It's not just a moral failure of the billionaires. Many of us live in democracies, so we are choosing (through our elected officials) that creating a few billionaires is more important than building a better tomorrow. The sorry state of things could be undone in a single election if people didn't explicitly want and vote for the sorry state of things.

We have a limited choice of who to vote for. Here in the UK that is the big parties think, and most of the smaller ones too. The same is true in many democracies.

Douglas Adams described it well:

"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy." "I did," said Ford. "It is." "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?" "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"