David J. Samuels, University of Minnesota

Why Inequality Does Not Undermine Democracy

Conventional wisdom holds that inequality undermines the quality of democracy.

This notion — that the principle of formal political equality cannot survive when a

concentration of economic resources grants power to the few at the expense of the

many — has instinctive appeal. Yet perhaps because it is so widely accepted, no one

has ever questioned the proposition’s theoretical foundations or its empirical veracity.