3 people out of many. barely a mafia, barely a takeover
With how the US works, money is worth more than being a person.
I almost certainly have more wealth than the bottom 10% in my country because a lot of people either have 10 quid or are in debt.
It makes more sense to compare to the median.
I know tons of people who have nothing. Literally nothing other than things like, I dunno, their cell phone and clothes. _Anyone_ has more than a thousand of them combined.
If you choose the correct group of "the least well off" then it's like trying to divide by zero.
Changes are high that your country is a kleptocracy or dictatorship, or has a very weak system. Huge wealth imbalance is a STRONG MARKER of malformed governance.
A well functioning democracy has way less income inequality. Desperate people do not have the "luxury" of being a democratic participant.
That is why autocracies love miserable, poor people.
Income inequality isn't that high though, is it? The rich generally try to do everything they can to avoid income as income is taxed. In the US, somewhere around 20% of the population are in the top 1% when observed over time.
Last election someone just casually threw around $300.000.000 to buy himself into government.
Why would we continue to fool ourself? 20% of the population in the top 1% sounds really bad for the other 80%.
But then again, what share of the USA do the top 100 wealthy people own?
And this all still sidesteps the question
why does one distract themself while the democratic system that should protect them is being eaten alive?
That doesn't imply a high income or some extreme income inequality, though. There are the usual tricks like amassing wealth and borrowing against it in order to secure access to dollars without needing an income.
There is income inequality to some degree. Some people do make more than others. That is undeniably seen in income data. But is the income inequality really that high?
What matters is
1. in a democracy every vote should be counted equal
2. if just a tiny fraction of the populace has immense financial power
2a. you risk they get to turn that into political power
2b. effectively demolishing point 1
It does matter. We are talking specifically about income inequality. Wealth inequality would be a very different topic.
> in a democracy every vote should be counted equal
But in a representative democracy you don't normally cast an official vote yourself. Referendums are rare. You only talk to your representative and then rely on him to vote your way at the official vote. The constituents could theoretically cast a formal vote at the local level to provide checks and balances to ensure that the representative is representing when it comes down to the final vote, but that's a lot of work. In theory, representative democracy assumes locals will still talk with each other and any discrepancies will be found even without a formal ballot. In practice, I doubt that happens. Talking to neighbours is still a lot of work.
In fact, because democracy is hard work, most people won't ever speak to their representative even once! That is a challenge for democracy as even if you have a perfectly faithful representative, they can only represent those who take the time to say their piece. The perfectly faithful representative is unable to read minds. That is impossible. If you don't talk to them, they can't know what you are thinking.
Yes, this does give the wealthy an advantage as:
1. The wealthy tend to be, on average, more confrontational and would enjoy spending all day talking to a representative. They don't consider it the chore the average person does.
2. The wealthy tend to be able to buy time to spend with a representative. They can afford to spend all day talking. And if they don't want to do it personally, they can hire someone to do it for them.
This is the inherit flaw of democracy. Even a direct democracy ultimately suffers the same problem of only serving those who can afford to participate. Not everyone buys into democracy being the be all and end all for that reason. But no system is perfect.
I do not disagree with your post, but imho I propose to take another angle.
> But in a representative democracy you don't normally cast an official vote yourself
True,
1. so what you need is *information*. Here you need an independent press, to give accurate information on what is happening and how the different political parties/representatives conduct themself. The press in the USA is an oligarch party. They fail to inform, to weed out marketing from content. Circus sells better than information, outrage content is more lucrative than facts and research. The editorial boards are directed by commercial ownership.
2. so what you need is *independent representatives*. You think about people like Musk having more time to persuade a representative. Here might be a misunderstanding. You are not rich if you can buy four sports cars and a big mansion. You are rich when you can *buy your representatives*. There are lots people looking for upward mobility, be it in institutions, the judicial system or in political parties. You sponsor a career.
There is a way out of this doom loop, but it can't do without erecting those two pillars. If corporate media distorts reality, you have to go grassroots to spread information.
