Editorial
With Input from Kishore Mahbubani,
The United States remains one of the world’s most powerful and accomplished nations. Yet its democratic institutions face a fundamental question: can a political system still be called democratic when economic power increasingly determines public policy, inequality deepens and the majority of citizens struggle to make their voices heard?
The greatness of the United States is difficult to dispute. More than five decades ago, it sent a man to the Moon, achieving a technological and scientific milestone that no other country has replicated in the same way. It has produced extraordinary scientific, intellectual and cultural achievements and won more Nobel Prizes across disciplines than any other nation. Its universities, industries, research institutions and democratic traditions have shaped the modern world.
But national greatness and democratic health are not the same thing. A country may remain economically powerful, technologically advanced and internationally influential while its political institutions gradually lose their ability to serve the majority of its citizens. The central question facing America today is not whether it is a great country. It is whether its democracy is fulfilling the purpose for which democratic government exists.
A democracy is commonly understood as government of the people, by the people and for the people. Its legitimacy rests not merely on elections, political competition or constitutional procedures, but on the ability of citizens to influence public decisions and share in the opportunities and benefits of society. When these conditions deteriorate, democratic institutions may continue to function formally while their substantive purpose becomes increasingly compromised.
The American experience offers a particularly important illustration of this contradiction. For much of the twentieth century, economic growth was accompanied by rising living standards, expanding opportunities and the growth of a substantial middle class. Millions of Americans came to believe that their children could enjoy a better life than their parents. Economic advancement was not distributed equally, but the broader promise of social mobility remained an important part of the American democratic and national identity.
That promise has weakened. The growing concentration of income and wealth has created a society in which economic gains are increasingly distributed towards the top, while large sections of the population struggle to improve their circumstances.
Research by economist Thomas Piketty and his colleagues has documented the widening income divide in the United States. Figures cited in this debate indicate that the share of pre-tax national income received by the bottom 50 per cent of Americans declined from approximately 21 per cent in 1970 to 13 per cent in 2014. Over the same period, the share received by the top one per cent increased from approximately nine per cent to 20 per cent.
The distribution of household wealth reveals a similar pattern. The share held by the wealthiest one per cent rose from 8.9 per cent to 13.6 per cent, while the share belonging to the bottom half of the population fell from 3.8 per cent to 2.5 per cent. Other figures presented in the debate show that the middle-income population’s share of income declined from 62 per cent in 1970 to 42 per cent in 2020, while the upper-income group’s share increased from 29 per cent to 50 per cent.
These figures point to a profound change in the economic foundations of American society. The problem is not simply that some citizens have accumulated extraordinary wealth. Economic inequality becomes a democratic concern when it translates into unequal political influence and when the majority finds it increasingly difficult to secure the policies and opportunities necessary for a dignified life.
The consequences extend beyond household finances. Economic insecurity, declining social mobility and unequal access to essential opportunities can weaken public confidence in political institutions. Public well-being cannot be measured through national income or technological achievements alone. Life expectancy, health, social stability and the ability of ordinary people to lead secure lives are equally important indicators.
The debate also highlighted concerns about the United States’ life expectancy trends, which have experienced periods of decline despite the country’s enormous economic resources. Such developments deserve serious attention because they raise questions about the distribution of prosperity and the ability of public institutions to translate national wealth into better living conditions.
Yet economic inequality, serious as it is, does not fully explain the democratic crisis. The deeper problem concerns the relationship between money and political power.
Americans continue to vote, participate in campaigns and express their preferences through democratic institutions. Elections remain central to the political system. However, the existence of electoral procedures does not necessarily mean that citizens exercise equal influence over public policy. A democracy can preserve its formal institutions while the actual process of decision-making becomes increasingly responsive to powerful economic interests.
This concern is supported by influential research conducted by Princeton University scholars Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page. Their study examined the relationship between the policy preferences of average citizens, economic elites and organised interest groups in the United States. Their findings suggested that the preferences of ordinary Americans have little independent influence on policy outcomes when the preferences of economic elites and organised groups are taken into account.
