Your example would look a bit like this: The 1% own all of the property in the country, because their purchasing power is so enormous. One of them earns ten t

Your example would look a bit like this: The 1% own all of the property in the country, because their purchasing power is so enormous. One of them earns ten times more than 99 of the others put together. The 1% turn the screws on the 99% such that $200K actually isn't a high income any more. For example, monopolising land. Money is just a number. What really matters is the share of resources; there's some sort of Schwarzchild radius beyond which the wealthy turn into black holes.