Because wealth is power. Wealth is influence. If you control the means of production you have a disproportionately large voice not in government but in society.

Because wealth is power. Wealth is influence. If you control the means of production you have a disproportionately large voice not in government but in society. Not everyone has Jeff Bezos' pen that can in one fell swoop dramatically alter the livelihoods of millions or bring cities and counties to their knees grovelling at his feet. Irrespective of total overall wealth, the distribution of wealth is an indicator of who decides the future of the society in which that wealth exists. Today, 90% of Americans have as much wealth as the 1% at the top, which means 1% of people wield half of the influence of money in society, and money has an obscenely powerful influence on society. Its why we get tax cuts and deficits. Why we don't have socialized medicine. Why our labor protections are lacking, why workers get so little mandatory paid time off. Its why stress is up, why working hours are up, why debt is up. Why housing is more expensive - the poor don't use housing as an investment the way the rich do, in the absence of floods of capital floating around for the exclusive purposes of making more money there is a much smaller market for domineering real estate markets so much that you buy out the local government to prevent building to drive up your property values.