> we have many billionaires. once one of them show weakness, the rest would swarm him in pursuit of more power. furthermore, new billionaires continue to rise to power. same things could be said for the old aristocrats. they could even say it was possible to join their class, just extremely difficult. yet we can see from their record that they were inconsistent rulers at best and usually quite callous towards the people they ruled; because they had too much power in one place. the solution was simple, curb the power of any one individual with a balance of power of other individuals, in turn held accountable by voters.  are not all these same things true of the current ownership class? the ceos, the board members, the major shareholders, the hedge fund managers? callous, unaccountable, wielding tremendous power with little oversight? and yet despite all their apparent merit as successful businessmen, they fail to consistently use their power for good. instead they use it to enrich themselves and they take no responsibility for the people they command. it's the same situation, just for the merchant class instead of the warrior/noble class, and it has the same solution; no one human should hold too much power in one place.
United States