The causes are by regulatory and political capture when money in politics corruption is allowed in ever-increasing amounts becoming a self-reinforcing, vicious

The causes are by regulatory and political capture when money in politics corruption is allowed in ever-increasing amounts becoming a self-reinforcing, vicious cycle. Beyond any notion of "pie," this also permits greater and greater wealth transfer poor -> rich, through raising taxes on the lower classes, raising fines, increasing prison terms and cutting support services. It's often touted as "austerity," "reducing bloat," "reducing regulations," and "private-public partnerships." When inequality becomes too extreme, a country becomes a third-world country with high corruption, low civic involvement and is often perched on the cliff of revolution. Brazil and the US come to mind. Another problem is the word "democracy" doesn't have one meaning. The most wide-held view would seem to be: officials are elected and do the people's work. The US, as with many developed economies, has become a de-facto klepto-plutocracy masquerading a democracy (psephocracy, technically) because very little attention is given to the people's problems with most policies, money and effort going towards catering to and subsidizing the rich. Furthermore, "democracy" has a different meaning in diplo-speak, it means "whatever the prevailing hegemony wants" in that context. In addition, regular people often conflate democracy with many of elements anarchy, which also doesn't scale in the real world.