Wealth and Power - a Cosmic View

The attraction between wealth and power is no mere infatuation or passing fancy.  It is as perennial and as inexorable as gravity.  Each seeks to aggrandize itself, and to acquire the other. 

The drive to acquire wealth and power has very understandable roots; that being the desire to meet comfort, security, and/or ego needs.  But beyond some point, further accumulations of wealth and power serve no human purpose—taking on a life of their own, perpetuating themselves under their own inertia—consuming and controlling the possessor, even as they exploit others. 

As with gravity, the more massive an accumulation of wealth or power, the greater the force it exerts to draw in and accumulate even more.  Like a hyper-massive celestial object, it warps the very fabric of reality to achieve this end.  In the absence of a strong countervailing force, the inevitably result is a total consolidation of wealth and power within a single monopolistic/monarchical entity – a black hole which absorbs all nearby matter and energy, and from which not even light or truth can escape.   

The legal and regulatory institutions of government must be this countervailing force, balancing the drive toward plutocratic consolidation—like cosmic ‘dark energy’, (to strain the metaphor a bit)—promoting a just, sustainable socio-economic cosmos.  If it fails in this role, it loses its main raison d’être, and exists simply as an inert entity.  Worse, if these institutions become mere agents for the leviathan—promoting and accelerating the process of consolidation—it is worse than no government at all, and societal collapse cannot be averted.