Exactly. It’s how any corrupt system is maintained. A dictator puts some inner circle of favored people under him, and then a larger layer but still small as a percentage beneath that, and so on all the way down, so that every layer has an incentive to support him and suppress the layers beneath. Add to that disproportionate influence through control of the military, police, and or media and even a 1/5 or less population can suppress the rest. Obviously our economy isn’t run that way but the same principle applies. We align the incentives of each person to act or vote in ways that benefit the already rich.