The US federal government is absolutely a single central power. That its leadership is selected democratically is good, but doesn't change that.

I don't expect billionaires to be perfect, but so far none of them has invaded countries for mistaken reasons, killing hundreds of thousands of people, or locked up millions in a War on Drugs.

I think we can quibble on what central really means, but the fact that they're democratically elected is the important part here. We make the government, and can direct its actions to what should benefit us the most. None gets a saying on what the Koch family or Bezos do with their money other than themselves.

> I don't expect billionaires to be perfect, but so far none of them has invaded countries for mistaken reasons, killing hundreds of thousands of people, or locked up millions in a War on Drugs.

I know a lot of people that would pin the gratuitous invasion of other countries on the industrial-military complex and control of oil and all the money that depends on it.

The War on Drugs is a shame, and harder to blame on rich people, probably with the exception of private prisons, which is a relative recent development. Are there any billionaires trying to solve this problem? Spending money to change policies so drugs get treated as a public health problem? Fighting against police brutality and racism? Curbing sales of opioids?

And inversely, are any billionaires fighting for the police state? Militarizing the police? Putting more and more opioids on the streets? Privatizing prisons? Selling junk food? Cigarettes? Animal factory farming? Massive student debt? Destroying elections? Fighting against unionization? Any of them against climate change?

Is all that we have left the hope that Bezos has more money than someone who owns a coal mining company so we get the climate change efforts we want? Are we betting the future of the planet on a hope that the richest people alive will be on our side?

I just think it's an important realization that while a democratically elected central government is much better than, say, one run by absolute hereditary monarchy, it is still one central government, and it will end up being run by a few people who make the their way to the top.

> I know a lot of people that would pin the gratuitous invasion of other countries on the industrial-military complex and control of oil and all the money that depends on it.

I don't know how you can square that view with the one where the voting public controls the government. Is the voters or the industrial-military complex in charge? Can't be both.

The human ability to hold completely opposite views at the same time truly is something!

> Are there any billionaires trying to solve this problem?

Well, the Koch brothers certainly do/did. A few quickly Google links:

https://www.axios.com/koch-network-opposes-sessions-restart-... https://www.denverpost.com/2017/06/25/koch-network-trump-adm... https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/do-the-...

You can whittle those 130M actual voters down into 25M voters in important swing states.