>Any society that allows 1) ownership and 2) freedom
No, this is highly dependend on the definition of "freedom". A huge market freedom, and freedom for money? Yes. The freedom from shakles, from one being a billion times better than another, from people living lives somehow on the same plane? No. Billionares are not a direct result of whatever you define as "freedom" which is a very murky concept, there can be freedom in societies without billionaires.
And yes, the whole system of buying stock and then valuing something at 1 billion is broken, but does not change the fact, in fact enforces it because cleary the system is broken.
>No, this is highly dependend on the definition of "freedom".
I'm talking about the freedom you, (as in you personally, not the billionaires) have today to buy things you want. Let's say it's a book. Should you be allowed to buy a book for say, 20 dollars?
If a 100 million other people enjoy that same freedom to buy the same book, you have a billionaire author. How do you prevent that from happening? Honest question, I don't see any way to prevent it.
"Billionaires shouldn't exist" is thought number 1 that people get when they see what some of them are up to, and I certainly sympathize, but the only chain of reasoning I've seen that goes beyond thought 2 is the writings of Karl Marx. And where his thoughts end, thoughts from Stalin, Mao and the like always always follow. They are billionaires too btw, just way worse than the ones we have.
I think the solution is strong laws and vigilant control to prevent corruption. If for example the punishment for corruption was confiscation of all your assets and it was actually enforced, I think we'd come a long way. It would almost certainly get rid of a lot of billionaires too, so maybe we have some common ground there after all. ;-)
No, this is highly dependend on the definition of "freedom". A huge market freedom, and freedom for money? Yes. The freedom from shakles, from one being a billion times better than another, from people living lives somehow on the same plane? No. Billionares are not a direct result of whatever you define as "freedom" which is a very murky concept, there can be freedom in societies without billionaires.
And yes, the whole system of buying stock and then valuing something at 1 billion is broken, but does not change the fact, in fact enforces it because cleary the system is broken.