The rich today are out of favor in many quarters. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator and runner-up in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, has said that “billionaires should not exist.” The incoming mayor of New York City, home to the largest number of billionaires in the world, likewise stated baldly during his campaign that we should not have any of them. This distrust extends beyond billionaires, encompassing even much less wealthy individuals. One political theorist has even proposed a cap of $10 million on everyone’s wealth, with the truly virtuous voluntarily limiting themselves to $1 million.

But what exactly is wrong with the wealthy? Two-thirds of the Forbes 400, a list of the richest people in America, built their own businesses. These entrepreneurs still greatly benefit the other 99 percent, contributing far more to the welfare of consumers, employees, and other shareholders than they retain in personal wealth. Highly paid chief executive officers also increase the wealth of others. For instance, the morning of August 13, 2024, Starbucks stock jumped $19 billion because one man, Brian Niccol, accepted the CEO job.

Inherited wealth often faces heightened skepticism because its beneficiaries did not perform the hard work necessary to earn it. Nevertheless, these resources typically fuel investments and propel innovation, benefiting society as a whole. Most fortunes do not simply exist as idle reserves for a privileged few. Instead, they fund philanthropic ventures and fuel the ambitions and dreams of many.

Many liberals think the rich could pay more taxes without harming the economy. Whether or not this is true, it is not a complaint about their presence in the polity. Peter Mandelson, one of the architects of New Labour in Britain, famously said he had no problem with people getting “filthy rich.” The extra funds that the rich would then provide through taxation would help fund social welfare schemes.

What is bringing the rich into new disrepute is the view that their very existence creates social costs (economists call this a “negative externality”). The most prominent externality offered is the disproportionate influence they wield in the political process, allegedly harming democracy. In his book Why Does Inequality Matter?, Harvard philosopher T. M. Scanlon identifies the political consequences of wealth inequality as among the gravest harms inflicted by the rich on society. Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker and venture capitalist Nate Loewentheil assert that the sway of the wealthy obstructs policies that would help the middle class and the poor. In his farewell address to the nation in January 2025, President Joe Biden stated that the “ultra-wealthy” threaten the future of our constitutional order.

The claim that the unfair social power of the rich undermines democracy is the basis for a range of policy proposals. These include preventing people from spending their own money for the dissemination of their political views; reducing tax deductions even for philanthropy that supports public goods, such as charter schools and scientific research; and taxes, like some of those on wealth and unrealized capital gains, that are likely to harm economic growth. Even if they do not raise revenue efficiently and thus squander resources, such policy proposals could serve a higher political purpose: curbing the political power of the rich.

But the notion that everyone can wield anything approaching equal influence in our democracy is fundamentally unrealistic. American democracy, like most modern democracies, is almost entirely representative, not direct. In a representative system, citizens cannot be guaranteed equal leverage, because representatives vote for legislation according to what they deem is best, using the sources they find most compelling. Simply claiming that some people’s greater influence is inherently unfair also misses a point of representative government: Sometimes greater influence results in better policy.

Nor are the rich even the group with the most outsized voice. The intelligentsia, broadly defined as including journalists, intellectuals, and entertainers, wields more significant power: The chattering class shapes the short-term agenda through the media and the long-term agenda through universities. It directs the cultural currents that flow into politics through books, television, movies, and music. And bureaucrats hold substantial sway over the day-to-day operation of government: like an unseen current in a river, their influence is constant, even as often relatively inexperienced political appointees with different views struggle to control the flow. These groups have homogeneous political viewpoints. Academics and civil servants overwhelmingly favor Democrats; their standing thus drives politics systematically to the left.

The rich fortify American democracy in part because they counter the leverage of such groups. The intelligentsia wields substantial power in democracy because, unlike all other citizens, shaping public opinion either directly or indirectly is part of their job. This gives them an enormous advantage in shaping democratic outputs over other groups whose work focuses on material, not ideological, production. The wealthy have both the independence and the resources to influence public debate and therefore assure that politics and policy aren’t solely driven by the intelligentsia and bureaucrats.

The rich also serve as a vital counterweight to special interest groups, such as unions and trade associations, which often have a stranglehold on specific public policies using their organized clout against the interests of the unorganized majority. The rich ameliorate this inherent democratic deficit by funding broader, diffuse interests that may resonate with the majority but are difficult for the majority to effectively advocate on their own. In this way, the influence of the rich amplifies the voice of the many against the concentrated power of the few. In serving as a counterweight to both the intelligentsia and special interests, the wealthy contribute to one of the virtues of democracy as a political system: its openness to contestation.

It is said that the wealthy are biased by their desire to retain their wealth, but every group has its own interests. Concentrated interest groups lobby to protect their own stakes, bureaucrats benefit from an expanded state, and academics thrive in a world where their status rises compared with those who create wealth. In fact, the wealthy can be focused on longer-term public interests because they have ample provision for themselves.

