Some people believe that America is a Constitutional republic, and some also believe that it is a democracy, of, by, and for the people. Yet, in reality, it would be more accurate to state that America is a functional plutocracy; that is a government of the wealthy, controlled by the wealthy, and for the benefit of the wealthy. To wit, when that government looks like a plutocracy, acts like a plutocracy, and takes actions that conform to being a plutocracy, then it probably is a plutocracy.
Senator Elizabeth Warren stated that "The top 0.1 percent, who'd pay my #UltraMillionaireTax, own about the same wealth as 90 percent of America," of which, politifact.com states that "The top 0.1 percent is fewer than 200,000 families. The bottom 90 percent? About 110 million households." That this is true, should come as a great shock to all Americans, especially in consideration that America was not founded by dynastic wealth, but rather was founded upon the universal principles of opportunity, meritocracy, and egalitarianism. The fact that so few can own so much, is a clear reflection that our capitalistic system as currently practiced in this land is fundamentally corrupt and that it needs a thorough cleansing as well as constructive reform in order to be fairer to the good people that constitute this country.
While there is a multitude of reasons why so few have so much, a considerable part of why this is so, is because when fortunes are created, they are thereby able to often sustain themselves and to augment themselves through the guidance of high-powered attorneys, tax set asides and tax evasions, offshore shell corporations, opaqueness, corporate favoritism, as well as legislation circumvented; permitting thereby for the vast majority of these elites, to not fairly pay their fair portion of what they should be taxed upon, through those sophisticated maneuvers, which means that these superrich people as well as their corporations will continue to grow that capital year after year, generation after generation, without ever having to suffer being appropriately taxed upon that wealth.
So too, when the legislatures of county, city, State, and the National government are effectively controlled by those that have the dollars to buy whatever influence that they so need, whether that be for rules and regulations that effectively boxes out competition, while being structured in a way that also benefits those on the inside; as well as laws that reduce capital gains to levels below what those that labor for a hourly wage so pay; and in addition, favorable legislation that provides all sorts of corporate beneficence, including but not limited to property tax abatement, kickbacks, and the relief of normal taxation for such companies; all of this provides in essence, for those with that connected money, the absolute power to increase their wealth, without hindrance by the only agency that has the power to stop such, which is that government, of, by, and for the people.
When the very, very few, essentially own as much as 90% of what the general population does, something is seriously wrong with the effective and meaningful operation of that government and in its fairness to the people it ostensibly is meant to serve; because that sort of wealth disparity and wealth gap is reflective only of those countries that are controlled by the superrich and for the superrich. America is therefore a plutocracy, of which, such a plutocracy could only exist under the compliance of those at the highest levels of this government, and only through the outright and sanctioned continual exploitation of its own people.