Wealth and power

The great enemy of freedom is the alignment of political power with wealth. This alignment destroys the commonwealth – that is, the natural wealth of localities and the local economies of household, neighborhood, and community—and so destroys democracy, of which the commonwealth is the foundation and practical means. This happens—it is happening—because the alignment of wealth and power permits economic value to overturn value of any other kind.

Wendell Berry
The Art of the Commonplace