I think there are 2 questions that do deserve discussion and debate: 1. Whether a society should be structured to allow billionaires at all; and, 2. Whether t

I think there are 2 questions that do deserve discussion and debate: 1. Whether a society should be structured to allow billionaires at all; and, 2. Whether the existence of billionaires is actually helpful/creating a net benefit for everyone else. The debate originates out of the dominant ideological form of liberalism in Western liberal democracies, Rawlsian liberalism, and, in particular its idea of the "difference principle", which argues that inequality can exist so long as democratic institutions are accessible and enabling upward social mobility, and so long as the majority of the benefits from government actions/programs/policies benefit the most worse off populace the most. In a sense, the debates around wealth, and especially the extremely wealthy, start when there is the popular sense that that "difference principle" is failing or no longer operating as it should be. Billionaires begin to be seen as extractive rather than as a benefit for a country.