Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Random
Street Pharmacist is quite right. Nobody is denying anything, and nobody is suffering from ‘learned helplessness’.
Of course powerful people influence policy. What else do you think being powerful means? And of course the rich influence policy: wealth is a form of power.
In a real oligarchy, the leaders make sure that nobody but themselves can acquire any wealth or power, thus making their own positions permanent. This describes Russia well enough, but does not describe the U.S. at all. Do you think Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos were born billionaires?
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To be fair, I'm pretty sure most of the Russian billionaires were not born billionaires, especially in the USSR... They made their fortunes privatizing a lot of what was state owned and making it their own.
People can still get rich in Russia, even become billionaires, but it is more difficult in my opinion.