Wealth as democracy’s counterweight

John McGinnis’s book argues that wealthy people aren’t merely economic actors but structural checks on political and cultural concentration: when cultural elites form a monoculture, independent economic power can decentralize influence and protect pluralism. This reframes debates about inequality from moral condemnation to asking which actors should wield disproportionate influence in a representative republic. — If accepted, the idea changes policy conversations about taxation and regulation by treating wealthy actors as institutional actors with democratic value rather than only as sources of corruption.