Business

In defence of space billionaires

Don't let a populist class of self-righteous keyboard warriors diminish very substantial achievements.

10 September 2021

When he became the first emperor of Rome, Augustus made one particularly important move. He placed Egypt and thus all its grain-producing resources under his personal control. This move would prove crucial in maintaining power because even an absolute ruler is only as strong as his allies allow him to be. Their control over allies depends on how much wealth and power they can monopolise. If you look at the wealth distribution of any empire, it inevitably is a graph with a massive spike and then a rapid taper down into a plateau near the bottom. The spike represents the emperor's wealth, then the inner circle, and so on.

Simply put, every emperor was effectively a mafia don. They concentrated power and wealth, doling those out to lieutenants and collaborators. It still exists today: Putin's Russia and Kim's North Korea are examples. It's also why scoundrels such as the Guptas wanted to compromise state institutions. Just like Augustus' Egypt, unilateral control over state institutions allows for concentration of power.

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