( CNN ) -- When Congressman Paul Ryan opined recently that there was a `` real culture problem '' in poor communities , `` in our inner cities in particular , '' and that this culture was behind some of the country 's economic troubles , he did n't realize how half right he was . People are continuing to debate fiercely what Ryan said and whether he meant to propagate racially coded explanations of poverty 's roots . But put that aside for a moment . Here 's what he was right about : There is indeed a culture in America that is pathological and now threatens our social fabric . It 's not the culture of poverty , though . It 's the culture of wealth . We live in an age of extreme concentration of wealth in America . The problem is not just that the 1 % have managed to nearly triple their share of national income in the last three decades . Nor is it just that the 1 % increasingly are fed , schooled and housed in a bubble apart from the rest of their fellow citizens . The problem is that today 's concentration of wealth is breaking the golden link that Ryan and others take pains to emphasize -- the link between work and reward . Economist Thomas Piketty 's landmark new book `` Capital '' unpacks this delinking in great statistical detail . It turns out that increasing numbers of Americans in the 1 % , .1 % and .01 % have done little to `` earn '' their wealth or privilege . Contrary to myth , most of today 's plutocrats are not the kind of Steve Jobsian visionary risk-taking entrepreneurs or superstar celebrities . The .01 % , for instance , tend overwhelmingly to be high-end corporate managers and executives , particularly on Wall Street , operating in interlocking networks that inflate the standard of what an executive is `` worth . '' Or they are the heirs of the great entrepreneurs ( 4 of the 10 richest Americans are children of Sam Walton ) , inheritors of fortunes of which it can truly be said , `` someone else built that . '' An aristocracy is emerging in America , a class of insiders that corrodes the promise of equal citizenship . And with this compounding of unearned advantage , certain antisocial values and behaviors have taken root among the superrich -- norms that threaten to corrupt the rest of American society . What 's in this dysfunctional culture of concentrated wealth ? Look around Wall Street . You 'll find tribal insularity , short-term thinking , personal irresponsibility , cynicism about playing by the rules , an aversion to socially productive labor , a habit of shameless materialism , an inability to defer gratification and a lack of concern for what `` message '' all this sends to the youth raised in such an environment . In short , you 'll find the very things typically imputed to the culture of poverty . Now , to be sure , there are poor people who do exhibit these antisocial values and norms . And there is no question that plenty of poor people are poor because they made bad choices and behaved in self-destructive ways . But rich people who exhibit such values have something the poor do n't : Money . Money buys exemption from bad choices . Money confers power -- in particular , over the poor . It confers the power to frame public narrative and policymaking and to determine whose behavior -- whose culture -- is ( and is n't ) called pathological . Today , as it was during the last Gilded Age , the concentration of wealth gives the rich the political clout to further concentrate their wealth . ( And now , as then , the Supreme Court greases the skids in the name of `` liberty '' ) . This clout is wielded in plain sight now , without any pretense of civic equality . And it calls to mind the warning attributed to Justice Louis Brandeis : `` We may have democracy , or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few , but we ca n't have both . '' When the richest 400 families in America have more wealth than the bottom 155 million Americans combined , the danger to the republic is far more clear and present than that posed by the `` welfare queens '' of lore or by anecdotes of shiftless inner-city men . That would be true even if the super-rich today had entirely benign or merely neutral policy preferences . But in fact they 've rigged the game of policy , subsidies and tax preferences to amplify and hoard their gains . This is n't to suggest that all super-wealthy people are `` welfare kings '' ( they 're not ) or to imply that they have a monopoly on selfishness or sociopathic attitudes ( they do n't ) . Yet if it 's unfair to paint everyone in the 1 % with the same unflattering brush of `` dysfunctional culture , '' is n't it far worse to do the same to the poorest 20 % ? Wealth and advantage are as strongly self-reinforcing as poverty and disadvantage . It 's possible to recognize this fact while also championing grit , gumption and good values . In fact , it 's essential . But culture does n't explain everything . And where it matters is n't only among the poor or nonwhite . If we 're going to reform the norms in this country so that opportunity is truly reflective of effort and talent , we have to do more than pick on those with the least . We have to start at the top .
Historian Michael Ryan says democracy has a problem in culture of poverty . # ##son : Actually , we live in a dysfunctional culture of concentrated wealth . He says certain antisocial attitudes and behaviors have taken root among the rich . Liu : The wealthy rigged the political and economic games to gain their gains .