Intellectuals sometimes suggest that the ascendancy of the bourgeoisie leads to a bland consensus that stifles debate. But it turns out that the rich are far from conformist. Compare the partisan tilt at many college campuses to the political battles between billionaires who supported either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. And this disagreement is as true among the rich in the tech sector as in others. While Elon Musk was once a prominent supporter of Trump, Bill Gates donated tens of millions to groups supporting Harris. The counterbalancing effect of the rich does not depend on their having a single viewpoint. Instead, their varied viewpoints ensure that other groups with more uniform views do not hold uncontested sway.

That the rich have diverse viewpoints should not be surprising, as the contemporary wealthy come from varied backgrounds, gaining their fortunes through different paths, including some in the media and entertainment. Their different paths to wealth give them unique perspectives and expertise. Their financial independence, moreover, frees them from the pressure to curry favor with colleagues or superiors, pressures that push others toward more uniform viewpoints. Finally, consumers rarely screen for ideology in choosing a good new product or service. The rich thus have far less power than professional gatekeepers of opinion, like academics and journalists, to exclude those with unorthodox ideas from joining their ranks.

The fact is that adding the power of the rich, on top of the power of other elites, improves outcomes. Beyond adding ideological diversity, the influence of the wealthy brings practical realism into politics, offering a grounded understanding of consequences that fosters economic growth. The rich naturally resist the bureaucratic inertia that can stifle new ventures. They also serve as a counterbalance not only to the ideology but also to the style of reasoning of the intelligentsia and their sometimes visionary excesses.

The wealthy also help correct some of democracy’s well-known flaws, including its tendency toward intolerance, mediocrity, and soft despotism. With their resources, they can champion causes that are unpopular with the current majority, ensuring that these ideas get a fair hearing and helping to correct serious democratic mistakes. By supporting excellence, they contribute to a national pride that strengthens our republic. Because they are not reliant on the state and fund more of government than the average citizen, they have incentives to challenge the paternalistic state. This pushback is essential for maintaining the values of self-reliance and fiscal responsibility, pillars of any democratic order.

In our technological era, the market ecosystem, where the wealthy play a significant role, also has increasingly egalitarian features. Advances in social media, driven by Silicon Valley, have democratized the spread of ideas. It is odd that some Democrats single out those in technology as threatening our politics by creating an oligarchy. Today, because of the very wealthy tech innovators’ creations, anyone with a popular voice can reach a global audience, unimpeded by the traditional gatekeepers, such as legacy newspapers and publishing houses. This unprecedented access levels the playing field in the distribution of information, allowing individuals without resources to sway public discourse as never before.

The dynamic actions of the wealthy have in fact made our experiences more similar to one another. The rich and middle class now have access to the same amount of information, and the rich and the middle class alike can summon a car at the touch of a button. The rich-led tech ecosystem is “dematerializing” consumption, letting people of all incomes share experiences once limited by scarce physical goods.

These are benefits that the rich would provide any representative democracy in our time. But the participation of the rich is even more important to America given the peculiar nature of our democracy. From the beginning, the United States has been a commercial republic. The rich provide its engine, and their efforts fuel economic growth, which in turn stabilizes the political order by expanding opportunities and allows citizens to realize their potential without encroaching on others. The constant churn of entrepreneurs at the highest echelons of society in a commercial republic prevents any one group from consolidating power, keeping our republic fluid and dynamic. Vibrant commerce also creates bridges among communities, as citizens become interconnected through shared advantages of trade.

The wealthy have a stake in defending the commercial nature of our democracy, which itself benefits democracy beyond the wealth it creates. As Max Weber noted, capitalism brings a rationality to human affairs as people calculate what will work not only in business but in social matters as well. Increased rationality is also important to a modern republic for evaluating policies and institutions that allow it to continue to thrive in changing circumstances.

Weber dismissed complaints that capitalism makes greed central to society as “the illusions of modern romanticists.” Even in socialist countries, citizens maneuver to try to get ahead. As noted by the historian Jerry Muller, the motives behind commerce are not inherently greedy. Many pursue it to provide for their children and grandchildren or to acquire the means to support large-scale philanthropic endeavors. The rich’s boosting of commerce is often about building a legacy that connects the living and even the unborn. It draws people from different walks of life into lasting enterprises — companies, schools, foundations — that survive their founders.

America historically has been a philanthropic polity as well as a commercial republic, where private action has produced public goods, like universities and hospitals, and where voluntary associations have helped constitute a civil society that both restrains and complements the power of government. The rich, and the civic associations they fund, still energize civil society, sometimes pioneering the discovery of novel public goods and more efficient ways of delivering them, as with education. Government, often hamstrung by inadequate information and fear of failure, cannot substitute for such efforts.

Today’s attack on the rich is often not simply an attack on a particular class or the result of envy. The deeper aim is to change America’s system of government from a commercial and civic republic to a more collectivist society, where the state holds greater and more unchecked authority. The effect will be not only to disempower the rich but also to shift power to others — bureaucrats, special interest groups such as public sector unions and professional guilds, and journalists and academics. Like a magician’s misdirection, the focus on the rich distracts from the real objective: to concentrate power in the hands of those who claim to speak for the people, while sidelining a diverse and decentralized group that has kept American democracy vibrant and resilient.