Write a response to a political science class Democracy is an egalitarian system of government in which all people are treated equally and make decisions that affect the country or state. The idea of democracy is based on the premise that everyone has equal rights, including the right to express themselves and the ability to influence government policy. The rich and the poor are supposed to have equal value in the eyes of the government. However, wealth equality appears to be a determinant in that system as we can witness in our daily lives. Democracy appears to be proportionate to wealth at times. Wealth is allocated unequally in our society, giving affluent people more power. Economic stimulus attracts legislators and constituents. People with wealth use it as a resource to capture policymaking. Wealthy people use it as a tool to obtain more power as well. They can contribute funds to political campaigns in order to make their ideas prevail. According to Policardo and Carrera 2020, the effect of inequality on democratization is uniformly negative, especially when the elite has highly specific assets (p. 3). In the United States, for example, 5% of the wealthiest people controlled more than 35% of private assets in 2016 (Greenberg and Page, 2018). People have more faith in their politicians as the economy improves, and if the economy deteriorates, they also lose faith in the government. Therefore, democracy can reduce inequality but does not require income or wealth equality.
