Power Distance
Geert Hofstede termed societal range of social stratification power distance. In cultures with high power distance, political power, social influence, and wealth are concentrated in a tiny proportion of the population.
Historically, authoritarian political regimes have high power distances, as strongmen rule via well-funded sycophants. Into the 21st century, power distance has widened even in democratic countries, as money buys votes, with the Collective conned into perpetuating a stacked-deck society in hopes of a taste of trickle-down prosperity.
The United States is a poster-child nation for this deluded dynamic: where corporations are treated as if they were people in desperate but well-deserved need of hand-outs, whereas the truly desperate are treated as free-loaders.
