John Stuart Mill uses his crystal ball to predict our circumstance — and/or he learned from history:
“When nobody, or only some small fraction, feels the degree of interest in the general affairs of the State necessary to the formation of public opinion, the electors seldom make any use of the right of suffrage but to serve their private interest, or the interest of their locality, or of some one with whom they are connected as adherents or dependents. The small class who, in this state of public feeling, gain the command of the representative body, for the most part use it solely as a means of seeking their fortune.”
Source: “Under What Social Conditions Representative Government is Inapplicable” [1861], Chapter 4 of Essays on Politics and Society, edited by J. M. Robson, University of Toronto Press, 1977, p. 414.
Related: Mill’s classic defense of free and open speech, in the Philosophers, Explained series: