BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR and PHILIP KOTLER

Billionaires, for all their wealth and power, often exhibit a striking short-sightedness when it comes to governance and the political systems that sustain their “wealthbeing” (where they confuse money with wellbeing). While democracy provides the stability, legal frameworks, and educated workforce necessary for long-term wealth creation, many billionaires either undermine it or actively support authoritarian regimes. Their myopia blinds them to the long-term consequences of empowering fascist and tyrannical systems, which ultimately erode the very conditions that allowed them to amass wealth in the first place.

The death of Democracy isn’t just a failure of foresight; it’s a fundamental mismanagement of power.

The Allure of Authoritarianism

For billionaires seeking unchecked power, democracy presents an inconvenience. It imposes taxes, enforces labor rights, regulates industries, and provides mechanisms for redistribution that prevent extreme inequality. Authoritarianism, by contrast, offers them the promise of deregulation, monopolistic control, and the suppression of opposition. In such regimes, leaders often eliminate barriers to wealth accumulation—dismantling labor unions, gutting environmental protections, and using state power to shield loyal business elites from competition.

This transactional relationship between billionaires and autocrats has played out repeatedly in history:

• The Nazi Industrialists (1930s–1940s) – German billionaires like the Krupp and Thyssen families eagerly supported Hitler, believing his regime would protect their business interests and destroy labor unions. While they profited immensely during the war, their fortunes were eventually threatened as Germany collapsed. Some, like Alfried Krupp, were even tried for war crimes.
• Pinochet’s Chile (1973–1990) – The U.S.-backed coup that installed Augusto Pinochet dismantled democracy, crushed unions, and implemented radical neoliberal policies that benefited corporate elites. While some businesses flourished, the country suffered extreme inequality, economic crises, and brutal repression.
• Putin’s Russia (2000–Present) – Oligarchs who aligned with Vladimir Putin enjoyed vast wealth, but those who challenged him—like Mikhail Khodorkovsky—found themselves imprisoned or exiled. More recently, billionaires like Yevgeny Prigozhin, once a close ally of Putin, learned the hard way that loyalty means little in an authoritarian system. Prigozhin’s private military empire collapsed, and he ultimately died in a suspicious plane crash.
• China’s Billionaire Crackdown (2010s–Present) – Jack Ma, once the face of China’s tech boom, criticized government regulators and subsequently disappeared from public life. Other billionaires, like property tycoon Ren Zhiqiang, faced similar fates, with some imprisoned or forced to surrender their wealth. In an authoritarian system, business success is always subordinate to the ruling party’s agenda.
• Saudi Arabia’s Ritz-Carlton Purge (2017) – Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrested dozens of the country’s wealthiest individuals, including billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, and detained them in a luxury hotel. They were only released after transferring billions of dollars to the state.
• Elon Musk’s Cozying Up to Autocrats (2020s) – While Musk enjoys the freedoms of democracy, he has shown admiration for authoritarian leaders like China’s Xi Jinping and has used his influence to oppose regulatory oversight. His ventures depend on state contracts, yet he increasingly aligns with anti-democratic forces, seemingly unaware that the same unchecked power he admires could one day turn against him. Now, he’s the shadow President of the United States – and as the unelected head of DOGE, he’s busy destroying the infrastructure of governance, in the name of efficiency.

The Hidden Costs of Fascism

Despite the short-term benefits of authoritarian rule, billionaires fail to see the long-term dangers. Tyrannical regimes are inherently unstable, relying on coercion and violence to maintain control. This instability creates risks that even the wealthiest individuals cannot escape:

