Extreme wealth is concentrating economic, political and technological power in the hands of a tiny few. Healthy democracies cannot ignore the question of limits.

We hear a great deal these days about billionaires – the good, the bad and the very ugly.

Some have called the era we are living through the Age of the Billionaires.

Just as many of us were beginning to grasp the extraordinary economic and political power accumulated by this miniscule group, we learned that one of them, Elon Musk, had become the world’s first trillionaire.

Whether or not that particular milestone proves lasting, one thing is clear: the ranks of the ultra-wealthy continue to grow. Today, there are around 3,400 billionaires worldwide, a tiny fraction of humanity whose collective wealth now exceeds US$18 trillion.

This is not a value-neutral economic trend. It is reshaping our politics, our economies and, increasingly, our democracies.

My recent novel, Killionaire, explores the extraordinary power wielded by this billionaire class and asks a question that is becoming harder to ignore: Should there be a legal limit to how much wealth any one individual can accumulate?

The United States leads the world with almost 1,000 billionaires, followed by China with more than 600 and India with more than 200. Australia now has around 80 US-dollar billionaires.

Collectively they control more than US$18 trillion. Trillion with a “T”.

The world’s richest eight people, a group small enough to fit around a dining room table, own as much wealth........

© Pearls and Irritations