> The big winners are the big corporations world-wide, because they know how to play the game or at least how to pay the people who know.
This isn't true equally across democracies, its most true in "democracies" that feature political systems that structurally limit practical choices for the electorate, because that mitigates the ability of the public to effectively check influence peddling. And, unsurprisingly, these limited-choice features also correspond to systems, among established democracies, in which the public has the least satisfaction with their government.
(Note that among the worst systems in this regard among modern, first-world democracies here are those in the United States, United Kingdom, and France.)
This isn't true equally across democracies, its most true in "democracies" that feature political systems that structurally limit practical choices for the electorate, because that mitigates the ability of the public to effectively check influence peddling. And, unsurprisingly, these limited-choice features also correspond to systems, among established democracies, in which the public has the least satisfaction with their government.
(Note that among the worst systems in this regard among modern, first-world democracies here are those in the United States, United Kingdom, and France.)