• Political Unpredictability – Authoritarian leaders do not operate under the constraints of law or fairness. A billionaire who benefits today may be exiled, imprisoned, or assassinated tomorrow.
• Economic Erosion – Fascist regimes stifle innovation, destroy the middle class, and weaken consumer markets. When workers are impoverished and fearful, economies shrink, limiting opportunities for sustainable growth.
• Geopolitical Isolation – Many authoritarian regimes face sanctions, trade restrictions, and financial barriers that limit billionaires’ ability to operate globally. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, for example, led to the freezing of oligarchs’ assets worldwide.
• Billionaire-on-Billionaire Violence – In the absence of democratic conflict resolution, power struggles among elites often turn deadly. Russian oligarchs have mysteriously fallen from windows. Chinese billionaires have disappeared overnight. When wealth is tied to political favor rather than market forces, billionaires become pawns rather than power players.
• The Climate Crisis – Perhaps the greatest failure of billionaire short-termism is their role in accelerating environmental collapse. Many of them actively fund climate denial, obstruct regulations, and invest in extractive industries that are destroying the planet.

1. ExxonMobil & Shell – These oil giants suppressed their own climate research for decades while funding misinformation campaigns to delay action.
2. Koch Industries – The Koch network has spent billions lobbying against climate policies, ensuring continued dependence on fossil fuels.
3. Billionaire Space-Escapism – While investing in climate tech, Bezos also promotes space colonization as a solution, implying that the wealthy can escape Earth rather than fix it. Musk is on the same trajectory – to Mars.
   
   The irony is that climate disasters—rising sea levels, extreme weather, mass displacement—threaten global supply chains, destabilize markets, and increase social unrest, creating the very chaos that makes long-term wealth accumulation impossible.

The Cost of Corruption

Another fundamental error of the billionaire class is their belief that they can control corruption, or use it to their benefit. They assume that by buying influence—through lobbying, media ownership, or direct political alliances—they will remain protected. This, too, is a miscalculation.

Corruption is not a controlled expense – Like inflation, once corruption spreads, it compounds. The cost of doing business rises as bribes, political favors, and regulatory loopholes become the new norm. Over time, corruption makes even the wealthiest players vulnerable to extortion, instability, and unpredictable shifts in power.

Corrupt systems destroy efficiency – Businesses thrive in environments with clear rules, competitive markets, and enforceable contracts. Corrupt governance weakens all three. Investment dries up when the rules are unclear. Talent flees when merit is replaced by favoritism. Productivity declines when companies succeed based on connections rather than competence.

Corruption erodes trust—permanently – Once trust is lost, it is difficult to rebuild. Societies with entrenched corruption suffer from low civic engagement, brain drain, and social unrest. Even billionaires cannot thrive in a world where institutions have collapsed.

Democracy as the Safeguard of Wealth

The billionaire’s myopia is especially tragic because democracy is their best long-term investment. While democratic systems impose regulations and taxes, they also ensure legal stability, protect property rights, and create broad-based prosperity that fuels consumer spending. Without a thriving middle class, there are no customers. Without the rule of law, wealth is never secure. Without environmental sustainability, there is no future to profit from.

Billionaires have forgotten another benefit of Democracy – the peaceful transition of power from one administration to the next.  New management, not next dictator.  History tells us that regime change without Democracy, is expensive, and bloody, and unstable. What happens when a Dictator is deposed? Or dies? There is no smooth transistion to a new government. In fact the blood-stained history of humankind is history of continuous regime change and social insecurity. This is a recipe for economic volatility and chaos. Not exactly the best environment for billionaires and their families.

If billionaires actually acted in their own rational self-interest, they would defend Democracy and lead the fight against climate collapse rather than undermine both. They would recognize that the preservation of a fair, stable, and prosperous society benefits them more than the fleeting privileges of authoritarian rule. But blinded by greed and the illusion of control, they often make deals with dictators and fossil fuel industries—only to find themselves disposable when the system no longer needs them. The billionaire ego is a fatal flaw – it destroys the world the billionaire sought to build, and all other worlds with it.

In the end, the billionaire’s myopia is a self-inflicted wound. The authoritarian systems they empower will one day destroy them as well. 

Capitalism is no friend of Democracy.  It has openly embraced Fascism – and strongman rule. The lessons of the French Revolution are forgotten.

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Wicked Problems: What can we do in this Time of Collapse?
by Christian Sarkar and Philip Kotler (with ClimateGPT)