The latter. Certainly, Sanders isn't powerless, he's the most popular politician in the US. However, he's only one of one hundred senators, almost all of whom are beholden to or influenced by—to varying degrees and on varying issues—the members of "the billionaire class", as he would put it. Bezos's net worth is currently over $160 billion. Q.E.D.
In a world where wealth distribution was flatter, and the richest person alive had access to like $100 million (a lot of money!), that would be one thing. The distribution is not so flat in our world, to put it mildly. Not to be pat, but money is power, and I think it's important to grasp the orders of magnitude at play here.
In a world where wealth distribution was flatter, and the richest person alive had access to like $100 million (a lot of money!), that would be one thing. The distribution is not so flat in our world, to put it mildly. Not to be pat, but money is power, and I think it's important to grasp the orders of magnitude at play here.