> People much wiser than us founded America upon the principle that extreme wealth is incompatible with democracy.

You need to go back and take a look at early American history. Many of the founding fathers were business owners and/or extremely land wealthy and had a strong interest in personal property rights as a result. They needed the middle class of the day to agree to the ratification of the constitution which led to the bill of rights.

Basically they founded America on the principle that their extreme wealth was incompatible with the rest of the colonials without democracy.