Decades ago, political economist Ferdinand Lundberg warned that democracy could be constrained not by corruption or authoritarianism, but by concentrated wealth that silently narrows real political choice. In The Rich and the Super-Rich (1968), he focused less on individual wrongdoing and more on structural economic power. More than half a century later, his warning feels strikingly current.
Today, wealth rarely announces itself through visible dynasties or public opulence.
Instead, it operates through markets, investment funds, legal architectures, and technical systems that diffuse responsibility and shield decision-making from scrutiny.
Power has not disappeared; it has become procedural.
This influence works through several quiet mechanisms. Capital mobility allows wealth to exit jurisdictions that attempt redistribution, disciplining governments before reforms are even proposed. Cross-border trusts and shell companies fragment ownership and obscure accountability. Corporate political influence flows through lobbying networks and revolving doors that shape policy boundaries long before elections occur.
Media and attention systems, structured by ownership and advertising markets, determine which economic ideas appear “realistic.” Technical governance, increasingly outsourced to experts and models, removes key economic decisions from democratic debate altogether.
When referring to algorithmic systems, this means more than abstraction. Platform ranking systems shape public discourse by privileging certain narratives over others. Automated credit scoring influences access to housing, education, and entrepreneurship. Financial algorithms and high-frequency trading affect markets at speeds beyond meaningful public oversight.
These systems do not vote, but they quietly structure opportunity.
The result is a familiar democratic paradox.
Elections continue, institutions formally function, and public debate persists, yet policies that could challenge concentrated wealth – such as taxing inherited fortunes, regulating global assets, or limiting corporate political influence – are routinely framed as unrealistic or politically infeasible before they are seriously considered.
Wealth has become abstract, mobile, and legally insulated, but its consequences are concrete. Rising living costs, insecure employment, and the erosion of public services are felt downstream, far from the financial systems that produce them.
Lundberg’s relevance lies in his focus on patterns rather than personalities: he identified how economic power shapes the boundaries of democratic possibility itself.
What has changed since 1968 is not the underlying logic, but the architecture.
Wealth is now more financialized, more global, more legally shielded, and less socially visible.
Its influence operates not through command, but through constraint.
Understanding this invisible architecture matters because democracy is not only about electing representatives.
It is about whether citizens can meaningfully shape the economic rules that govern collective life. If those rules remain beyond democratic reach, participation risks becoming symbolic rather than substantive.
If democracy cannot touch the rules of wealth, it becomes a ritual of choosing managers.