Billionaires do have too much money. It’s true. If you’re searching for a sign that our financial system is seriously flawed, the mere existence of billionaires is sufficient evidence. You need look no further.

But that’s no reason to hate them.

Money is not wealth.

Wealth is peace, enough food, leisure time with the family, clean water. It’s access to all you need to take care of the unpleasantness life tosses at you far too frequently. It’s knowing your children (if any) will be cared for after you’re gone. It’s art, a good book, and the ability to hang out in that computer game you used to really love if you want to, just for the fun of it.

If you don’t have access to those because of a broken system, it’s not the fault of the rich, fun though it would be to blame them — not unless they’re actively blocking you from getting it, like health insurance executives. (Those are almost universally evil, best I can tell, though there may be exceptions. I haven’t known an awful lot of them.)

Elon Musk isn’t hiking the price of eggs by hoarding them all, buying them up and eating them on you. Jeff Bezos isn’t making your milk cost more by building a dairy farm monopoly. Warren Buffett doesn’t spend his days lounging on an enormous mound of bananas, waiting patiently for their price to rise. King Arthur Flour is a worker-owned company, and their product costs exactly the same as Robin Hood, which is made by a multinational. (You’d think it’d be the other way around, but it’s not.)

It’s easy to blame billionaires, mainly because we’re jealous of the rich, but the reality is that the whole system is dysfunctional.

You won’t fix the world by voting blue or red; they’re two sides of the same coin. One doesn’t care if you die so long as they hold power, and the other is identical except they lie to you about it. Most of the politicians in control are hateful, venal, insane, or incompetent, and for some reason regular people don’t realize that they could go out and find competent, moral folks that don’t abuse power and draft them to run. Why we don’t do this boggles the mind.

Even if you disdain politics, you can still help improve the world where you are, and there are ways to help people in places where you aren’t.

None of these methods involve hate.

So, sure, continue to mock the powerful, and take them to task. That’s what humor is for. Boycott Amazon if you want; their business practices stink. If you disapprove of space exploration, stop using GPS and go back to maps. Don’t rent or buy housing from a corporation. That’s all appropriate; it’s intelligent opposition, and it works.

But if you catch yourself envying them, or hating them, solely because they have something you want, you’re living your life wrong. All you’ll ever manage is to make yourself bitter.

Oh, and if you make your living by denying health care to someone: Quit your job. It’s evil; stop doing it.

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