Is the system designed to keep the rich, rich?
It is set up to do that, not so much by design, necessarily, as by systems of ideas, and by capitalistic tendencies. When you allow companies to dominate markets and customs, they tend to agree to set things up in their own interest. So they entrench expectations in such a way that it’s considered normal to constantly pay as much as people can afford, in one way relationships, with ideas and patterns of shame set up to benefit those with the wealth and power, since they write the rules, business practices, contracts, laws, etc., and they’re mostly framed in ways where money in the price, the consequence, the requirement, etc., to be able to do all sorts of beneficial things.
A while back I asked a question is the system designed to keep the poor, well poor?
To which the answer is also yes it’s set up that way, if not always consciously designed to be so.
People got defensive saying no it’s just the poor are a greater risk to do business with so in turn they must be charged more to go with that risk.
LOL. Well, there you go. Systemic thinking and buy-in, rather than completely conscious design.
That makes sense the poor have a hard time paying so we must charge them more,(the risk of doing business with them). Now the wealthy get charged less, (because the risk is lower) they get to pay less and keep their wealth.
No, it’s a rationalization and justification for one aspect of the system. One counterpoint is that it’s self-referential: Why do the poor have a hard time paying in this system? What if everyone had a right to a pile of interest-free credit, for example?