Source: AP Photo/David Goldman
“Should you exist?” the moderator at the Nevada Democrat debate asked Michael Bloomberg. The question might have been dangerous had the audience assumed the moderator was referring to Bloomberg’s Jewish heritage. But he meant Bloomberg’s financial status as a billionaire. Other Democrat politicians have stated that billionaires shouldn’t exist in the US. Bloomberg responded that he deserved the money because he worked hard for it and was giving it all away. The crowd booed.
Whether or not billionaires should exist is a complex question. The answer from a Christian perspective depends on how he earned it. If he stole it, then he should be in jail and making restitution instead of running for president. From pre-history until the advent of capitalism in the Dutch Republic of the 17th century, people who didn’t inherit wealth got it through looting the enemy in war, kidnapping for ransom, taking bribes as a government official, bribing judges to steal from others or all the above. That behavior birthed the idea that people or groups cannot increase their wealth except by stealing it from others.
