Gene Lyons: Aristocracy on the rise in U.S.

One virtue of American-style capitalism is the way it has sustained democracy by transforming the lust for power into the quest for cash. You don’t need to know much about the biographies of 19 th century robber barons like John D. Rockefeller or Andrew Carnegie, for example, to be glad they stuck to commerce instead of politics. Not that the two are ever completely separate, but we’re better off with the control freaks in the counting house instead of the White House. This shouldn’t be read as a slap at the inheritors of great fortunes, like Arkansas Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller, nor the universities, libraries, museums and hospitals founded in their names. But it’s worthwhile asking whether the truce between wealth and democracy in America isn’t breaking down as the tycoon class commands an ever greater share of the nation’s wealth and uses it to tilt the political system even further in its favor. Based upon The New York Times’ recent first-rate series on social class in America, two things are happening: A small group reporter David Cay Johnston dubs the "hyper-rich" is making so much money and paying so little in taxes that the nation may be creating a permanent, European-style aristocracy. Meanwhile, social mobility stagnates and the security of the salaried classes looks increasingly threatened.