> The rational fear of those who dislike economic inequality is that the rich will convert their economic power into political power: that they’ll tilt elections, or pay bribes for pardons, or buy up the news media to promote their views.

> I used to be able to claim that tech billionaires didn’t actually do this—that they just wanted to refine their gadgets. But unfortunately in the current administration we’ve seen all three. -- Paul Graham

A handful of other ideas deserve a seat at the table of this discussion:

- the dismantling of the education system (the GOP's doing, if we're honest), particularly the languishing of training and mastery of rhetoric and critical thinking (I'll throw Florida's book-banning in with this as an example: how can children consider and think about ideas they're not allowed to know exist and aren't exposed to?);

- the dismantling of the Fairness Doctrine (the GOP's doing, if we're honest) — hard for adults to consider, think about, and discuss ideas that they aren't regularly exposed to in equal measure;

- union-busting, through which corporations emasculate a primary check on their growth and influence;

- the languishing of anti-trust / anti-monopoly enforcement, yet another primary check;

- religious zealotry and "politics in church"; and

- the issue at the very root of many of the foregoing concepts — the existence of business entities in the first place, leading to a lack of real skin in the game, as Taleb correctly points out.