As long as money is power I think we would have to rely on those with the money wanting to give up some of the power. Of course, there are other forms of power

As long as money is power I think we would have to rely on those with the money wanting to give up some of the power. Of course, there are other forms of power the penniless can and have resorted to in the past. I have read that in the past paying taxes was a sort of pride, a kind of score-keeping among the rich. Just recently I saw an anime (JoJo's) where the influential senator was trying to reassure himself how powerful and successful he was and one of the lines was something like "I pay more taxes than anyone!". I don't know if this was meant to be a reflection of modern Japanese culture (it was set in 1989) but it felt archaic.