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Billionaires themselves may not directly hold the world on their shoulders but there is ~~something~~ to ideas in Atlas Shrugged. The hierarchies of value that they head DO have outsized effect on the world. (and this is Pareto principle more than than Evil Illuminati)

The 1% are obviously biased here but there *is* something to the idea that a simple redistribution of wealth will *not* have the desired effects on creating a fairer society and may have unexpected negative downsides. e.g:

If you fully equalize the world and have have seen how hard and how smart people in China and India are working then you will realize that full equalization will NOT end well for the U.S. and many other rich countries.

Billionaires and the "rich and unfair cabals" they lead are the equivalent of nuclear weapons in a world where economic warfare is the main form of warfare. The resulting hierarchy of value IS tyrannical in various ways.

But so are the more meritocratic ones in the places like China and India. It's a huge pressure cooker, both socially, academically, and in the status signaling rat race. Being "better" than "them" allows "us" to *not* have to live like "them"

From a global perspective there is also probably a minor effect on slowing down market growth since market machinery has been turned into useless cash. e.g. the mechanism that makes (life saving?) goods cheaper across the world slows down a bit.https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1341269410686726144 …

again, probably a very small effect since even billionaires are small relative to the size of the entire system. all this implies that the super rich can't really solve said problems even if they have benefitted from the setup.

One can WIN at monopoly but be helpless to change the rules since everyone insists on playing it. Why? Because people care about WINNING and monopoly allows for easy constant winning once you have enough capital.