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The conclusions of the FT article are completely wrong. With fewer rich people around, chances are that legislation would be less frequently bought to benefit them at the cost of the country's overall prosperity.

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If you insist on only focusing on the negatives of their existence, then sure, eliminating wealthy people sounds like a good idea.

Out of interest what are the positives? Other than cultural, in flagrant displays of excess, I can't think of anything they couldn't accomplish by them existing as poorer business leaders and having competent national wealth funds empowered to lend/give grants.

What I'm saying is you may be defending billionaires when you mean to be defending a system you believe is optimal but still has the negative outcome of billionaires (not to imply the billionaires themselves are intrinsically bad as people but the concentration of wealth in their hands is).

That is closer to my intent, yes, not a direct defense of billionaires as an intrinsic good, more a rejection of the idea that removing them via any means automatically leads to a less bad state of affairs. Careful reform that reduces them can be good, but it depends on what exactly that reform entails. Simply scaring them away and experiencing capital flight does not achieve good things.

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