Democracy and Economic Inequality

Abstract

The paper explores several of the ways in which economic elites can threaten the implementation of the democratic ideal through the disproportionate power they are often permitted to exercise in the political domain. They can lend their support to efforts to restrict the franchise (for example, by pruning voting lists under cover of a drive to prevent electoral fraud). They can bankroll the campaigns of candidates for electoral office in ways that undermine their ability to make independent political decisions. They can pay lobbyists to do their bidding in the corridors of power, by prevailing upon legislators to protect their private interests at the expense of the public interest. And they can use the clout they have with influential members of the political class to maintain features of the electoral system that generally shield them from the effective mobilization of anti-elitist political sentiment: for example, they can throw their weight behind the practice of gerrymandering in the drawing of electoral district boundaries, and they can help to fend off periodic demands for reform of the electoral system through abandonment of “first-past-the-post” rules for victory in electoral contests.

The first third of your campaign is money, money, money; the second third is money, money, and press; and the last third is votes, press, and money. (Rahm Emmanuel quoted in Overby and James 2012)

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both. (Louis Brandeis 1941)

… (W)hen inequalities in political influence become too large, democracy shades into oligarchy (rule by the few) or plutocracy (rule by the wealthy). (Martin Gilens 2012)