Should billionaires be allowed to exist?

Whatever you think of billionaires, the philanthropic numbers are hard to wave away. The Gates Foundation alone has moved tens of billions of dollars into vaccines, malaria prevention, and sanitation, money that has measurably saved millions of lives (gatesfoundation.org). Warren Buffett has given away the majority of his fortune through it. Mackenzie Scott has handed out billions with no strings attached to food banks and community colleges. Now ask the uncomfortable question: would that money have done more good if it had been taxed into the general fund instead? Given how governments actually spend money, I'm skeptical. Private philanthropy is inefficient and undemocratic, sure. It's also fast, targeted, and run by people who treat the money like it's theirs, because it's. A world without billionaires is also a world without the single largest private funder of global health in history. That's a real cost, and the "abolish" side never puts it on the ledger.