> If so, you think a few hundred people who won a popularity contest and never actually created anything should be in charge of stuff they didn't create? Is that democracy?

By definition, yes.

Another way to phrase this question would be "would you rather power (economic, political, etc) exist in the hands of a person that you chose to wield it, or in the hands of a person who seized it for themselves?"

Definitely the person who "seized" it by working hard to get into that position, as opposed to someone who's job is to be popular.

But even so, "seizing" is not the right word, it implies they somehow stole it or gained that position forcefully but as far as I know the playing field for success is more or less level (for equal beginnings) and you could very well become that next person to "seize" power, which feels much more democratic to me than elected officials.

If you look at the "most powerful" people in the economy today, most of the big names you will think of were nobodies 40 years ago. Who was Jeff Bezos then? Mark who? What's Google?

>won a popularity contest and never actually created anything should be in charge of stuff they didn't create? Is that democracy?

Modern democracy is when a few hundred people win a popularity contest and don't actually create the things they are in charge of, yes.

The issue at hand is that those few hundred are mostly beholden to an impossibly moneyed class who don't need to do anything in order to continue to amass wealth and power; admittedly most of them never created any of the things they're in charge of. Some of them do things to speed the increase anyway, often at the expense of the masses, or even the few hundred.

> The issue at hand is that those few hundred are mostly beholden to an impossibly moneyed class who don't need to do anything in order to continue to amass wealth and power

It's not have the moneyed class are particularly powerful, but instead politicians are spending all their political capital on infighting rather than meaningful work. As a result, they heavily prioritize maximizing short term political capital, which is why we end up with so many tax cuts and spending rather than regulation or reform.

It wouldn't be that difficult to set up a grassroots organization that raises more money to lobby for a carbon tax than oil companies spend on lobbying for subsidies. Even so, politicians would still keep oil subsidies and merely only pay lip service a carbon tax because the former boosts the economy in the short term, and the latter is the opposite.

It is true though that the wealthiest politicians are also in very powerful positions in our government. The recent tax law was passed by multimillionaires in congress and signed by a billionaire president. As soon as he signed the bill into law he went to his private resort in Florida and told all of his wealthy members “You all just got a lot richer”.

Does this happen because of infighting? Or because wealthy people are deliberately using the government they control to make themselves wealthier? These things don’t just happen.

Sure, tax cuts to the moneyed class, and "bread", er, spending designed to benefit their holdings, or mollify the masses such that they can continue to enrich the few hundred.

The reason politicians in the US engage in such shenanigans is that those wedge issues are the "circuses" that allow the status quo of imperialist militarism, supported by both parties, to continue. Is it mere coincidence that neither party opposes the health-industrial complex, or the military-industrial complex?

>It wouldn't be that difficult to set up a grassroots organization that raises more money to lobby for a carbon tax than oil companies spend on lobbying for subsidies. Even so, politicians would still keep oil subsidies and merely only pay lip service a carbon tax because the former boosts the economy in the short term, and the latter is the opposite.

Isn't it more parsimonious to conclude that the reason is that the grassroots organization can't keep up the flow of money in the way that the few hundred can?

> Is it mere coincidence that neither party opposes the health-industrial complex, or the military-industrial complex?

At the end of the day, if the government really wants to do something, corporations have no choice but to comply, like with the Sherman Antitrust Act or the lockdown during the pandemic. There's nothing stopping them from opposing the military-industrial complex or the health-industrial complex outside themselves. They just don't want to because neither would grant them any short term political benefits. Both parties share a hatred of Big Tech, but they still can't get anything done because they hate each other more than they hate Big Tech.

Er, when's the last time the Sherman Antitrust Act got enforced? Given that last time, are there any modern corporations that would seem to deserve the antitrust treatment, but aren't getting it for some reason? How much are those corporations donating to Congress? Enforcement just doesn't happen because then the money train would stop.

This ain't exactly parsimonious. You're going on about "political benefits", but why introduce additional complexities like that when the bribery uh lobbying er aggressive donation strategy is public knowledge, super obvious, and almost entirely bipartisan? [0][1] This doesn't even include Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Ag, etc... It makes me uncomfortable, too, but pretending it's about politicking is just silly.

[0] https://www.protocol.com/tech-company-pacs-2019-2020

[1] This doesn't apply to the most recent presidential election. Note that most of the cash went to Democrats. I can't really blame them. My thesis is that big corps lobby the gummint in order to ensure Good Business; it's sensible that the big corps might realize that another term of Trump might be more disruptive than beneficial

Non-founder executives with MBAs often have indistinguishable performance from government drones in spite of requiring 100x the pay. Their class is that of extremely expensive good luck charms whose primary responsibility is to avoid doing anything too stupid. Successors in the C-suite that add real value to the company are a rarity: Apple got visibly lucky on this front.

How about some gentle nudges to a more even wealth distribution, enabling more of the middle class to own capital and participate in economic decisions?

You say this as if being successful in the marketplace isn’t winning a popularity contest. You know, “voting with your dollars”.