Winner-Take-All Politics: The Mechanisms of Inequality

This text provides a profound analysis of the evolution of the American political system, which transformed from a mechanism to protect against tyranny into a tool for generating extreme economic inequality. The authors deconstruct the concept of winner-take-all politics, pointing to the crucial role of decision-making paralysis and parliamentary obstructions such as the filibuster and cloture. The article explains how organized interest groups exploit political drift—the failure of law to adapt to changing realities—to perpetuate information asymmetry and regulatory rent. Through the lens of institutional theory and collective action, the reader learns the mechanisms by which minorities effectively block reforms that benefit the majority, leading to hyperconcentration of income and the erosion of trust in the state.