In my brief observe that I inserted into Kevin Corcoran’s latest ideas on the political system, I identified that though there may be robust overlap between the wealthy and the politically highly effective, they don’t seem to be the identical.
This requires elaboration.
The easiest way to do it’s to provide you with counterexamples.
Right here’s an instance of somebody who had huge wealth within the late Nineteen Nineties however little political energy: Invoice Gates. I wrote about it on the time within the now-defunct Silicon Valley journal Pink Herring. Microsoft, which Gates owned a big share of, had no substantial presence in Washington, D.C. on the time the Justice Division went after Microsoft. Microsoft’s principal presence was in a unique Washington, Washington state. That meant that he might depend on solely 2 out of 100 U.S. Senators to run interference for him with the Clinton Justice Division. Gates and Microsoft had nice wealth however little political energy. And so they paid for it. By the best way, he didn’t make that mistake once more.
An instance of somebody with a good quantity of political energy however comparatively little wealth is U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema. She is the swing vote in an equally divided Senate and she will be able to use her energy to extract necessary concessions in laws. Her web price is estimated to be about $1 million. That’s rich within the grand scheme of issues, particularly given her relative youth, however it’s not nice wealth.
Contemplate one other instance: Martin Luther King, Jr. When his political affect was at its peak, from about 1963 to his homicide in 1968, his wealth was comparatively modest.
After all, there’s an enormous overlap between wealth and political energy. Image a Venn diagram with a big intersection. However there are various counterexamples in each instructions.