How do they get away with it??

[Caliman73]

34. Power. The perception of power.

One of the flaws of liberalism, especially mixed with capitalism is that the concepts of wealth and power are intertwined with the idea of merit. Before capitalism, when monarchy and theocracy were the dominant forms of distributing power, the monarch and the nobility were considered to be granted divine right to rule. Once monarchy was deposed a new form of order had to be established and wealthy merchants were quick to jump into the vacuum with their claims of being "self made" and virtuous as indicated by their success.

We have gone along with this even in the USA where "All men are created equal". Well, all White men, who owned property. There is an idea that is deeply embedded in society that if you are rich, you deserve to be so and that you have some level of intelligence and thereby some special right to have your opinion count more than others.

While we call many of our elected representatives "public servants" the reality is that we yield power to them freely.

They are different than you and I because we make it so.