The implications are significant. If the preferences of wealthy citizens and organised interests carry substantially greater weight than those of the average voter, then electoral participation alone cannot guarantee popular control over government. Citizens may choose their representatives, but their ability to shape the decisions those representatives make can remain severely limited.
This is the distinction between democracy as a political ritual and democracy as an effective system of public representation. Voting is essential, but it is not sufficient. Citizens must also have a meaningful influence over legislation, economic policy, public spending and the distribution of opportunities.
The concentration of political influence among wealthy individuals and organised interests can gradually transform a democratic system into what is commonly described as a plutocracy: a system in which wealth exercises disproportionate control over political power. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker was among those who expressed concern about the growing influence of financial and economic interests in American public life.
The danger is particularly serious because institutional capture does not necessarily occur through the abolition of elections or the suspension of constitutional arrangements. It can develop gradually through campaign financing, lobbying, privileged access to policymakers and the growing dependence of political institutions on powerful economic actors. The institutions remain visible, but their responsiveness to ordinary citizens weakens.
This helps explain why public frustration can persist even when citizens continue to participate in elections. People vote for change, but many of the underlying economic and institutional arrangements remain intact. Political competition may alter the individuals occupying public office without fundamentally changing the distribution of influence over policy.
The solution, therefore, cannot be limited to encouraging greater electoral participation or defending political freedoms in isolation. Democracy requires a broader commitment to equality and social justice.
The political philosophy of John Rawls offers a useful framework for thinking about this challenge. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls develops the principle that social and economic inequalities must be arranged so that they benefit the least advantaged members of society. Inequality is not automatically unjust, but it must be justified by the extent to which the institutional arrangements improve the position of those who are worst off.
This principle challenges the idea that economic success at the top is sufficient evidence of national progress. A society cannot claim to have achieved genuine prosperity if the benefits of growth remain concentrated while a substantial proportion of its population experiences stagnation or declining security.
Freedom and equality must therefore be understood as complementary democratic values. Freedom protects individuals against arbitrary power and allows them to participate in public life. Equality ensures that political and economic opportunities are not so concentrated that freedom becomes meaningful only for those who possess wealth and influence.
A society that protects formal liberties but allows extreme economic concentration to determine access to opportunity risks creating a hierarchy of citizenship. Those with wealth gain greater access to political institutions, professional networks, education and economic security. Those without it may retain the formal right to participate but lack the practical means to influence their circumstances.
Rebuilding democratic confidence requires institutional reforms that restore the connection between public preferences and government decisions. Transparency in political financing, stronger safeguards against undue lobbying influence, effective legislative oversight and fairer access to economic opportunities are important parts of this agenda. Equally essential are policies that improve education, healthcare, employment and social mobility, particularly for those at the lower end of the income distribution.
The objective should not be to punish economic success or weaken the dynamism of the American economy. It should be to ensure that economic growth strengthens society as a whole rather than deepening divisions within it. A prosperous economy and an inclusive democracy are not competing objectives. They should reinforce one another.
The American democratic experiment remains significant not only because of its constitutional history or global influence, but because it has long represented the possibility that political freedom and popular sovereignty can coexist with economic opportunity. Its current difficulties should be understood in this wider historical context.
Ultimately, the health of a democracy cannot be judged simply by the number of elections it holds, the wealth it accumulates or the power it exercises internationally. It must also be judged by whether ordinary citizens believe that they have a meaningful stake in the society they inhabit and a genuine voice in the decisions that shape their lives.
America does not need to become less ambitious or less prosperous to restore its democracy. It needs to ensure that its prosperity serves a broader public purpose. The essential challenge is to rebuild a political and economic system in which freedom is accompanied by equality of opportunity, wealth does not purchase political dominance, and the majority can see its interests reflected in public policy.
A democracy succeeds when its citizens are not merely permitted to vote, but are able to participate meaningfully in shaping their collective future. That is the democratic promise America must recover.
Inputs from
Kishore Mahbubani
Political scientist and former President of the United Nations Security Council
