Billionaire politicians have become 'shockingly common' around the world, new study finds

“Billionaire politicians are a shockingly common phenomenon,” the study said. “The concentration of massive wealth in the hands of a tiny elite has understandably caused many observers to worry that the ‘super-rich have super-sized political influence.’”

Every aristocracy in history has entered the chat.

In the 1880s the phenomenon of the Robber Baron became a thing- industrial capitalism and corporate power vaulted private citizens into spheres of power and influence to rival that of royalty.

Sure enough, allowing the Robber Barons to become influential led to the collapse in prior regulatory regimes that had once balanced the interests of workers vs. their employers and the resulting abuses (and poverty) led to a crisis of confidence in fledgling democracies, in which socialists would argue for democratizing the workplaces and fascists would argue to reject democracy altogether and revert to a stronger-strong-man model of government that wouldn't fail the way monarchs had in the face of the democratic revolutions of the 1840s.

It was a messy process, but by the 1930s much of the world had figured out it would be much better off with its billionaires on short leashes, its monopolists tightly constrained, its fascists shamed into hiding (or pushing up daisies). The resulting economic boom is still remembered as a high point of the middle class, and it lasted until the 1970s because until then the PR efforts of the industrial barons were laughed off as being transparent and self-serving. Eventually enough of the folks that remembered life under the Robber Barons passed on and by the time the Boomers came of political age they stopped protecting unions and enforcing antitrust law and defending the New Deal.

Since then, the corporate-power/pro-billionaire lobby has re-asserted corporate power to a state of affairs that has concentrated wealth and power much more than it was even in the deepest throes of the Great Depression or the decades leading up to it.

Of course the Billionaires are feeling ascendant. Also, at this point people are generally becoming as eat-the-rich as they were in times when it took literal violence to re-establish labor protections and re-assert democratic authority over public affairs. This is the second big-cycle of declining/crisis- democracy -> fascism -> resurgent democracy since the wave of democratic revolutions swept Europe in the 1840s and 50s. We're in the dark part of it now, the forces of fascism are ascendent and extremely powerful but don't forget they are and will always be a small minority

Wow who would have guessed that the people who have all the time and money checks notes have the time and money to run for office?

So they're dabbling in politics themselves as opposed to simply buying the politicians they want.

Yeah... this whole capitalism thing sure seems to be on-track to reach it's logical conclusion - I sure hope there will be humans left afterwards.

One thing that I do respect the Swedish Vänsterpartiet (the left party) is that any MP belonging to the party can only make X ammount of money from their political position, any more has to be sent back to the party.

There are plenty I dislike about the party, but that I can respect.

I'm shocked, shocked I say! well... not that shocked.

hmmm

It's because people are proud to lower their standards for what they can get.

They see that the ruling class is tightening its grip, so they convince themselves that this is the best way to go to avoid feeling bad about what we're missing out on.