SC and Pat,
Actually, it’s the other way around. In a pure democracy (as opposed to representative government), the poor have all the power because they can vote in superior numbers.
Let’s look at a fictional town to see what can happen:
In the small little town of Kleptocracy, there are 100 people exactly. All you need to transfer wealth is to get the poorest 51 people to go to the voting booths and vote themselves ALL of the money that the other 49 people have. All nice and legal, right?
All may not be lost though as the wealthier 49% minority can protest and try to persuade society to change. Don’t think for a moment that the poorer 51% majority will stand for dissent. They can just vote to put the 49% minority of the people in jail (or worse) if they don’t shut up or try to spread word to the outside world.
Having woken up to a new reality, the wealthier 49% of the people flee the town of Kleptocracy before the “law enforcers” show up to their houses.
To further pad their pockets the poorer 51% majority can conclude the wealth transfer by voting to take the “escaped criminals'” houses for themselves! Isn’t democracy fun?
The moral of the story is that once citizens realize they have the power to vote themselves money, the economy and soon afterwards, the government will collapse.