. Ideas are floated to put a wealth cap on billionaires. The fundamental premise of this movement is the view that anyone who amasses obscene wealth is bound to commit abuses to satisfy an unquenchable thirst for even more wealth.

In the natural scheme of life on Earth, there’s the concept of ecological equilibrium or biological balance. Under this concept, no single form of life dominates, which results in the maintenance of a healthy ecosystem. For millennia, nature enforced equilibrium and balance, preventing the absolute dominance of any species.

This concept of ecological balance has been beneficial for planet Earth, because practically each species is dependent on its consumption of another species or a group of other species. This cycle of predator and prey enforces balance among species. If the population of one species explodes, the prey population will be reduced to extinction, which in turn may starve out the predator population.

But this concept of ecological balance has been disrupted by humanity since the advent of human civilization. Human population continually multiplied, causing the extinction or near extinction of numerous plant and animal species. But mankind found a way to tinker with the threat of extinction of its principal sources of food supply by devising a system of domesticating plants and animals. This prevented the extermination of its prey and ensured the non-exhaustion of its supply of food. The explosion of human population has been supported by massive plantations, industrial farming, and livestock raising.

However, mankind has not been satisfied with the domestication of its food supply. Humanity turned on its own species by engaging in unending conquest, enslavement, and many other forms of exploitation of fellow human beings. Fast forward to contemporary times and we see business tycoons engaging in unfair practices that turn their fellow human beings into virtual livestock that are figuratively milked or fleeced for their wool.

We see business tycoons, with the help of conniving political leaders, who monopolize public utilities that supply water, electricity, and telecommunications, and who charge exploitative rates for unjustifiably lengthy periods that enslave the masses. We see business magnates who capture the operations of airports, seaports, road expressways and the like, collecting from the masses daily tolls that are excessive, abusive, and undeserved. We see the ultra-wealthy who extract natural resources such as mines, quarries, and fishing grounds, through means that destroy the environment or permanently deplete Earth’s natural wealth.

It has become the scourge of planet Earth, a curse for mankind, that any human being let loose to grow into a behemoth gets infused with an unquenchable thirst for more wealth and power. The extreme wealth accumulated becomes an instrument of exploitation, injustice, unfairness, and abuse of power. Like political dynasties, economic dynasties are sources of exploitation. Until mankind has fixed this affliction, until humanity has devised effective ways to regulate the malady, there will always be a need to go back to the sphere of nature’s equilibrium.

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