Extreme wealth and income inequality will eventually destroy a real democracy. Why? Because that disparity of power and resources allows a relatively small number of people and groups to subvert the popular will, undermine checks and balances, the law, and other democratic institutions, and to manipulate the public through a variety of means into making decisions that are contrary to their interests, and democracy and the Common Good more broadly.
At present, the top one percent of income “earners” owns more than 30 percent of the wealth in the United States — that is more than the wealth of the entire American middle class. By comparison, the bottom 90 percent of earners control only 30 percent of the country's wealth. Historically and to the present, these extreme concentrations of wealth and income are held almost exclusively by a small number of white men. Globally, the richest 1 percent of people control almost 46 percent of the wealth; the world’s ten richest billionaires have more wealth than most countries.
