A USA with no billionaires – that’s exactly what Bernie Sanders was the first to call for. He championed the idea in his book It's OK To Be Angry About Capitalism. And the idea is gaining traction, not only in the United States but in other countries, too. In Germany, the head of the youth wing of the governing SPD party recently said: “I don’t want any billionaires in Germany.”
Take a look at the latest billionaire rankings from Forbes or Bloomberg and you’ll quickly see which countries have no billionaires. The list includes either very poor countries like Haiti, Afghanistan, Yemen, Eritrea, and South Sudan, or countries that are both poor and communist, such as Cuba and North Korea.
In terms of population, countries such as Monaco, Singapore, and Switzerland have the highest proportions of billionaires, with Sweden also very high in the billionaire rankings (43 billionaires in a country with only ten million inhabitants). If the USA had the same density of billionaires as Sweden, it would have over 1,400 billionaires. In reality, however, it has just over 800. Anyone who says that their country should have no billionaires is basically calling for their country to become more like Cuba or Haiti – only without as much sun. And definitely not like Sweden or Switzerland.
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