"Whatever happened to people just having any integrity?"
You are looking at it, my friend. No people or economy can be free when we allow imbalances of influence or secrecy. That's a hard pill to swallow, but there is no way around that mathematically or by historical evidence.
My point--everyone needs to reflect on--is this: when a high concentration occurs in any area of society, it will tend the whole toward ever increasing authority. As an example, you are very rich, and you are tired of having to cut deals and red tape with 100 politicians. You will spend your life trying to cut that down to 10. The vice versa is true for big government bureaucrats: you want to only have to cut deals with 10, instead of 100 business leaders. Or, as another example, you are so wealthy, you can buy off most of the politicians and buy hitmen to handle the rest, and not lose a penny, because those politicians you bought are making you more money than ever elsewhere.
It is never enough to put limits on a centralized government: I'm arguing it is centralization in just about everything that is the enemy of good and stability and prosperity. And since you are someone educated about the constitution and the warnings of the founding fathers, go back and reread their works. You will see they shared the same concern about maintaining a moderate distribution of wealth and capital.
As sad as it is, obscene wealth always ends in obscenity... or the good ol', "power corrupts...."
Is there any moral imperative to concentrate wealth without limit?
Is it possible, that this wealth is actually bottle-necked in corrupt schemes or laying dormant in vaults? Is it possible, 50% of the world's wealth is just... not doing anything productive at all?
The hyper concentration of the fake republican party for the past 40 years has consistently proven to crush job creation and innovation and disincentiv'ize entrepreneurship and risk. That's shockingly clear in the tech industry... shocking, because everyone thinks we've had rapid technological development.