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.
Perhaps, but there are usually people in positions of power that care and for better or worse probably have more influence than the general electorate.
I agree completely, see one of my other replies on this. I only meant the less influence they have on who wins and who loses, in the sense of picking and choosing.
On the other hand, the influence that people have tends to be blind to how they previously acquired that influence. It's a very common problem in politics: you put power on someone due to their credentials in one area, and they suddenly have power they don't deserve in a completely different domain.
This seems like a tautology, if they didn't have a greater say then they wouldn't qualify as 'rich and powerful' in the first place, but as average people.
The issue is that they sway elections. Why is it more important how they sway elections versus the amount of influence? It seems the latter would have a greater effect.
The challenge isn't that people don't want to engage; it's that the demands of daily life, such as working long hours to make ends meet, leave little room for the kind of sustained political involvement that wealthier individuals can afford. When we say that people delegate their power to figureheads, it might be more a reflection of an unequal system that doesn't effectively support widespread civic participation, rather than a choice made out of apathy.
I think the problem is with the concentration of power. The fewer people that hold the power the more likely they are to diverge from serving the people into serving their own interests. I think it has more to do with accountability than anything. If you have power over people you never have to see or hear from you have little empathy for them.
So maybe whats important is striving for an greater equality of power to speak? Power is both politics and money, and if you have enough of it, you can control the narrative and cause problems.
No doubt people with more influence will be able to limit the repercussions of actions that would ruin others, yet pretty much anyone who has influence is bound to want to use it, and by its nature anything that is disruptive is likely to upset yet some other person who has influence.
Take for example David Petraeus. His career may have been only collateral damage of an investigation that took advantage of records of drafts and IP addresses used to log into gmail. He may have felt sincerely honor bound to resign, and his career may resurrect itself, especially if his party is about to nominate some of its most crazy for the presidential election. However, it is at least possible to imagine that people who were happy to see him lose influence wouldn't have been eager to stick out their own necks to sweep everything under the rug.
I think there are at least a couple broad categories of people who have different relationships with power and surveillance. You can be wealthy, enjoying your wealth and no threat to anyone else with influence, or you may be someone who has the resources to effect the change you think the world needs.
Once upon a time monarchs put aside their differences in attempts to hunt down regicides, but on other days they occupied themselves with trying to conquer each others' realms.
Intuition based on many stories (yes plural of anecdote yada yada) heard over a few years working in the bay area: the vast majority of high power people are no better; they just happen to care more about their public image, and are more tactful about what they do.
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