Actually, there is a qualitative difference in play. It is reached at millions USD in (relatively) liquid assets or highly concentrated political power.
It is the potential to do almost anything w here only another big player or a whole society can blunt it and not necessarily effectively.
It is the difference between playing the rules and making the rules.
The power is more decentralized, though. Certain elites in say US democracy do want to slow down change for their own benefit, and sometimes they are moderately successful, but they don't have as much power. They certainly don't have the whole power of the state behind them.
A single person generally has orders of magnitude less power to influence than the the biggest companies in the world. That's surely not a fair comparison.
That's a difference, yes, but orthogonal to the topic.
As a businessman, as much as you can direct the behavior of both your customers and your employees, you can influence the lawmakers. After all, they too want money or things that money can buy.
Violence is just one side of the coin that is power. The other side is voluntary (or technically voluntary but not quite) participation, which is primarily controlled by money. That's what makes politics and markets intertwined.
That's a good point. Perhaps a weaker claim is just the idea that people in power (or more generally, people of influence) are as likely to have skin in the game, which can only drive engagement on the issue. That's different to many issues for which those in a position of power are often less affected directly.
As someone also from a small country with no power or stakes in this equation: everybody is equally being played and if you're dualistic with your side-picking you're getting burned one way or another.
But in every other aspect of what I said, they are the same. For all practical purposes, most people must simply cooperate with whatever they say in the moment because simple not cooperating will land you in big trouble with big consequences. So although on paper they have limited power, they really don't.
I'm not sure it's that simple. Even if some people have more influence than others, it is still different from having one person, who can efficiently do whatever they please.
It is the potential to do almost anything w here only another big player or a whole society can blunt it and not necessarily effectively.
It is the difference between playing the rules and making the rules.
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