The United States of America isn’t just a democracy. It’s a leader in democratic capitalism. Since the birth of our country democracy and capitalism have been forced together under the rule of our country. But as many philosophers and researchers have noted, democracy and capitalism don’t always easily coexist. Most of the time they are at war with each other. We can see evidence of this in our country, from the way politics are split between two parties and the constant fight between what is best for the economy vs. what is best for the people. One example of this war is how wealth inequality impacts participation in elections. Elections are important because they are one-way citizens of our country are able to show their democratic beliefs.

If people aren’t voting and are feeling discouraged participation in our democracy will drop. Eventually, democracy in America will fall apart. In order to preserve democracy, we need to start examining our relationship with capitalism and putting some distance between the two ideas. There is no model for what to do in this situation because there aren’t any countries in a similar situation. Patricia Cohen, a journalist for the New York Times writes that “Some scholars pointed out that the American experience, where democracy and capitalism arose at the same time, wasn't so much a model for the rest of the world, but an anomaly.” Since we have no country that has really experience what America has we can only speculate on what it would be like to change our country. However, looking at what we know today one step we could take in ensuring the safety of our democracy is moving towards more affordable politics. What I mean by that is having it be easier for less wealthy individuals to be real competitors at even a presidential level. If we can help stop the effect of wealth inequality on the participation of our elections we can take a step towards building a more perfect union.