>>In my opinion the U.S. has not been a democracy for a long time. At best it is a $-ocracy - he who has the money makes the rules.
>
>Can you provide an example country where this axiom is not true?

Hmm... hard to really say but ;
How about Russia ???

Putin was not ellected by *$ellections*, but more like nominated into power by outgoing Yeltsin and backed by hmm... *organisation* ?
He is ruling that organisation and country by wisely delegating power to right people and putting Russia's interest ahead of any other world issues.

Aldough I don't like *organisations* (military & security in particular)
apparently it worked better for them, then your $$$$cracy worked for you (& the rest of the world?) last couple of $ellections.
Putin later prosecuted exactly those powers who were on the way to establish rule of $$$ in his country.

Russians got rid of all their debts, rebuilt their country and are now pushing strongly ahead twd prosperity. In the meanwhile they did not invade/bomb foreign countries, they did resolve their (real) terrorist threat and they did promote peace and stability to the rest of the world, rather then jeopardising it by exccessive use of (brute) military power.
Today they are much more respected by the rest of the world then hated or feared. Can you claim the same ?

If Putin was submerged by foreign $$influence in a *free $ellections* , I am sure today Russia would have been blamed much less for lack of democracy
human right etc (yada yada...) But would that really work better for ordinary Russians on the long run ?

And who is really there (except maybe Canada and EU) to throw that stone.

They say that peoples revolution (hijacked & ruined by communists) was deeply flawed/failed socio experiment dummed to extinction. When you look what is (left of) *democracy* nowdays, one could argue this as an experiment was not all that better, but just have slightly higher expiry date <g>

Some cinycs could even assert that;
Democracy was invented by taxman & banks as relatively safe way of keeping people canned in perpetual limbo of borowing and repaying monstrous taxes & bank charges. Do/Say what ever you want for as long as you keep your payments steady <vbg>

Cheers :)