It's OK to be Angry About Capitalism is the title of the new book by Bernie Sanders, in which he outlines one of his most important concerns – reducing the number of billionaires in the United States to zero. Sanders dedicates an entire chapter – "Billionaires Should Not Exist" – to this very issue, echoing the bumper stickers he distributed during his election campaign, which were also emblazoned with the words "Billionaires Should Not Exist." In his new book, he reiterates: "the time is long overdue for us to do away with billionaires," and adds: "the idea of rejecting unfettered capitalism – and of doing away with the billionaire class – may sound radical. It's not."
But he doesn't tell his readers that eradicating billionaires would involve turning America into a poor, socialist country. Because the only countries in the world without any billionaires are North Korea, Cuba, and some of the poorest countries in Africa. Even Venezuela has one billionaire.
Over the years, Sanders has repeatedly cited the Scandinavian countries as examples of the "socialism" he advocates. Yet, he knows next to nothing about these countries. After all, according to Forbes, the proportion of billionaires in countries such as Sweden and Norway is even greater than in the U.S.
Sweden has three billionaires for every one million inhabitants, compared with two per million in the U.S. The proportion of billionaires in Sweden is 60 percent higher than in the United States! In Norway, too, the number of billionaires – in relation to the number of inhabitants – is 20 percent higher than in the U.S.
Sweden is a perfect example. It is many decades ago since "democratic socialism" prevailed in this northern European country. However, Sweden's experiments with democratic socialism failed, and the country is now more capitalist than the United States. In the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, Denmark and Sweden are ranked 10th and 11th, while the U.S. only ranks 25th.
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While Sanders wants a significant hike in inheritance taxes, Sweden abolished them in 2004. While Sanders uses his book to call for introducing a drastic tax on wealth that would eliminate billionaires in the U.S., Sweden completely abolished its wealth tax in 2007.
The Swedish expert Anders Ydstedt explains: "In 2003, when the wealth, inheritance, and gift taxes were still in place, there were only two dollar billionaires living in Sweden. In 2017, they were 20." So, in these 15 years, the number of billionaires in Sweden increased by 1,000 percent, while the U.S. only saw a 200 percent increase in the same period!
According to the latest figures from Forbes, there are now 45 Swedish billionaires. Since the country has only 10.6 million inhabitants, the U.S. (340 million inhabitants) should be home to 1,440 billionaires if it had the same proportion of billionaires as Sweden. In reality, however, only half as many billionaires live in the U.S., namely 720. Even considering that only 32 of Sweden's 45 billionaires live in Sweden, the number of billionaires per inhabitant is still much higher than in the United States.
If Bernie Sanders wants to abolish billionaires in the U.S., he can only do so by turning America into a poor country. There are lots of billionaires in all developed, wealthy countries. For example, there are four billionaires in Switzerland for every 1 million people, proportionally more than twice as many as in the U.S. Yet, the Swiss have a high standard of living overall.
Whenever countries develop economically and poverty declines, there is always a parallel increase in the number of billionaires. One example is China, where 45 million people died at the end of the 1950s due to Chairman Mao's so-called Great Leap Forward – the largest socialist experiment in human history. In 1981, a few years after Mao's death, as many as 88 percent of the Chinese population lived in extreme poverty. Today, that figure is less than 1 percent. At no other point in history has a country experienced such a rapid and extensive decrease in poverty. The reasons for China's success were the introduction of private property and more market economy features. At the same time, the number of billionaires in China has grown more than in any other country in the world. Under Mao, there wasn't a single billionaire in China (Bernie Sanders' ideal!); today, there are 698 billionaires – almost as many as in the United States.
Anyone who wants the U.S. to continue to prosper for years should wish for more people like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Sergej Brin, and Larry Page – not fewer.
Rainer Zitelmann is a historian and sociologist and the author of the new book In Defense of Capitalism.
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