Linking Wealth and Power. Direct Political Action of Corporate Elites and the Wealthiest Capitalist Families in the United States and Germany

This study inquires whether two groups of individuals with power in the economy directly translate it into political power in capitalist democracies: The corporate elite and super-rich capitalist families. It does so by analyzing three potential "avenues of influence": Lobbying or party donations through controlled firms, and individual party donations. Shareholders and managers of the largest 1,091,151 German and US firms (from the ORBIS database) are analyzed. First, 6,227 members of 1,854 US and German families with an estimated family net worth of at least 250 million USD or EUR are identified. Second, the national corporate elites are identified. Individual and firm data is then used to predict lobbying and party contribution in 2019-2021 with logistic regressions. Results suggest that direct political action on the part of the super-rich and the corporate elite is much more prevalent and more ideological in the United States than in Germany. If they engage at all, the super-rich tend to be a very conservative group who use all three avenues of influence complementarily. However, the magnitude of super-rich and elite money does not favor the idea of an "oligarchy" in either of the two countries, at least not through these direct and visible channels.