There are enormous economic and societal advantages to both size and scale, in which many people are able to take advantage of such by virtue of the incredibly cheap pricing for food, for clothes, and for everyday conveniences that we take for granted, including clear and abundant water, electricity, and the basic infrastructure that modern society provides for us. In order for all of these good things to have happened, people have had to put their minds and tools together, and build upon known principles in order to effectively and efficiently build things up for the benefit of all. Thereby, these creature comforts that modern society has are a real boon to the overall quality of life.
However, the sheer size of modern day communities, allows a very small select few, to rise well above the common man, and while this may not be an unmitigated evil, it offers extreme danger to any society which purports to be of the people, by the people, and for the people. The reason that an elite so often arises in modern society, is that in order to run such a society, powers are delegated to judicial, legislative, and executive branches, of which having such power there are the inherent temptations of favoritism, cronyism, and the making of laws favoring one group or specific set of individuals in such a manner, that a playing field that purports to being level, is in fact, tilted to favor a specific group or set of individuals. While not everyone plays that game, many find the lure of doing so, so beneficial, that they sign up for it. This then benefits those that ostensibly are in the service to the public, via inside information, proxies, or kickbacks, while making those that have been so favored, immensely rich by virtue of being privy to favored rules, favored laws, and favored choices, with little or no interference to contend with, providing them with a wide open highway to mega success. While the general public does often benefit, their benefit comes at a cost, of which that cost is the unfairness and inequality in justice, in taxes, in structure, in opportunity, in costs, and in legacy, of which the many being cheated a little, permits the privileged favored elites to reap massive amounts of unwarranted money based on that overall volume, repeated and recycled to those elites over and over again.
So too, most people know their neighbors or at least know some basic things about their neighbors, simply because of the proximity of such, and therefore see them at stores, or schools, or other such public places. However, in societies that are so big, so rich, so unequal, and so advanced, there are people that you will never see in person, because they don't go to the same restaurants that you go to, they don't travel in the same circles as you do, they don't go to public schools, and they don't frequent public areas, they are actually set aside, purposely set aside, so that they can enjoy theirs without having to interact with you. These people are above it all, for they often get their power and wealth, at the expense of the many, so as to permanently favor these certain select few. Additionally, people in power, typically have no desire to cede any of that power or any of that wealth, which is why taxes are so complex and so convoluted, why rules are so winding and so contradictory, and why the rich and powerful do not try to purposely embarrass or to impress upon the general public just how rich that they really are, for if all the wealth in America was divided equally amongst the adult population, each individual adult would have, as reported by Wikipedia.com as of November, 2016, "$344,692 per adult," but the median of such in America is just "$44,977 per adult". Is that then the nature of capitalism, or is that really a small clique unfairly furthering its own, at the expense of the many?