American dogma has it that democracy and free markets are the big factors behind our long-time world domination. And maybe those protective oceans. Well, the democracy portion of that theory has always shown more flaws than we care to admit (witness Jim Crow, Florida, and Ohio), and the markets have lately been coming apart at the seams. In both cases, the finger of blame points toward greed.

Given the preeminence of voting machines these days, there are few actual ballot boxes or party-boss pockets left to stuff. This has been tough on local political leaders of both parties, but many Republican state officials have deftly taken up the slack. They’ve contrived marvelously clever schemes to disenfranchise poor voters for the benefit of the rich. Just take them off the enrollment list if they move or get convicted, require them to have a photo ID, and make them wait in long lines. Piece of cake. Business then controls the government. But in this last election, public rage blessedly overcame all those malevolent tricks because greed finally overplayed its hand. Real change is now at least theoretically possible for a moment, if not totally likely.

Over on the free market side of the domination theory, there seems no possibility of change at all. Greed has won -- Henry Ford is dead. Instead of CEOs making 30 to 40 times the pay of their lowest workers as in days of old, now it’s 300 to 400 times. In other words, the boss makes as much in a day as the grunt makes in a year.

A review of CEOs listed in the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index calculated their average pay last year at $8.4 million, up $280,000 in 12 months. Plus, some guys of course did much better. Larry Ellison of Oracle pulled down $84 million in ’08, nosing out John Thain of Merrill Lynch at $83 million. Yes, THAT Merrill Lynch.

Personal performance, it turns out, no longer has much bearing on pay, except maybe in sports. As all those Wall Street firms were sliding down the tubes, bonuses were flying out as if nothing had happened. Business has developed a culture of entitlement that bears little relationship to a boss’s true worth. Avarice has become a personal club, independent of company success. Success instead is measured individually by which mogul dies with the most toys.

Author Jim Hightower has unearthed some companies that even pay CEOs after they die. One requires a “non-compete” clause for decedents and another offers car allowance. There is obviously more going on here than meets the eye.

One thing that’s going on is the collapse of American business ethics. The reason we have to watch grainy old copies of “It’s A Wonderful Life” at Christmas is because the industry has long since stopped making films reflecting such quaint personal values.

This creates a touching irony in Connecticut. The legislature here is into movies, debating if they should condition future tax credits and cheap loans on whether the CEO makes more than 25 times the pay of the lowliest worker. The film industry has, up to now, been a big beneficiary of that giveaway.

Congress is traveling that same road, putting a pay cap on some CEOs who receive bailouts. Unfortunately that horse is already out of the barn, but better late than never.

A deeper question is, if hard times continue, would Congress contemplate such a cap on all corporations, which after all owe to the government their fundamental legal right to be treated as “persons”?

As income and wealth disparities skyrocket, and as ever more American jobs waft overseas, will Washington eventually put a limit on how ridiculously rich some Americans can become at the expense of their fellows? It’s not our way, to do something like that, but then neither, supposedly, is it our way to support a growing caste system of haves and have-nots