In this context, Piketty cites the ways in which financial elites use their outsized earnings to fund a cycle of political capture that protects their interests from political challenge.51 Indeed, a 2015 New York Times report concluded that 158 US families and their corporations provided almost half ($176 million) of all the money that was raised by both political parties in support of presidential candidates in 2016, primarily in support of “Republican candidates who have pledged to pare regulations, cut taxes . . . and shrink entitlements.”