That is *the power of democracy*: people taking initiative on their own.
As the topic progressed, it was brought up that a functioning democracy has "way less" income inequality. Which is where I asked if there is really that much income inequality as-is? In most places, the US included, there is a strong disincentive to have an income, and especially a high income. It is surprising to me that income inequality might be that far out of whack because of that.
There are one-time income windfalls, like the sale of a high value asset, or winning the lottery. Hence how 20% of the population can, somewhat counterintuitively, be in the top 1%. But I am not sure that is in line with the intent of the comment. If everyone got a chance to have one year with a $100 million dollar income, but otherwise only make $30,000, you would have very high income inequality on a single year basis, but in the end everyone would make the same amount. I am not sure that would impact democracy like one person making $100 million each year with everyone else making $30,000 each year.
> I propose to take another angle.
It seems to me that angle was already taken, and was already discussed to death before I showed up. I find this topic to be far more interesting, and one that we have barely just scratched the surface of, leaving no reason to pack up and find a new topic. There is no obligation for you to participate if you do not find it interesting in kind, of course, but I do not see the value in taking another angle out of the blue without natural emergence.
I brought it up, but should have said wealth inequality to avoid any technicalities. The fish we are talking about have the means to move the nets like they want, so for our subject is does not even matter.
Democratic societies with an educated populace, with access to health care, equal rights and a functioning judicial system usually have less anomalies in wealth distribution too.
Kleptocracies usually have an extremely rich but small elite, and a poor populace that have less access to education, health and rights.
That's all. But as a bonus: the gdp/pp is higher in democratic societies than in kleptocracies. But that is another topic.
But that would be an entirely different discussion, and one not particularly interesting as the wealth inequality impact is much more clear. Regardless of how we landed here, we did, and I think it is an interesting topic that is worth diving into. You must agree, given your continued participation?
[1] https://dqydj.com/net-worth-percentiles/ under "Household Net Worth Percentiles for the United States in 2020"
Imagine if you took the entire population and asked them to run a 10k. It's very likely that 10% couldn't even finish it whereas the top 1% would be close to race pace.
Maybe there is a valid metric worth talking about, but this metric rates the average student in med school as extremely badly off, despite them very likely going on to become one of the top 10% when they're older. So this statistic is just not a very good way to look at this.
[citation needed]
If anything recent elections in the US have shown money is not the most important factor.
Thiel wants to end democracy and has immense influence. If it was only just about money.... More info via lemma Accelerationism.
Musk just bought the White House for himself after having bought Twitter, he is a Thiel protege. Bezos had to swear allegiance.
There might come a time were these kind of background information articles aren´t just flagged directly, but will not even appear anymore in the first place.
The heat has been steadily going up, taking a huge upward turn the last 15 years. What you are witnessing now is that the glacier is making rumbling sounds and people starting to notice that the thing is coming down. Many people have the feeling the atmosphere is odd, but can still be distracted with outrage over transgenders or dog eating Haitians.
So yes, the issues are systematic. But do not make a mistake, a tipping point has been passed. The GOP clan does not respect limits, institutions, truth, the rule of law, democracy, separation of powers. They don't even think they need to fake decency anymore.
Nobody can predict the future, but if you hear a thundering sound, you better should not act like nothing has changed. It is a system where people think in terms of eating or being eaten.
So it's not a takeover, but direct government access and influence, out in the open.
This is all under the conspiratorial premise that the "deep state" was captured by private interests... all to be replaced by the private interests of the richest men alive.
It's a highly confusing narrative, and I'd love to understand those who see this in a positive light.
Those who see this in a positive light cannot provide you with understanding. They have been catered to on deep beliefs and fears, not been messaged to on a rational level. The messaging is highly irrational and full of discrepancies, and so we all have been boarded with streams of fake news, bothsidisms, false balance, nihilism, sane washing, what not.
I say they... But we all rather reason with our guts than with our brains, it is less effort. We as humans are all prone to fallacies.